World Series 2014, Game 1 Transamerica Building seen through the Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco, California The Giants Win the Pennant! The Giants Win the Pennant! San Francisco loves to support its sports teams and when the Giants won the NL Championship the entire city lights itself to match its teams colors. City Hall has turned orange; Coyt Tower decks itself in orange; and for each World Series game the Transamerica Building turns its Beacon on in Orange glory. Willie and I drove up to the Marin Headlands early in the evening and made our way to the teeny little spot called “Thread the Needle”. In this specific spot the Transamerica Beacon lines up perfectly in the north tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. Nick Sternberg met up with us and the 3 of us enjoyed the evening to ourselves. While the Transamerica Beacon did light up orange, it was a bit more disappointing than we thought. The orange light isn’t as bright as the normal white Beacon and thus didn’t turn into a giant star like we’re used to. Additionally, the orange light looks almost red and is dwarfed by the lights on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. Oh well, at least Coyt Tower and the Embarcadero Center buildings are lit in beautiful orange colors. And of course the Giants beat the Royals 7-1 in Game 1! Here’s to 3 more! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF 170mm, f/16, ISO 400, 30 sec
Sunset over Sunflower Field Bay Area, California “If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.” -Roald Dahl I’ve always loved sunflowers, ever since I was a kid, and photographing them was towards the top of my list. Last year was filled with beautiful sunflower plants but no sunsets to go with them. This year, despite a severe drought in CA, we’ve had a whole slew of nice sunsets. A week earlier I witnessed a stunning sunset at a different, slightly less alive, sunflower patch. I had visited this field a few weeks earlier and arrived to find no sunflowers — we were a few weeks early! Hoping that the sunflowers would be in their prime, Willie and I found the sunflowers exactly as we had hoped — alive, perky, and lookin’ good! The hardest part? ... deciding which patch of flowers we wanted to shoot! When we arrived the clouds looked fairly thin to the west but sure enough, just as the sun began to set, the clouds (and Ryan Engstrom) showed up! I loved how the orange sky mimicked the yellow sunflowers. This patch of flowers also had little yellow “noses”, which I thought made the flowers look like smiling faces! What do you see when you look at the sunflowers? Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 18mm, f/9, 1/25 sec, ISO 500
Starburst version
