Fog over the Pacific Ocean Hawk Hill, San Francisco, California The year 2013 was a fairly slow year for my photography. Although I came home with many great images it seemd like Mama Nature was out to get me way too often. The previous evening I completely missed an absolutely stunning sunset and walked out of work an hour after sunset to see the sky was *still* ablaze with color. It looked like Mama Nature was out to get me again. The next day, this day, the clouds looked to be sticking around and I had no intentions of missing out. Willie and I left work and drove up to the SF Coast with the intentions of photographing the Sutro Baths. In typical 2013 fashion Mama Nature didn't want my plan to go smoothly and fog began to roll in almost as soon as we got there. Guess we weren’t going to shoot the coast. Our only option was to cross the Golden Gate Bridge and hope the fog stayed low and continued to fill in. The heat of the sun kept the fog away from the Golden Gate Bridge and we, once again, had to abandon our plan and try something else. We hiked over a small hill to see what the fog looked like on the Pacific Ocean side of the coast and were greeted with a stunning layer of fog. Willie quickly suggested using the telephoto lens to get some intimate fog shots. One area of fog that peaked my interest was a bowl-like section of fog that was creating dunes of fog. The rolling hills of fog were stunning to look at. I tried a number of compositions and ultimately decided I liked leaving some room on the right for the lines of fog to let the eye flow. I also knew that I wanted to smooth out the fog, hence I threw the Lee Big Stopper on and increased my shutter speeds to 20 seconds. What do you think, a neat patch of fog? Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D ED: 145mm, f/11, 20 sec, ISO 100
SF Holiday Skyline San Francisco, California One of the reasons why I love San Francisco during the holiday time is that it gets an extra special treat to its skyline: the four Embarcadero Center buildings outline themselves with over 17,000 lights, the Transamerica Building lights their “Beacon” and several other buildings don themselves with festive colors. Trying to get Sammi to get into photography, I brought her on a trip to the Eastern Sierras with Willie and I where she froze her tuchas off. Wanting to give her a better experience I invited her along for our visit into the San Francisco to photograph its skyline. It wasn’t until I offered to take her to the “Boxing Room” for dinner (Southern Creole) afterwards that she agreed! Willie, Alan, James, Sammi, and I met high upon this hill overlooking the city. James had arrived early and setup 5 different tripods all over the hill. Reining him in, we all setup and waited. In previous years the Transamerica Building turned its “Beacon” on at 5pm but lately it’s been turned on at 6pm, almost an hour after sunset. The 20-30 minutes after the sun goes down is called “Blue Hour”, where the sky takes a beautiful blue/purple tone. By 6pm the sky is dark, shadows creep in, and the photos become boring. With high hopes for an early turn on I looked at the Transamerica Building at 4:55pm and saw the light was on! Yes! During the 20 minutes or so of Blue Hour I took a number of compositions. The scene is difficult because the Bay Bridge and its light provide a nice line on the left, but the city beneath it is somewhat boring. The main part of the city lies on the right but I didn’t want to ignore the beautiful lights of the Bay Bridge. To our left were some vines and a building that blocked the view and got in the way of our scene. I decided that a panorama was necessary and I wanted to get to make the city buildings appear slightly closer, so I through on the 80-200mm lens and took an 8-photo panoramic. I took a 9th shot to make the star on top of the Transamerica building even larger. I ended with a 177 megapixel image that I then cropped in various ways. Wanting to highlight both the bridge, the city, and the lines from the road leading through the photo, I cropped the full 177 megapixel pano into this 110 megapixel photo with a 2.5:1 aspect ratio. Zoom in to see all the amazing detail of the city in all its holiday glory! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF 80mm, f/9.0, 6 seconds, ISO 200 8 shot panoramic, blended in Autopano Giga 9th shot at f/16 for the lightstar on The Beacon See all 110 megapixels at Gigapan or view the full 170 megapixel uncropped version.
The Beacon Shines, Blue Hour over San Francisco San Francisco, California (2.5:1 Aspect Ratio, Full Panorama) One of the reasons why I love San Francisco during the holiday time is that it gets an extra special treat to its skyline: the four Embarcadero Center buildings outline themselves with over 17,000 lights, the Transamerica Building lights their “Beacon” and several other buildings don themselves with festive colors. Trying to get Sammi to get into photography, I brought her on a trip to the Eastern Sierras with Willie and I where she froze her tuchas off. Wanting to give her a better experience I invited her along for our visit into the San Francisco to photograph its skyline. It wasn’t until I offered to take her to the “Boxing Room” for dinner (Southern Creole) afterwards that she agreed! Willie, Alan, James, Sammi, and I met high upon this hill overlooking the city. James had arrived early and setup 5 different tripods all over the hill. Reining him in, we all setup and waited. In previous years the Transamerica Building turned its “Beacon” on at 5pm but lately it’s been turned on at 6pm, almost an hour after sunset. The 20-30 minutes after the sun goes down is called “Blue Hour”, where the sky takes a beautiful blue/purple tone. By 6pm the sky is dark, shadows creep in, and the photos become boring. With high hopes for an early turn on I looked at the Transamerica Building at 4:55pm and saw the light was on! Yes! During the 20 minutes or so of Blue Hour I took a number of compositions. The scene is difficult because the Bay Bridge and its light provide a nice line on the left, but the city beneath it is somewhat boring. The main part of the city lies on the right but I didn’t want to ignore the beautiful lights of the Bay Bridge. To our left were some vines and a building that blocked the view and got in the way of our scene. I decided that a panorama was necessary and I wanted to get to make the city buildings appear slightly closer, so I through on the 80-200mm lens and took an 8-photo panoramic. I took a 9th shot to make the star on top of the Transamerica building even larger. I ended with a 177 megapixel image that I then cropped in various ways. In this cropped version of the pano, I focused on the city skyscrapers. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF 80mm, f/9.0, 6 seconds, ISO 200 8 shot panoramic, blended in Autopano Giga 9th shot at f/16 for the lighstar on The Beacon
