Misty Marin Hills & GG Bridge

Nikon D200, Nikkor 85mm f1.8D

On this day, I noticed the nicely shaded layers in the Marin Headlands, and I tried to incorporate that into a composition with the bridge.

I'm trying different compositions, which one do you prefer? And also please tell us why.

--Warren

Empathy

Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm

Lamp Post Framed Pyramid

Sony DSC-H1

A little classic and modern interaction going on here...

--Warren

Classic S

Sony DSC-H1

I found this sidewalk design in an alley in San Francisco.

--Warren

Golden Gate Bridge from Ft. Baker - Ver. 2

Nikon D100, Sigma 15-30mm

Here's another example of using a superwide lens perspective to frame the bridge in the background with and interesting foreground

--Warren

Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Baker

Nikon D100, Sigma 15-30mm


Eric and I spent yesterday afternoon exploring and photographing the area around Fort Baker at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge. We were walking past a passenger drop-off area in front of the Discovery Museum when I spotted these bright yellow knobby plates on the ground which gave me a splash of color and pattern to incorporate into a different view of the iconic bridge.



--Warren

A Rare Picture by Jill, Our Resident Artist

Nikon N65, Nikon 28-85mm AFD

Please excuse the awful scan job. I scanned this on my flatbed scanner from a 4x6 print that Jill sent to me.

I told her that it was a great picture, and that I was going to post it to the forum. I believe this Egret was seen and photographed at Stow Lake. Jill will have to confirm when she comes online one of these days.

As you'll recall, Martin and I both took pictures of a bird that I think we erroneously called a crane when in fact, it was probably an egret like this one. Our pictures were posted 2 years apart, and here is Jill's version shot another two years from the last one!

If you do a search for "crane", you'll see the other pictures. Interestingly, all three pictures were taken with film cameras. This morning, I saw Martin in Golden Gate Park and he tells me that he is now stalking birds with his new Canon DSLR.

--Warren

Golden Cross

Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm

The sun was setting in San Francisco's Northbeach district, but this cross on St. Peter and Paul's Cathedral at Washington Square was still able to catch the last bit of sunlight.

--Warren

The Void Beyond the Door

Nikon D100, Sigma 15-30mm

Another blue door on Treasure Island. Don't you get the feeling that something is about to jump out of the darkness at you? I stuck my head in there to look around but I admit, it was a bit creepy to be there.

--Warren

Bromo Tower and ... Beatles

On one overseas business trip in 1978, I got to spend a weekend in Florence, Italy. At one point during a stroll around that beautiful city, I looked up and suddenly saw a familiar sight - the Bromo Tower of Baltimore!

Actually, it was the Palazzo Vecchio, but architect Joseph Evans Sperry used the tower of this 14th-century structure as inspiration for the 1911 Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Tower. Sperry's client was Captain Isaac Emerson, a sea captain and inventor of Bromo Seltzer.

The 15-story tower was originally topped by a 51-foot revolving replica of the deep-blue Bromo Seltzer bottle. Brightly illuminated at night, ships sailing up the Chesapeake to Baltimore would navigate by it. Until the Baltimore Trust Company Building claimed the title in 1924, the Bromo Tower was the tallest structure in Baltimore.

Since 1936, the Bromo Tower has been bottle-less, and by the sixties, the building itself had deteriorated.

The Baltimore Office of Promotion and Arts did a great job renovating the Bromo Tower just a few years ago. The former office building is now leased out as studios for artists.

In the photo above, the curved shape is the revolving rooftop restaurant of the Holiday Inn. Well, it doesn't revolve anymore, and the restaurant, Circle One closed in 1974, but there it is. It's only claim to fame is that the Beatles, on September 13, 1964, played a concert at Baltimore's Civic Center, just across the street, and then stayed overnight in the then-brand-new hotel. By the way, they did get to dine in the revolving rooftoop restaurant, and back then, it did revolve.

One West Pratt

Here's a closeup view the newer, western section of the Baltimore Convention Center. The repeated triangular truss design elements make it a very strong-looking building. Another exception to Baltimore's unfortunate dearth of fine examples of modern and post-modern architecture.

Taken with Ben's Canon A630 digicam. This is from this morning's walk to work from the Light Rail. My stop is right across the street from this part of the Convention Center. It was a dull morning, so I bumped up the saturation, which also bumped up the noise in the sky. So even though this is an 8MP sensor and the exposure used ISO 80, noise can still be a problem in these little cameras.

I pretty much cropped in-camera for this one, but then I cropped just a little more to get the little blue (sky) triangle as negative space at upper left. See all the positive and negative space triangles in this image? Do you think it worked here?

Who's Waiting?...

Nikon D100, Sigma 15-30mm @ 17mm

...That was my question when I saw this oddly placed message.

Seen on Treasure Island.

--Warren

End of the Road

Nikon D100, Tamron 24-135mm

A lone cyclist looks out through the Golden Gate toward the ocean from Fort Point at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. This shot was taken from the bridge looking down.

Interestingly, I was thinking "black & white" when I saw this composition in my mind.

--Warren

Eric Shooting on Treasure Island

Nikon FM, Nikkor 85mm f1.8D, Ilford XP2 Super

It was a cold, hazy, and windy day on Treasure Island, but I don't think Eric was feeling it because of his excitement over using his new D40 :).

I brought my FM along with my D100 so that I cold finish the roll of XP2 in the FM.

--Warren

View of Yosemite Falls from a Meadow

Nikon D100, Sigma 15-30mm

Here's another one for all you fans of my Yosemite pictures.

We've been to Yosemite so many times that it is a challenge to make a picture that is "different". To get warmed up and into the photography "groove", we go to the usual view points and we take the standard shots. This is true of any place with spectacular scenery, you feel compelled to take pictures of it even though you and everyone else have taken hundreds of pictures from the exact same spot before. Take Yosemite Falls, for example, it's true that each time, the scene is just little bit different, the weather, the fullness of the falls, the shadows on the granite, the color of the trees, etc. I'm sure that showing one of those "standard" shots would still impress by virtue of the subject matter. However, I believe that it is even more satisfying to see and create a new view of a particular subject. It takes time, willingness, patience, and a "practiced eye", to really observe the scenery around you.

This picture was taken in the meadow between Sentinel Bridge and Yosemite Falls. On this trip, we decided to stay and hike primarily in the valley. We hiked in the valley from one end to the other. After breakfast, we took took a shuttle to the Sentinel Bridge stop to see if the clouds have lifted from Half Dome. Half Dome was still covered in clouds so we decided to begin our walk by going through the meadow. The park service built wooden paths across the meadows in the valley in order to save the meadows from being trampled by park visitors (see my previous shot in a different meadow: "Meadow People"). As Gail walked ahead, I took my time on the path, snapping various shots along the way. As I walked along, I noticed that because it was still early summer, the falls were full and the rivers were high, and there was a lot water in this meadow. Then I came upon this particular swatch of water that was rather dramatically curved and I saw the reflection of Upper Yosemite Falls in the water. I immediately thought to myself, "Now here's a scene that you don't usually see!". I had to capture that scene as I saw it that morning. During any other time of the year, the meadow would be dry.

I decided to travel light on this trip, but most fortunately, I decided to include my Sigma 15-30mm in my kit (as my only other lens). My Tamron 24-135mm was on the camera at the time, and the 24mm was not wide enough to show what the image that I had already framed in my mind. The path was narrow, so there was no space for the "sneaker zoom technique"(walking back and forth). So I quickly put down my backpack and swapped lenses before anything changed. The winds were calm at that moment which made the reflection more pristine. I took 3 shots in total, the first two were overexposed, so I switched to manual exposure to compensate and got the shot that you see here.

I hope you enjoyed this story.


--Warren