Summer's BlanketFog Over Golden Gate Bridge Hawk Hill, San Francisco, California Hopefully as each year passes by, we, as photographers, learn from our past mistakes and in turn become better photographers. A year ago I left things up to chance. Today, most of my photography is planned: I've learned to check weather forecasts, watch the "WunderMap" to follow cloud patterns, and even tried to understand what makes the low marine fog that we want so badly. I learned to check the SF webcams before I go to sleep and made a great new friend who could check the fog from his bedroom window and tell me if I should go back to bed or not (thanks Alan!). The night before this particular morning I had checked both the weather and the webcams and text messages about the following mornings fog started rolling in. I was so excited that I actually woke up *before* my 4:15am alarm! Alan almost instantly messaged me to tell me: "get up here, it's going to be amazing! EVERYONE is coming!" I arrived early, ran into Yan and began taking photos. Alan and Wilson arrived shortly after and we started trekking up to Hawk Hill. I also ran into Jim Patterson, Joe Azure, David Yu, and Della Huff, who are all great local photographers! The fog on this morning was pretty much a dream come true! The fog was just above the bridge deck when I arrived and throughout the sunrise I watched the fog move lower and lower. By 8am the fog was completely gone! I photographed the bridge from several locations on the road to Hawk Hill and had so many great photos that I had trouble deciding which was my favorite. Ultimately I chose a photo from the blue hour of sunrise (which is really only about 10 minutes), when the sun was still somewhat low and the sky had purple tones to match the fog. A couple minutes later and the sky started to turn light blue, orange, and red, washing out the lights of the city in the background. I experimented with different aspect ratios of either 2:1 or 3:1, and found that a slower shutter smoothed out the fog while a faster shutter left more texture and bumps. Ultimately I chose quicker shutter speed of 10 seconds and a 2:1 crop so that I could include as much of the amazingly textured fog as I could. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 29mm, f/11, 10 sec, ISO 64 No Filters
Drought's BaneSunset in Silicon Valley California I must have had some kind of precognition into the future because I don't normally keep my camera in the trunk of my car, but after trying to photograph the fog yesterday I decided to leave my camera in the trunk "just in case". Sure enough, that time happened to occur on Wednesday. Willie and I arrived at our favorite San Jose spot just as Lukas Wenger and his wife pulled up. Jave arrived shortly after and we set off to find "the cracks". I decided I wanted setup near some still water that I had found, knowing that I could shoot east or west from here and still include both cracks and reflection in the water. Turns out the sky in the east did nothing but man… the sky in the west!!! Wilson Ng and Matt Levine showed up just as the sunset started to get good. There weren't any of those high, thin, textured clouds that we photographers normally like. Instead, the entire sky just LIT up. Lit up is probably the wrong term -- it EXPLODED with color! Rain started to fall in the west and the rain clouds started turning yellow, orange, and pink! We stood there hooting and hollering at how beautiful the sky looked. Man was that a beautiful night! For anyone who wants to find this spot, I offer you a warning: Despite knowing the safety issues here, I pulled "a Willie" tonight. Our first time here Willie got stuck in the mud and had to be rescued by another friend. Knowing this, I am normally very careful and test each step before I put any weight down. At one point during this sunset I started walking around trying to find other compositions. As I walked around this little pond of water I started to see the entire pond just GLOW with beautiful red and orange colors; I wanted to get closer. I was so excited that I started to run. I took about 2 steps and realized I was stuck … knee deep in the thick, gross mud. I was able to get myself out but it could have easily been much worse for me. If you find this place, be extremely careful that you do NOT get stuck! Seriously -- even when I knew about, I still got stuck! Cleaning up the mud was not fun, took a long time, and smells horrible! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S: 17mm, f/18, 3 sec, ISO 80 Lee Filter Holder + HiTech 0.6 ND Grad
ThirstySunrise in a dry lakebed Silicon Valley, California One Friday evening I had dinner plans and wasn't able to join Willie and Jave for an attempt at sunset photography in the Bay Area. While I was inside having a delicious dinner they found an amazing dry lakebed to photograph. Turns out that the lakebed is pretty soft and Willie ended up getting stuck in the mud and needed rescuing! Willie wanted another crack at this spot and he immediately called me up and told me to wake up at 4am and join him! We weren't sure if the weather would cooperate but we went out anyways, setup shop and waited. Sure enough, just as we thought it would be a bust, some sun made it through the clouds and lit up the clouds with some oranges and yellows! This place really reminds me of Death Valley and I loved the way all the cracks fit together. I definitely want to come back here in the future! This was also my first time playing with my new toy, a brand spankin' new Nikon D800! Man was this guy fun to use! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 17mm, f/16, 0.4 sec, ISO 100
