San Francisco/Oakland Bay Bridge

This is the beautiful bay bridge that connects the San Francisco Peninsula to Oakland and the East Bay. I captured this photo from atop Yerba Buena Island on a great overlook looking almost directly down on the bridge and towards San Francisco (“The City”).

If you look closely at the large version of the photo, you can see streaks of white and red light, the result of car headlights and taillights being captured with a slow shutter setting on my camera. I was pleased with the lighting effect of this night shot.

Crissy Field Beach, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

I was in San Francisco at Crissy Field on Sunday to watch the Blue Angels and the airshow as part of 2008 Fleet Week. While walking alone the shoreline trail I saw this rough fence post leaning to one side with the Golden Gate bridge in the background. The bay was filled with boats that day to watch the festivities above, you can still see some in the photo despite most having left shortly after the airshow ended.

Foggy Sunset, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

If you head up Marine Drive in Golden Gate Park, past Crissy field and Fort Mason, you’ll find this beautiful spot with a fantastic view of the Golden Gate Bridge. I stopped here Saturday evening just before sunset and watched the fog roll in over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was quite chilly here, with at least a 15 degree (F) drop in temperature from the east side of San Francisco.

The fog really subdued the effect of the sunset in the sky but watching it drift silently over the bridge and listening to the sounds of the water along the shore was quite peaceful. My timing was even lucky enough to capture the freighter passing under the bridge and the bird walking along the beach.

Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco

Here’s a lovely photo I took of the Golden Gate Bridge in late June of this summer. The beautiful colors in this photo show just how pleasant a warm summer afternoon can be in San Francisco. During much of the year it’s not uncommon to see the bridge enveloped in fog, even when the city is bright and sunny. I happened to be in the city on this perfectly clear day so I drove across Golden Gate to the Marin Headlands to look around and captured this photo.

View a larger version of the photo here.

Succulents at Sutro Baths

On Saturday I had the fantastic opportunity of participating in Scott Kelby’s Worldwide PhotoWalk. PhotoWalks were planned in cities all around the world, whereby groups of photographers got together for 2-3 hours and walked pre-planned routes, taking pictures as they went. If you ever have the opportunity to participate in (or plan!) such an event, it is a great way to meet other photographers, and to learn from them. It can be amazing to see photographs from other photographers who were in the same place at the same time as you, but just saw something that you missed completely or even a different angle on a photo you did take.

My PhotoWalk took place in Lands End, in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco and covered the coastal trail towards Bakers Beach, the famous Sutro Baths and the Cliff House. Though I arrived late and missed the main group of photographers, I did meet a few straggling photographers along the route and did get a nice set of photos myself. I’ve posted a few of my photos that I captured above and below. You can view the entire collection in my flickr gallery or even better as a slideshow on flickr.

Sea Monster attacks Golden Gate!

This photo is somewhat whimsical. It is really an old steel cable fraying apart however when I saw it, the twirled loose cables made me think of a giant squid or terrible sea monster from a cheesy old movie.

Crumbling Stairway

This old brick stairway has seen better days. Part of the Sutro Bath ruins, it may have once been an actual stairwell to one of the many pools inside Sutro Baths, or perhaps it was a more recent update by the National Parks Service. Either way, it is in pretty poor shape now and the area was in fact marked as unsafe for visitors.

The Cliff House

The current Cliff House is only one of many buildings that have been called such and stood on this spot over many years. The current building is probably the smallest ever. It is a great place from which to view the ocean, Seal Rocks just off from the shore and also the magificent “Ocean Beach” which is next door. The building also houses two very nice restaurants.

Pretty Pinks

I’m not sure what type of flowers these are These flowers are called “Naked Ladies” and are a type of Amaryllis (thanks Tina!). The flowers were a wonderful splash of color along the coastline on a day which was otherwise grey and bleak weather-wise.

Abandoned Military Tunnel at Hawk's Hill

This tunnel is one of several in an abandoned military structure at Hawk’s Hill in the Marin Headlands just above the Golden Gate Bridge. The structure was built to defend San Francisco from an attack by sea during World War II but was abandoned before completion near the end of the war when it was apparent America was not at threat.

Transamerica Pyramid

This is a vertical panoramic photo of the Transamerica Pyramid, the most prominent skyscraper in downtown San Francisco. The city is famous for this distinctive building in it’s skyline, the pyramid shape can easily be spotted from even a great distance away.

The building is 853 ft high which, according to Wikipedia, makes it the 100th tallest building in the world. I took this photo one night this week from Telegraph Hill, looking across from just below Coit Tower.

Apparently there used to be an observation deck for visitors high up in the building providing magnificent views of San Francisco and the bay. Unfortunately this was closed after the Sept 11 terrorist attacks but there are now cameras installed where the observation deck used to be and visitors can view and control the cameras from the building lobby to look around from up high.

I created this image by stitching together three separate full size photos. This created an extremely large file with lots of detail suitable for creating a large printout, but was far too large to display on the web so I had to scale it down to display here.

To get a better look, click on the image to view the photo in the gallery. From there you may scroll down to see a larger version of the photo with more detail. You may also view this and other photos in my flickr gallery.

Pedestrian Entrance, Golden Gate Bridge

I usually wouldn’t take a photo like this with all the cluttered signs, fences, etc. in the way, but in this case I’m glad I did! This is the pedestrian/bike entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge on the San Francisco side. The bridge walkways are closed at 9pm each night and are patrolled by police officers on bicycles. The bridge apparently has a terrible record for suicides – people jumping off the bridge – can you imagine?!?

I used HDR to create this image from 3 different exposure shots. It allowed me to capture both the glow of the bridge in the background, and the soft lighting in the background hills of Sausalito and the foreground signs without the traffic sign (“2 Lanes”) being completely overexposed.

View it large on black

I like how it turned out, do you? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

I’ve been looking for a place recently to experiment taking photos of trailing lights from traffic at night. I took this photo last night at the Golden Gate Bridge toll booths (on the San Francisco side of the bridge).

View it large on black (looks much better!)

One of the neat things about these shots is every shot can look very different depending on what the cars passing by do. I had a shot with more interesting taillight patterns (a driver swerved across several lanes), but I chose this one as the best. I really liked the yellow and blue in the oncoming traffic and also that you can see the ghost image of a car stopping briefly to pay cash in one of the booths.

Here’s another version of the shot, with all the lights completely blurred out. I took this one just for fun.

PS – I’m discovering that I really enjoy night photography, more night photos coming soon!

I shot this out through the sunroof of my car while driving across the bay bridge into San Francisco yesterday evening, so it is really just a lucky shot. I liked how the perspective turned out, considering it was completely random (I literally just stuck the camera out through the roof, took basic aim and clicked the shutter button).

And by the way, for anyone that might be concerned, traffic was crawling across the bridge at a snail’s pace… so I didn’t risk my life or anyone else’s taking this shot!