A gigantic ship yard crane extends high into the night sky, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, Vallejo, California
For many of us, these gigantic cranes, towering above the historic ship yard buildings and docks, are the iconic structures of the Mare Island Naval Ship Yard near Vallejo, California. The facility has been here since the 1800s, when it was the first naval ship yard on the west coast of the United States, and its history is quite remarkable. I won’t even begin to try to recount it here since a) it is so extensive and b) I’m far from an expert! In the 1990s it was decommissioned and since that time parts of the facility have fallen into ruin, others have been maintained in more or less their condition at that time, and some have been converted to other uses ranging from industrial to housing.
I have photographed here at night for about a decade. It used to be that these towering structures were mostly just parked in somewhat inaccessible locations behind fences along the waterfront. (The folks I photograph with here have a policy of not going into areas that are off-limits, and this had led to generally very good relations with the folks who oversee the place.) More recently the dry dock facility has been put back to use to dismantle very old ships from the “mothball fleet” that had been moored nearby, and now when I visit I often find the cranes have moved and may even be in more accessible locations. The first thing that struck me on this night’s visit was the effect of the security lights playing over the structure—and the fact that the lights are still the older and very colorful lights rather than the newer, more energy-efficient, and very boring LED lighting!
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
I have so many photographs in the queue right now that I have decided to do something a bit different and post some of them in collections. This first group features night photography from the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard, a location where I have been doing night photography for about a decade now. As is often the case, this visit was with my friends from The Nocturnes, the San Francisco Bay Area night photography group.
A street light illuminates tracks running down Railroad Avenue at historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard
This is probably one of the iconic views of the nighttime environment at Mare Island, as it was made in a location where many night photographers start, whether it is their first visit or their fiftieth time there. The spot is near the Mare Island Museum, which holds many objects and photographs from the long history of the place as the first important west coast naval ship yard. The tracks – obviously! – given this street its name. The tower is the chimney of the old power plant, and off in the distance more of the old ship yard buildings are visible.
Red light behind the door of an industrial building at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard
I was interested in the windows, doorway, and wall of this building for several reasons on this visit. First – and night photographers will understand – Mare Island has recently started to see an update of its lighting. As newer and presumably more energy-efficient types of lighting become available, the older lighting gets replaced. Some years ago the move was to the intensely yellow sodium vapor lights (which you can see in other images in this set), but today it is to what I understand are LED systems. Since the ambient light is tremendously important to night photographers, we notice that this produces a significant change in the mood of photographs made here since the LED light seems to have a much more subtle coloration that is closer to what we might regard as daylight. The new lighting has been installed by this building, so I wanted to see how I could use it to make a photograph that still captured the feeling of the night. In addition, I noticed some subtle red interior lights behind the doorway that seem to suggest something a bit mysterious in this scene.
A green tinted shadow falls across the front of a yellow building, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard
There are several things I like about this photograph of the side of a tall building and a lower section casting an odd green shadow. In much night photography we create photographs of things that we actually cannot see – essentially we are making photographs of what the camera sees. Standing in front of this scene it was very, very dark and the details of the building wall was barely visible at all. However, after shooting this stuff for some time I can recognize what might happen with an exposure long enough to make this scene visible. The old sodium vapor lamps are still installed along this street, and I knew that their yellow light would have a powerful effect on the colors of the scene. I also know that where there is a shadow that is not illuminated by sodium vapor light, the shadow will take on the colors of other kinds of ambient lighting – in this case a relatively green type of light coming from a nearby open area. In the end, without actually doing any light painting (the process of using colored lights and gels to illuminate the subject) I was able to make a photograph that is “naturally” just as wildly colorful.
Metal wall with white doors, window, and Reserved Parking sign
The plain and simple geometry of this building and its front wall has attracted me for several years, with its vertical lines, square forms of the door and the shadows, and the surprising orange highlights – and I have photographed it before. This building is now also lit by the newer lighting, so I had to see what I could do with this new coloration. I made two photographs of it. This one is a simple, straight-on view that is “about” the angular and square forms and the thin lines of orange paint and asphalt, with the only curves coming from the shadows in the window and a bit of broken-off pipe near the bottom center.
White door on a metal building with industrial structures of Mare Island Naval Ship Yard in the distance
This is a different take on the same wall, here composed off-center so that some of the darker ship yard machinery and structures can be seen.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Ambient light, shadows, architecture and vegetation on a night photography shoot.
In November 2012 I joined my friends from The Nocturnes, the San Francisco Bay Area night photography group, for a get-together and shoot at the historic Mare Island Naval Ship Yard. Since this was an “alumni night” event, there was a certain ritual to be followed. Folks who were new to Mare Island arrived early to tour the site – the first west coast naval ship yard, with history going back well over 150 years. A bit later, the “veterans” arrived to join everyone else for events that began with sharing of photographs, continued with pizza, and then led to a night of, well, night photography nearby.
The weather was not promising. We knew that a weather front was on its way, and we hoped – though we probably knew better – that it might hold off long enough to complete some photography. (Those of us with smartphones, checking the weather radar updates, knew better.) The tell-tale south wind was rising as we headed out, and within moments of starting to photograph an old wooden building the rain began. At first I continued to shoot under my umbrella, but soon it was just plain too wet to stay out. Fortunately, we had arranged for access to one of the historic officer’s quarters buildings and photographing inside and around this building quickly became the fall-back plan. I ended up on the front porch with Mark Citret and Tim Baskerville where we intermittently talked photography and made a few shots of things that didn’t require us to stand in the rain. At one point I parked myself near an end of the old porch and made this photograph of the shadow of my rig falling the wall of the building.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
Black and white night photograph of Building 106 and surroundings, Mare Island Naval Ship Yard
It has been a while since I have posted new night photography, much less work from this location. I’ve photograph this area extensively over a period of years, often working with my friends from The Nocturnes, the San Francisco Bay Area night photography group. In fact, I was there with them once again on this mid-March night.
Atypically, some of us had begun the evening’s work by shooting in the daylight! Shortly before sunset someone came up with the novel idea, among night photographers anyway, of going out before it became dark to photograph in the golden hour light. So, I started early and gradually worked my way back to the familiar central core of old ship yard buildings. Some years ago when I first visited I was entranced by the most obvious subjects, mostly very large and impressive industrial structures. I still find them impressive and continue to photograph them, but as I returned many more times I began to push out the boundaries of what I know of the place. Eventually I looked for less obvious subjects, sometimes small and out-of-the-way things I had first overlooked, and I began to move beyond the familiar core area to look a bit more far afield. While the location in this photograph isn’t that far from where I started shooting, it is a bit less visited and it was probably the first time that I had explored this particular spot. I was first attracted by some nearby tall structures that look like they might be some sort of hoppers or collection equipment. Then I continued walking and turned up this side alley where nearby artificial lights illuminated the terribly weathered metal walls of old factory buildings, rising from the small one at right, past the taller building just beyond, and culminating that the much taller building near the upper portion of the frame, with its large pipe that must have carried smoke or gas away from its room.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
