Because the Salesforce Transit Center has been open for such a short time, everything is clean and new, unlike what you find in other public spaces in San Francisco. The sidewalks are pristine, the drinking fountains work, the bathrooms are clean, the greenery is neat and trimmed, and the tables and chairs in the courtyard [...]
In the previous post, all the photos were shot with my monochrome camera; in this post, they were all shot with a color camera. I don't convert color photos to black and white—it feels like taking something away from the image. Early morning on Main Street in Ferndale. These Italianate buildings built in 1900 are [...]
On Saturday I went to the Paramount Theatre in Oakland and took the tour, which is offered twice a month on the first and third Saturdays. It costs only $5 and lasts two hours. There were about 10 people in my group. The guides explicitly tell you that you're free to photograph whatever you want. [...]
I walked around downtown San Francisco on Sunday in beautiful weather and photographed not people (well, very few people) but buildings. It's not an original observation, but monochrome works especially well for architecture. And in post, I can easily turn skies almost black, which gives the images with light or white buildings a lot of [...]
I arrived before sunrise at Mare Island in Vallejo on Sunday, hoping to get early morning light on the old buildings there. No such luck. It was overcast and stayed that way all morning. So I shot in monochrome. I've been there before and had a couple of subjects in mind, like St. Peter's Chapel, [...]
I drove into Oakland early Sunday morning specifically to photograph the court house front-lit by the rising sun. But it was overcast, so I had to wait. I know—it's just a building, which is not the most exciting subject, even though, having been built in 1936, it is historic. But I really like the [...]
I went into San Francisco yesterday with a vague idea of what I wanted to shoot. I knew I wanted to arrive early at Mission Dolores because it's a white building that would be front-lit and would stand out in black and white against the dark sky. Beyond that, I thought I'd walk into the [...]
On a family trip to Sea Ranch in northern California, we stopped at Fort Ross, site of an early 19th century Russian settlement (1812–1842). This is the Russian Orthodox chapel at Fort Ross, shot with the monochrome camera and with a warm tone added. A fence with each post different from the next surrounds the [...]