Tonight I edited my first image in the new Lightroom CC – also known as Lightroom 6. This image was from April 9, 2015 when I met up with Doug Kaye at San Francisco’s Ferry Building.
I edited the image in Lightroom CC using Kodak Gold 100 from VSCO Film 05 along with a couple of gradient filters to darken the left side. I love to tonality and the color in this image.
Every few weeks, Doug Kaye and I rendezvous at San Francisco’s Ferry Building on a Friday morning – and head out for a few hours of shooting on the street of San Francisco. For me, it’s just a delight – as my brain flips over from left brain analytical mode – that it’s been in all week while working – into a right brain creative mode. Key to that process, in my experience, is just slowing down. It’s like the inverse of entering hyperspace – I need slow down, slow down again, smell the air, stretch my arms and legs, relax my neck and shoulders – and then just look for the good light.
Sometimes I take BART from Daly City down to San Francisco’s Embarcadero station to meet Doug’s Larkspur ferry at the Ferry Building. Other times, I’ll take Caltrain from Menlo Park – and then either a Muni bus (the 81X or 82X if it’s early enough or the 10-Townsend later in the morning) or the Muni Metro N or T light rail. On this particular morning, I was in Caltrain mode – having caught the 8:37 AM limited. After arriving in San Francisco, I walked across the street to catch the N Muni Metro – and then got off at my favorite station along this section of the Embarcadero – at Folsom Street.
On this particular Friday in early November, the fog had come in – which provided some beautiful light for us later in the morning. I opted to turn right along the Embarcadero and head down to the Fireboat Station where both of San Francisco’s fireboats are docked. This image was shot with my iPhone 6 and post-processed in Lightroom 5 using VSCO Film 06 and the Fuji 400H film.
I recently published an initial version of this image – shot very quickly at San Francisco’s Ferry Building as we were heading into Slanted Door for lunch.
My friend Doug Kaye commented – gee, that image seems a lot darker than what I remember you showing me on the back of your camera! So I tried again – going back to the original and processing it another time. This image is that result – and, I agree with Doug, it’s brighter and better.
Shot with my Fujifilm X100S and processed in Lightroom 5 and VSCO Film.
On a drizzly Friday in San Francisco, we walked along Market Street heading back to the Ferry Building. It’s fun to get wet pavements – and, sometimes, even reflections – as they’re not all that common in the City.
This is an image of one of the historic streetcars that run on San Francisco’s Market Street – in the livery of the Birmingham Railway and Electric Company in Birmingham, Alabama. The car itself has a subtle sense of motion to it – and the fact that it’s only a partial shot seems to add a touch of drama to the image.
Shot with my Fujifilm X100S. Post-processed in Lightroom 5 and VSCO Film.
Sometimes I just see interesting light on an interesting subject. This is an example – walking along the street in San Francisco’s Financial District in interesting light and enjoying the two hats.
Captured with my Fujifilm X-E2 and post-processed in Lightroom 5 and VSCO Film.
From time to time, I look back at some of my older images – and my images from our amazing visit to Havana in early 2013 are now in that older category!
This is an image I hadn’t processed before – that struck me as I was browsing through my Cuba images in Lightroom.
We were in a large warehouse with a farmers’ market underway. Lots of nooks and crannies. As we walked around, we mostly had friendly encounters – with one except that I’ll always remember! This is a shot that I took looking out from within the warehouse – just loved the feel of the characters.
Shot with my Nikon D600 and post-processed in Lightroom 5 and VSCO Film.
San Francisco’s Kearny Street is one of our favorite photographic stages – there are a couple of whole blocks that have no parking on the eastern side of the street – the side which is also well lit during the day. You can stand on the other side of the street and just wait for interesting things to happen.
Here’s one from a recent visit with my friend Doug Kaye. I enjoyed the shapes in this image: squares, rectangles, triangles – and cones! The simplicity is the shot.
Shot with my Fujifilm X-T1
Another image from my Fujifilm X-T1
The X-T1 is my new favorite camera – a joy to use and it produces some beautiful images!
Processed in Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC – monochrome conversion using VSCO Film – and a touch of platinum toning.
Here’s a different view of San Francisco’s Ferry Building taken from Pier 1. This was my first time on Pier 1 – one of those beautifully restored artifacts along San Francisco’s Embarcadero.
This image is from my iPhone 5s – post-processed in Lightroom with VSCO Film and a couple of other special presents.
I continue to delight in how great the whole renovation of San Francisco’s Embarcadero has turned out to be. Recently, I found a bench and just sat down and began taking pictures with my iPhone 5s as people walked, bicycled, ran, and skateboarded past. This was a great “stage” – with no parked cars along the curb and the interesting convergence of the Embarcadero Center buildings in the background. And that locked up bicycle provided an interesting element to “the set”. If you’re curious, this bench is just outside Pier 3 – a few steps south of the entrance to Hard Water.
After capturing this in my iPhone 5s, I post-processed it in Lightroom 5 applying a VSCO Film emulation and a bit more tweaking done in Photoshop CC.
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