This is a night shot I took last weekend of the Ferry Building and nearby waterfront in San Francisco. The skyscrapers are part of the downtown financial district. Coit Tower is also visible at the far right of the picture. You can also view a larger version.
While I like this picture, the highlights and neon signs are still a little more blown out than I’d prefer. I hope to get back to this location to try again for better results soon.
This is another photo from my trip into San Francisco last Friday evening. It shows the skyline of North Beach, also known as “Little Italy”, in San Francisco. The large pyramid-shaped building is the Transamerica Building, the tallest building in San Francisco and a key recognizible feature in the San Francisco skyline. The building is 260 meters (853 ft) high and is ranked as the 98th tallest building in the world. You can find out more about the Transamerica building at Wikipedia.
I had to wander in traffic to get this shot looking directly down the street. The resulting perspective really emphasizes the height of the Transamerica building and shows it dominating over the rest of the skyline. You can view a larger version of the photo here. It’s also one of those funny times of year when you can clearly see the moon out in the daylight sky, it’s easier to see in the large version.
This is another photo taken on my trip from Santa Cruz to San Francisco via the California coastal Highway 1 this past weekend. I captured this photo immediately after sunset, while the sky was still colored with lovely pastels and the light on the land was still very soft. There was also a light fog along the coast, creating a very nice misty effect in the distance.
This is also my first attempt at creating a HDR image. For those not familar with the technique, HDR stands for high dynamic range, and is the process of taking multiple photos of the same scene at different exposure levels and combining them to create a single image with better overall lighting and exposure than any single picture alone. Familiar with shooting photos and getting the sky perfect but the landscape (foreground) too dark, or vice versa? This is where HDR can help. You take multiple photos, one or more exposed for the sky, and one or more exposed for the landscape and combine them using HDR software to create a well-balanced image. The effect can easily be overdone, creating an unnatural or almost cartoon-like effect. I tried hard to avoid that here, please leave a comment and let me know whether you like the result or not.
You can view a larger version of the photo here.
Yesterday I drove the scenic route from Santa Cruz, California up to San Francisco via Highway 1. This coastline is full of beautiful sandy beaches, most of which are California state parks. I captured this photo at one of the few accessible beaches which isn’t a park (and thus doesn’t have an official name, or at least a sign with the name). The surf was quite high here which made wading difficult but made for beautiful scenic effect.
I especially liked the flock of seagulls that flew in as I was taking this picture and the mist hanging along the coast in the distance. It’s easier to see in a larger version of the photo, view it here.