Sunrise on Christmas Morning at the Golden Gate Bridge Marin Headlands, California Zack and I have a Christmas tradition to wake up at the wee hours of the night on Christmas Morning and drive to San Francisco to photograph the sunrise. It started a number of years ago, before I had family obligations, partially because I don't celebrate Christmas and partially because Zack was away from his family. Regardless, we've done this for about 6 years now and it's a fun little tradition (minus being super sleepy). Looking at the weather forecast, I wasn't quite sure where we should head this year. We'd done the Golden Gate Bridge, we'd photographed the Bay Bridge, we'd been to the ferry building ... most of the iconic SF photos had been done. Fortunately, the decision was made very easy when I woke up at 4am and checked Escaype (our favorite sunrise forecasting app) and it said "HEAD TO THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE." Despite Zack being a few minutes late, we arrived at the Golden Gate Bridge quite early. Looking at the clouds, I knew we needed to be close to the bridge ... the views from Hawk Hill would have had too much empty sky. Battery Spencer became our go-to spot. Here we ran into another photographer, a visitor to SF, Eddy Lin, who asked to tag alone. We were in for a treat, the sunrise pre-burn was absolutely *stunning*. I find the Golden Gate Bridge looks its best during Blue Hour, when the bridge is still lit up, the lights are on and visible in the city, and the sky is still mostly blue, with a star or two to be found left in the sky. Sure enough, the entire cloud system lit up like an explosion and we snapped away for a good 20 minutes. Once it burned out I packed up my gear and walked back to the car and took a pit-stop at the bathroom. When I walked out the door I realized the sky was on fire again. Grabbing our gear we raced back to the bridge and took a few iPhone snaps, by now the sun was coming up and the real burn was on, but with the city and the bridge lights washed out, I didn't even bother with the real camera. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8: 20mm, f/11, 20 sec, ISO 125
Sunset under the Bay Bridge Treasure Island, San Francisco, CA I've made a number of trips to Treasure Island (Yuerba Buena Island, to be exact) to visit this spot under the Bay Bridge. It's not easy to get to, you have to park far away and walk, and the traffic getting here is a pain in the butt, but it's always worth the effort! The way the Bay Bridge frames the photo is pretty much perfect. I have a number of photographs from here that I love, but none with a sky that was entirely lit up with pink, purple, red, and orange color. Willie and I left work pretty early to get to the Bay Bridge in time. Even leaving at 2pm, we still got stuck in a bunch of traffic. I also invited one of my co-workers, Alex, along, since she's been wanting to play with her shiny new D800. Jeff and Tung happened to be waiting in the car when we parked, so the 5 of us made our way to the bridge and down to the spot. We all were in for a treat. Escaype had predicted a beautiful sunset and we had high hopes as we waited and watched the clouds fall into position. We kept praying they'd move a bit faster, so it would fill in some empty holes in the sky. Luckily for us, it did exactly that, and the sky little up like pillows, with beautiful pinks, and oranges filling the sky. The holiday lights along the Embarcadero complete the beauty of the SF skyline. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8: 29mm, f/14, 0.5 sec, ISO 100
