For my Sunday morning outing, I went into San Francisco to walk the Embarcadero. More and more often, I'm heading into the city, because it provides the most variety of subjects and the most photogenic environment. And I get there so early—at sunrise—that it's easy to walk around and come across very few people, which [...]
My initial destination last Sunday was the Legion of Honor, which is a good subject, but the light didn't cooperate. It was overcast and the flat light didn't make for a good architectural photo. At one point, the sun kind of broke through, which produced dappled lighting—more interesting than the flat, dull light from an [...]
I'm not keen on photographing people wearing masks, and approaching strangers right now makes one even more apprehensive than usual. So, I'm foregoing street photography and instead am photographing buildings in monochrome. Here are four SF landmarks, taken over a couple of weekends. The Palace of Fine Arts is a good subject in just about [...]
I drove into San Francisco on a Sunday morning, intending to photograph the Palace of Fine Arts. But as I drove past the Civic Center, San Francisco City Hall caught my attention. It was front-lit by the rising sun at about 8 a.m. and positively glowed. So I changed plans, parked there, and shot [...]
A red filter on a camera shooting black and white film, or on a digital black and white camera, darkens blues dramatically. So shooting big, puffy white clouds against a blue sky makes for very dramatic black and white images. This is an athletic field near me. I used layers and masks in Photoshop to [...]
I had an "assignment" from a group of photographers I meet with to take three street portraits. I went to a couple of locations in the past few weeks, but didn't come away with any portraits I liked. In one case, I didn't get any at all. So I went to the Embarcadero in San [...]
This is another event where street photography is easier than usual. Lots of people are milling about, and most aren't paying any attention to you. I got there early, before 9 a.m., when the light was coming from a low angle. I looked for compositions like this, but never found a great background. The front-lighting [...]
Intending to capture the Golden Gate Bridge on a cloudy, gray day, I went to Fort Baker at the northern end of the bridge with my monochrome camera. It was cloudy, all right, and rainy. So I sat in my car for about 45 minutes, reading on my phone, waiting for the rain to [...]
I went into San Francisco late in the afternoon (3:30) last week to do some street photography. The challenge was trying to use my normal street settings in low light. I normally dial in f/11, 1/250s, Auto ISO, and focus at 6 feet on my 35mm lens—but very quickly, as the light disappeared, I had [...]
I drove across the Bay Bridge early Sunday morning to catch the 7 a.m. shuttle from Treasure Island to the Yerba Buena Island viewpoint. The shuttle didn't get there till past 7:30, so my plans for catching the earliest light on the bridge went by the wayside, but it was still directional early morning light [...]