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Peek-a-Boo! Fog Over Golden Gate Bridge Hawk Hill, San Francisco, California Back in March the weather conditions were perfect for low fog. After checking the conditions the previous night and getting a few emails from some other photographers I met up with Andy and Willie and we carpooled up to Hawk Hill. We picked up Alan (I think?) on the way. Full car. Full was the keyword for the morning because when we got to Hawk Hill we realized that pretty much every other Bay Area Photographer had gotten up too! We ran into Jim Patterson, Joe Azure, Andrew Louie, Darvin Atksinson and more! The fog was at a beautiful level on this morning. It rose and fell just above and below the deck of the bridge. In the background the lights from the Bay Bridge could be seen peaking out from above the cloud layer. The tops of some of San Francisco's most iconic buildings made an appearance. That's what I loved about the fog on this morning -- it seemed to be playing a peek-a-boo game with us. Maybe a little hide-and-go-seek too! The next morning proved to be another beautiful one, with mostly low fog and beautiful high thin clouds that lit up at sunrise. It turned out to be a wonderful 2 days of shoot. Also has been mostly my last 2 days of shooting for the past month and a half. I don't know where the time has gone but I've just been busy and not able to get out. I finally have a couple low key weeks where I might be able to get out, if the weather cooperates, before my summer schedule gets busy again! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 70mm, f/10, 30 sec, ISO 250
Into the Fog Foggy Sunrise at the Golden Gate Bridge Slacker Hill, San Francisco, California There's a somewhat unwritten rule pertaining to fog at the Golden Gate Bridge that low fog never occurs two days in a row. Well, never say "never"! Almost every day for a week I woke up at 5am to check the fog and either go back to bed or drive up to San Francisco. This particular morning was the second one in a row that I hopped in the car and met Alan in San Francisco. The previous morning I witnessed a much lower fog from Hawk Hill. On this morning, by the time I crossed the bridge, Alan had already warned me that the fog was both a bit high and also really nice. I parked my car, still immersed in fog, threw on a number of layers of warm clothes, and began the huff up the half mile hike to the top of Slacker Hill. It was interesting to watch the fog disappear and the temperature rise about 15° as I walked. Off came the layers. The fog rose and fell slightly as the sun rose but it stayed near the tops of the two Golden Gate Bridge towers. It was slightly higher than I would have liked but the clouds in the sky kept my hopes up for a beautiful morning. Sure enough, Mama Nature did not disappoint. At twilight the clouds began to glow pink and orange and as the sun got higher in the sky the clouds bursted with pink and red color. I came home with so many photos I was happy with that I didn't even know where to begin! I chose this photo from earlier in the morning because of a couple of reasons: First, the glow in the fog was still fairly prominent. This was also about as low as the fog got and you can get a bigger glimpse of the two bridge towers and the city hiding in the background. Some color had started streaking into the sky but a couple of stars can still be seen in the upper right. A car and a biker made their way up Conzelman Rd as my shutter remained open for this 20 second exposure. It was a beautiful morning spent with Joe Azure, Jim Patterson, Alan Chan, Jared Ropelato, John Harrison and a number of other photographers. The saddest part of the morning was having to pack up early and head to my 9am meeting in the South Bay (I managed to get to the meeting at 9:02am!). Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 31mm, f/7.1, 20 sec, ISO 200 HiTech Filters
Shrouded Fog Surrounding Hawk Hill Taken from Slacker Hill, San Francisco, California I thought I would post something a little different ... and perhaps surprising today. Despite having a number of fairly "epic" photos in my queue I wanted to touch on a topic that I've been thinking a lot about lately. All too often I find that we landscape photographers get numbed by the amazing beauty we see every day. We see so many beautiful sunrises, amazing landscapes and stunning vistas that we forget about the lesser but still beautiful scenes. In our search to find the "perfect" scene we tune out all the other beautiful things we see. What may be a beautiful sunrise to most we consider "boring" if there wasn't a burn with huge textured pinks, reds, oranges, and yellows in the sky. If the fog is too high we call it "skunked". If the clouds only have color in one part of the sky we say that it's dull. Sometimes we get so caught up in capturing the "perfect" photo that we end up focusing solely on the bad parts of the image. So what if the lower right of the image is boring, as long as the remaining 3/4 of the photo is still beautiful? So what if the fog was a bit high today? And so what if the photographer super saturated the sky to make it more colorful? Perfection in landscape photographer is rare -- if it ever occurs. We are not studio photographers - there are forces we cannot control and we should not overly criticize photos because Mama Nature didn't answer our phone call (but please, feel free to provide constructive criticism on my photos)! On this particular morning there could have been a number of things "more perfect". The fog was higher than I would have liked. Cars only drove up to Marin Headlands; none drove down to give me beautiful red taillights in my photos. The deck of the Golden Gate Bridge wasn't visible and the glow of the lights in the fog was minimal. San Francisco could barely be seen and a huge dark black hill sat in the middle of my photo wasting tons and tons of pixels. But there were high clouds and high hopes. What I came home with wasn't perfect but it *was* a great morning. I shared the beautiful sunrise with a number of photographers, several of which I call my friends even though we only hang out for an hour when we randomly show up at the same spot. I witnessed the fog roll up and down. I avoided work. I had a nice hike. I enjoyed a wonderful pink and purple sunrise. And I came home with so many photos I was excited about that I didn't even know where to start! At one point I looked to my right and saw the fog shrouding one of our other favorite spots to photograph the fog, Hawk Hill. The pink clouds had started streaking towards it. I temporary gave up on shooting the Golden Gate Bridge and took a couple photos of the fogged in hill. Sure, the right portion of the sky is boring and there's a big empty spot in the lower right that has no subject, but it's the *rest* of the photo that I wanted to show you all. And it's the feeling that I felt while up here that I hope you get when you look at this hill, isolated in a sea of fog. And sure enough, a couple minutes later the other photographers thought I was onto something because before I knew it everyone was running with tripods to take a few snaps of their own! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 38mm, f/5, 0.5 sec, ISO 100
City's Embrace Sunrise Over Golden Gate Bridge Hawk Hill, San Francisco, California Waking up at 5am on a Saturday morning is never fun. Instead of staying all warm and cozy in my nice bed I was up and out the door to meet Willie and Alan to photograph sunrise. On the drive to San Francisco we noticed some really nice thin clouds in the sky and we had a feeling it would be worth the early wake-up! There was a slight debate about where to photograph the sunrise. The clouds were located to the north east of the city and we decided to plant ourselves west … that meant crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and heading over to Hawk Hill. Although we had arrived early, we got out of the car and saw that clouds already had a beautiful purple glow caused by the lights from San Francisco. Racing to find a spot we setup our tripods and started clicking away. Boy were we in for a treat! Photographing while the sun was below the horizon enabled us to capture this scene with the combination of the city lights, the beautiful red glow of the bridge, and the warm colorful tones in the sky. As the sun rose closer to the horizon, the lights in the city faded, the bridge turned dark, and the clouds lost their purple glow. And then they lit up! First slight oranges and yellows were visible, then brilliant pinks and reds. As the sun peaked itself over the horizon the color faded and tule fog began to roll in. Our early morning wake-up was worth the beautiful morning! Despite the explosion of color towards the latter part of the sunrise, I decided I liked my earliest photographs the best. Here the city lights are visible, the bridge has its wonderful golden hue, and the water reflects the light. I also chose a 2x1 panoramic crop because it limited the amount of noise above and below the photo (empty sky above and trees below). I named this photo "City's Embrace" because I like the way that the bridge hugs the city. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 24mm, f/9, 1/3 sec“, ISO 250 HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad
Dancing Gateway Fog Over Golden Gate Bridge Marin Headlands, California Fog on this particular morning was quite the surprise. Alan, Willie and I met up in San Francisco with the original idea of shooting a cloudy sunrise somewhere in San Francisco. By the time we arrived in the city the clouds had moved northeast and we decided to cross the Golden Gate Bridge to find a westerly spot to photograph. As we crossed the bridge into Marin we started to get excited -- there was a small layer of fog forming and we hoped it would keep coming in. We stopped at Battery Spencer but decided to keep driving. For the last 6 months Alan had an idea of trying to shoot a low fog photograph with the 2 towers aligned. The only problem is that you have to hike for quite a while to make it to the location and most people don't wake up early enough. Fortunately for us we had arrived much earlier than anticipated and if we booked it we would make it before sunrise. By the time we arrived at Alan's spot a much denser fog had rolled in and started covering most of the bridge. We were all pretty excited as we began shooting. Looking at the photos in our cameras showed a beautiful glow in the fog, some nice purple and blue tones, and the wonderful bridge. We shot the bridge with the 2 towers aligned first and then later moved back and to the right to shoot the bridge with a slight angle. Blue hour only lasted about 10 minutes and we ran around like crazy men trying to shoot different compositions. Ultimately I liked the slightly non-aligned photo the best, showing more of the bridge and giving insight into how the fog covered and exposed the beautiful Golden Gate Bridge. I titled this "Dancing Gateway" because I like the way that the fog seems to dance in and out of the bridge. Our morning concluded with a beautiful sunrise as the clouds lit up in beautiful oranges and reds. 16 photos stitched into a 230 megapixel image were required to fit the entire scene in. One day when I have time to stitch the photo together properly I might even show you what it looked like! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR 220mm, f/11, 30 sec, ISO 160
Glowscape Sunrise at Mesa Arch Cayonlands National Park, Utah One of the most popular scenes near Moab, Utah is sunrise at Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park. The previous night Andy and I had met up with Phill Monson and his brother-in-law Jeff to photograph Delicate Arch, and we arranged to meet on this particular morning at Mesa Arch at 5:30am. This meant leaving our hotel at 4:30am (ick). We wanted to be the first photographers at the arch so that we could stake out our favorite spot. To our delight we were the first photographers … for a couple minutes at least. 5 minutes later our solitude was broken as groups of photographers began to arrive. For a saturday morning we were extremely lucky - only about 15 photographers showed up. No pushing or shoving, knocking tripods, or being rude. Everyone politely came over, found a spot, setup their tripods and waited. As the sun began to rise over the La Sal Mountains in the background, the rays of light hit the underside of Mesa Arch and caused it to glow! I chose this composition because I wanted to include as much of the plateau below the arch as I could. There are beautiful mesas, buttes, spires, canyons, and rivers here and I wanted to try to include them all! I also knew that I wanted to include some sky and as much of the arch as I could; at times I wished I could have even been more wide angle than I already was. I took a number of photos as the sun rose and I wanted to include the largest sunstar that I could; I chose this photo because it has the suns rays on both the mountains and the arch. This is NOT an HDR. Phill challenged me to take advantage of the amazing dynamic range of the Nikon D800 and this is only 1 exposure! All it took was some simple dodging and burning, a curves adjustment to bring back some contrast, and some additional minor tweaks here and there. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/22, 0.6 sec, ISO 100 No Filters
Peek-a-Boo!
Fog Over Golden Gate Bridge
Hawk Hill, San Francisco, California

Back in March the weather conditions were perfect for low fog. After checking the conditions the previous night and getting a few emails from some other photographers I met up with Andy and Willie and we carpooled up to Hawk Hill. We picked up Alan (I think?) on the way. Full car. Full was the keyword for the morning because when we got to Hawk Hill we realized that pretty much every other Bay Area Photographer had gotten up too! We ran into Jim Patterson, Joe Azure, Andrew Louie, Darvin Atksinson and more!

The fog was at a beautiful level on this morning. It rose and fell just above and below the deck of the bridge. In the background the lights from the Bay Bridge could be seen peaking out from above the cloud layer. The tops of some of San Francisco's most iconic buildings made an appearance. That's what I loved about the fog on this morning -- it seemed to be playing a peek-a-boo game with us. Maybe a little hide-and-go-seek too!

The next morning proved to be another beautiful one, with mostly low fog and beautiful high thin clouds that lit up at sunrise. It turned out to be a wonderful 2 days of shoot. Also has been mostly my last 2 days of shooting for the past month and a half. I don't know where the time has gone but I've just been busy and not able to get out. I finally have a couple low key weeks where I might be able to get out, if the weather cooperates, before my summer schedule gets busy again!

Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S:
70mm, f/10, 30 sec, ISO 250
Peek-a-Boo! Fog Over Golden Gate Bridge Hawk Hill, San Francisco, California Back in March the weather conditions were perfect for low fog. After checking the conditions the previous night and getting a few emails from some other photographers I met up with Andy and Willie and we carpooled up to Hawk Hill. We picked up Alan (I think?) on the way. Full car. Full was the keyword for the morning because when we got to Hawk Hill we realized that pretty much every other Bay Area Photographer had gotten up too! We ran into Jim Patterson, Joe Azure, Andrew Louie, Darvin Atksinson and more! The fog was at a beautiful level on this morning. It rose and fell just above and below the deck of the bridge. In the background the lights from the Bay Bridge could be seen peaking out from above the cloud layer. The tops of some of San Francisco's most iconic buildings made an appearance. That's what I loved about the fog on this morning -- it seemed to be playing a peek-a-boo game with us. Maybe a little hide-and-go-seek too! The next morning proved to be another beautiful one, with mostly low fog and beautiful high thin clouds that lit up at sunrise. It turned out to be a wonderful 2 days of shoot. Also has been mostly my last 2 days of shooting for the past month and a half. I don't know where the time has gone but I've just been busy and not able to get out. I finally have a couple low key weeks where I might be able to get out, if the weather cooperates, before my summer schedule gets busy again! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 70mm, f/10, 30 sec, ISO 250" href="javascript:openLB(2485667774,'',XLarge,'',1024,512);">Peek-a-Boo! Fog Over Golden Gate Bridge Hawk Hill, San Francisco, California Back in March the weather conditions were perfect for low fog. After checking the conditions the previous night and getting a few emails from some other photographers I met up with Andy and Willie and we carpooled up to Hawk Hill. We picked up Alan (I think?) on the way. Full car. Full was the keyword for the morning because when we got to Hawk Hill we realized that pretty much every other Bay Area Photographer had gotten up too! We ran into Jim Patterson, Joe Azure, Andrew Louie, Darvin Atksinson and more! The fog was at a beautiful level on this morning. It rose and fell just above and below the deck of the bridge. In the background the lights from the Bay Bridge could be seen peaking out from above the cloud layer. The tops of some of San Francisco's most iconic buildings made an appearance. That's what I loved about the fog on this morning -- it seemed to be playing a peek-a-boo game with us. Maybe a little hide-and-go-seek too! The next morning proved to be another beautiful one, with mostly low fog and beautiful high thin clouds that lit up at sunrise. It turned out to be a wonderful 2 days of shoot. Also has been mostly my last 2 days of shooting for the past month and a half. I don't know where the time has gone but I've just been busy and not able to get out. I finally have a couple low key weeks where I might be able to get out, if the weather cooperates, before my summer schedule gets busy again! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 70mm, f/10, 30 sec, ISO 250
Peek-a-Boo!
Fog Over Golden Gate Bridge
Hawk Hill, San Francisco, California

Back in March the weather conditions were perfect for low fog. After checking the conditions the previous night and getting a few emails from some other photographers I met up with Andy and Willie and we carpooled up to Hawk Hill. We picked up Alan (I think?) on the way. Full car. Full was the keyword for the morning because when we got to Hawk Hill we realized that pretty much every other Bay Area Photographer had gotten up too! We ran into Jim Patterson, Joe Azure, Andrew Louie, Darvin Atksinson and more!

The fog was at a beautiful level on this morning. It rose and fell just above and below the deck of the bridge. In the background the lights from the Bay Bridge could be seen peaking out from above the cloud layer. The tops of some of San Francisco's most iconic buildings made an appearance. That's what I loved about the fog on this morning -- it seemed to be playing a peek-a-boo game with us. Maybe a little hide-and-go-seek too!

The next morning proved to be another beautiful one, with mostly low fog and beautiful high thin clouds that lit up at sunrise. It turned out to be a wonderful 2 days of shoot. Also has been mostly my last 2 days of shooting for the past month and a half. I don't know where the time has gone but I've just been busy and not able to get out. I finally have a couple low key weeks where I might be able to get out, if the weather cooperates, before my summer schedule gets busy again!

Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S:
70mm, f/10, 30 sec, ISO 250
See photo in original gallery.
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