Month: November 2015

This scene Monday morning alongside west bound I-80 provided an optimistic preview of what we hope is in store for us this winter. The Sierra snowpack, virtually non existent last year, is off to a promising start.

Unchaining alongside west bound I-80 Monday morning just on the other side of Donner Summit.

A friend asked me to photograph a young couple who had just announced their engagement and wanted photographs for a “save the date” announcement. This kind of photography is far outside my comfort zone but I agreed to do the shoot about 3 months ago as a favor to my friend, but it was only last week that we actually managed to do it. My friend, Katie, was my able assistant. She took control of posing the couple while I fiddled with exposure and flash settings. I needed flash because we were shooting the couple at night with Sacramento’s Tower Bridge as a backdrop. Despite my discomfort with using flash and photographing at night, the shoot turned out to be a very fun experience for me and for everyone involved. But it wasn’t until I edited the photos that I noticed the “Photo Bomber.” Somebody from the tall ship, Hawaiian Chieftain which is temporarily docked in Sacramento, was climbing in the rigging the entire time. He is visible as an outline against one of the lighted bridge towers.

The other day, I watched this juvenile herring gull as it strolled atop the concrete wall the separates the San Francisco Marina Green from the water. It watched me but seemed unconcerned about my presence. Behind the bird is moored a San Francisco Fire Department rescue craft that adds a bit of color to this otherwise drab scene. I was very close and took this shot at a focal length of 95mm. This shot is not cropped.

Piles of colorful crab pots waiting to be put into use caught my attention the other day walking around Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. It struck me that as chaotic as they appear, on closer inspection, the lines are neatly coiled in each pot, the colorful floats are distributed equally within each pot, and the pots are neatly stacked, all a sort of controlled chaos. I emphasized the word lines in deference to my brother who pointed out my incorrect use of the word “rope” in my post yesterday, advising me that once off the spool, the rope becomes a “line”. I edited the shot in Topaz Impressions and modified one of the Georgia O’Keefe filters for it.

With regard to the unused crab pots, it’s possible they won’t see action for some time this season, if at all. An article in the paper Thursday morning said that the California Department of Fish and Game is considering delaying indefinitely the November 15 opening of Dungeness crab fishing along the Northern California coast due to a massive coastal algae bloom that contains a sometimes deadly toxin and is caused by El Niño which warms the coastal waters. It is ironic that the storms expected to be produced by El Niño this winter with the potential to bring much needed relief from our long running drought, could decimate the California fishing industry already suffering from drought-related problems.

We were standing on the Marina in San Francisco, looking out at Alcatraz, and suddenly, a wooden rowboat came into view with a single occupant, deftly handling the oars and skimming over the water. In the stern was a length of rope perfectly coiled. I took some photos with Alcatraz in the background and a couple shots with the Golden Gate Bridge. When I downloaded the photos, I noticed some writing on the inside of the boat’s stern near the coiled rope. The carved letters read: KUPUNA and underneath, Peter Butler. Of course I Googled and discovered that the Kupuna, a 14-foot Whitehall Dory, was handbuilt by Peter Butler in the San Francisco Dolphin Club’s boatshop and donated to the club in 2006, the year before he died. The Dolphin Club, a San Francisco athletic club, is located in Aquatic Park just a short distance from where we were standing so I presume the Kupuna and its rower were heading there. I had decided to call this blog post “Escape From Alcatraz” before I read that the Dolphin Club holds an annual “Escape From Alcatraz” triathlon.

I drove to the San Francisco Airport Tuesday to get fingerprinted for my Global Entry card so that I can “zip” through customs when I travel abroad. We’ll see how that works. But, it was a gorgeous, clear, sunny day in San Francisco so my friend and I had lunch in the Marina District then went to Alioto-Lazio Fish Co. near Fisherman’s Wharf to pick up some Dungeness Crab. The crab was fresh but it was from Washington State. Dungeness crab season varies along the coast and doesn’t start until November 15 in San Francisco. Until the local crab season starts, crabs arrive live from Washington and are kept in holding tanks until they are boiled to succulent perfection so the likes of me can savor every bite.

Walking back to the car, I saw three people painting a huge mural on a wall. I’m not sure what it is depicting but I enjoyed watching the muralists dab a little paint, then step back and survey what they’d done. I never managed to get all three painting at once. I was amused at the tiny “wet paint” sign taped to the wall near the area they were painting.

Until recently, the Photographic Society of America (PSA), to whose judging criteria the Placer Camera Club adheres, disallowed the “hand of man” in any way on photographs submitted in the “Nature” category. I have always considered that an arbitrary and misguided rule. However, last meeting, I submitted this photograph of a red-tailed hawk for consideration in the “Nature” category because finally, PSA has modified its criteria and one of the modifications was that, under some circumstances, the “hand of man” is acceptable. An example is when a wild creature, such as a hawk, perches on a fence post, as is their habit, in search of prey. If the fence post is there incidentally, then a photograph including a fence post with a hawk perched on it, can be considered “Nature.” The judge at the last meeting liked my photograph well enough to give it a score of 11 out of a possible 12. However, he was concerned that I might have included too much of the fence post and spoke at length about it. Hmmmm.

This is another photograph of the same hawk, taken on the same day, after it flew to another fence post which protrudes even higher into the frame than does the fence post in the other photograph. To make this even more questionable as a legitimate “nature” entry, I also edited this shot using Photoshop’s High Pass filter to give it just a little more je ne sais quoi. I learned about using this filter from one of my camera club members who made a presentation about it at the last meeting; he suggested the judge cover his ears as this was considered a “fool the judges” edit.

Apparently four days is my limit for the length of time I can go without taking a photograph. Saturday, three days into my self-imposed hiatus, I found myself selecting produce for its potential as a photography subject not for its freshness, ripeness, or quality. Sunday morning, as I walked into the gym, I heard a flicker calling from one of the trees outside and regretted that I didn’t have a longer lens with me. Then, as I drove home from the gym, a sprinkling of rain dappled my windshield. The rain was a mere smattering and I don’t think it is the beginning of the much ballyhooed El Niño winter but it was enough for me. I had to pull over and take a few shots. I parked at a dead end by a dry field which I thought made a good background for the raindrops.

I am amazed that I haven’t taken any photographs since last Tuesday. It is now Saturday. I have been taking photographs almost daily and posting them to In Focus Daily for almost 5 years now. I plan to continue for the foreseeable future — there have been few stretches this long without my touching a camera. I have been busy, mostly reviewing and editing the photographs from my photoshoot Tuesday evening where I really stepped out of my comfort zone to photograph a young couple in an urban setting in and around Old Sacramento at night. It turned out to be a really fun experience and I learned so much about using flash at night for portraits while still exposing for the background. Some of those photographs will eventually find their way to the blog (the Halloween spider web was a backlit spider I found on the Tower Bridge during the shoot). But, I don’t want to distract myself from the important job of doing the best editing I can for this young couple’s “save the date” announcement so my dilemma is, “what to post?”

Like the cow I posted a couple of days ago, this old windmill is somewhere in the Sierras near Portola. I took it with my 600mm lens just after a red tailed hawk flew off one of the blades. I decided I liked the composition so I edited it in On1 Effects 10 to make it a bit more interesting.