Snow fell last Thursday on Mt. Diablo in Contra Costa County—not an everyday occurrence. The day after, I hiked up a steep, muddy trail near my house to reach an overlook on the Lafayette Reservoir Rim Trail. These photos were taken with my monochrome camera. I used 35, 50 and 75mm prime lenses, all with [...]
Pier 7 is a popular spot for tourists, couples taking selfies, wedding photographers, and me. I've been there at all times of day and in a wide range of weather conditions. The pier provides a perfect example of single-point perspective toward a vanishing point, at which sits the Transamerica Pyramid. Recently, I arrived there before [...]
I drove into San Francisco in the late afternoon on Christmas day to photograph City Hall lit up in Christmas colors. It looked like this at 5:45. before the lights came on. The city turned on the lights at 6 p.m. There was still too much light in the sky for them to be very [...]
I was in New Orleans on the Friday night before Halloween. I'd heard that Bourbon Street was crowded and loud, so I went to Frenchman Street, which was more sedate. I walked up and down only a short stretch of the street, but there were plenty of revelers out in their costumes. Here are [...]
No shortage of images from Iceland to share. This is the photographed-to-death Kirkjufell mountain. I shot at 1/15 second, hand-held. Never used my tripod in Iceland. The Hraunfossar waterfall, also super-famous. Shot at 1/8 second. Colorful outfit at the black sand beach near Vik. Another shot of the black church at Budir. Ideal weather for [...]
Here's a second set of images from New York City, some shot at night, some in the day. Times Square, around midnight on Friday night. This Fordham basketball player was posing for publicity shots. Lots of interesting people out at midnight in Times Square. Same location (more or less), early on Saturday morning. Admiring the [...]
Over 10 days in Iceland, we drove 2,127 kilometers in our rental car—that's 1,322 miles. More driving than I wanted to do, but it was necessary to see all the sights in the south and west (and pretty far east) of the country. The distances between the main sights were long, and there was hardly [...]
On a recent trip to New York City and Iceland, I brought two cameras, each with only one lens: a 28mm and a 50mm. (The 28 is a fixed-lens camera, the 50 was on an ILC.) I shot a lot more with the 28, which, not incidentally, is a more feature-rich camera (including autofocus) than [...]
Up Your Alley (also known as Dore Alley) is an annual leather and fetish event in San Francisco, known as the little brother to the much-larger Folsom Street Fair. This is the second time I've gone there to photograph the day. The attendees are friendly, and without exception, happy to pose for portraits. This year, [...]
I went to a workshop taught by Mark de Paola, a New York-based fashion photographer and filmmaker, whose style for his personal work—and often his commercial work—is to take photos where the main subject is out of focus. You can see examples on his website. His justification is that science has shown that "the entirety of [...]