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Fujifilm X-E2 Lightroom Photography Photography - Fujifilm X-E2 San Francisco/California

New Year’s Day 2014

Blue Note - San Francisco - 2014

For the last several years, I’ve headed north to San Francisco on New Year’s Day for some photography. Often, at this time of year, we’ve interesting weather and skies – making for some great opportunities along the coast and at the Golden Gate Bridge.

This year, we weren’t blessed with any of that kind of weather – just another day in paradise with clear blue skies and temperatures approach 70 degrees. I’ve been fighting a nasty cold for the last week or so – and was dying to get outside to do some shooting. Doug Kaye and I decided we’d head for our favorite spot – meeting up around the Ferry Building and heading out from there.

While we’ve shot many times around the Ferry Building, Embarcadero Center, etc. we had not headed north on the Embarcadero and had missed the venues for some great photography along that side.

Over the holiday season, I’d received a card from a friend that had a perspective I’d never seen – turns out it was shot from Pier 7 – a venue we’d never explored. So this morning we did. You can find the set of my images from today here on Flickr.

This particular image is one that I really enjoy. At the new Exploratorium location at Piers 15-17 there’s Fog Bridge – a work by Fujiko Nakaya. It fires off every 30 minutes and Doug and I waited to see it in action. I shot the image above with my Fujifilm X-E2 and post-processed it in Lightroom 5. I call it “Blue Note“.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to explore the inside of the new Exploratorium today – but it’s on our list for future visit!

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iPhone 5 Lightroom Living Photography

Happy New Year 2014!

Coastal Light - Pigeon Point - 2012

Today is my father’s birthday – he was born December 31, 1921 and would have been 92 years old today.

His father, my grandfather, was born on December 24, 1879.

Two Carl’s – one born on Christmas Eve, the other on New Year’s Eve. On this New Year’s Eve, I remember them both. Wonderful fathers indeed.

Happy New Year! Best wishes for a great 2014!

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Black and White Lightroom Monochrome Photography Photography Photography - Canon 5D Mark II Photoshop CC San Francisco/California

That Garlic Time in San Francisco’s North Beach

The Stinking Rose - San Francisco -2009

Here’s another image from my August 2009 workshop with Chris Honeysett in San Francisco’s North Beach. Shot outside The Stinking Rose with my Canon 5D Mark II.

Converted to black and white in the camera – and tweaked in Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC.

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Lightroom Photography Photography - Canon 5D Mark II Photoshop CC San Francisco/California

Old and New – Columbus and Montgomery in San Francisco

North Beach Hotel - San Francisco - 2009

This is an image that’s been shot many, many times in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood.

On this Saturday morning in August 2009 we had some special light and I captured this image with my Canon 5D Mark II.

Post-processed in Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC with a touch of the Oil Paint filter to add a bit of texture.

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Photography Photography - Canon 5D Mark II San Francisco/California

An Early Sunday Morning on San Francisco’s California Street

California Street - San Francisco - 2009

Three and half years ago – August 2009 – I took my first photo workshop. Led by Chris Honeysett, it was a Saturday-Sunday session. On Saturday, we scoured North Beach – it was amazing. On Sunday, we met early – 5 AM at the Transamerica Pyramid and then walked up to Chinatown and down Grant Avenue to Grant and California. At that corner I captured this image with my Canon 5D Mark II.

I’ll never forget this workshop with Chris – I learned so much about how to see thanks to his teaching. Part of the time, we had our cameras set to display monochrome images on the LCDs on our cameras. That was such a great learning experience – about seeing light and shadow without the distraction of color. I’ve applied that learning many times over.

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iPhone 5s New York City Photography Stages

Using Stages in Photography

stages-text

One of the most useful concepts for street photograph is the idea of finding a stage – a background that’s interesting and appropriate for an image – and then waiting for something unusual to happen like a person walking into the frame.

This technique requires pre-visualizing the scene and then getting the camera prepared. This is often best done by switching to manual mode and prefocusing on either the background – if that’s what you want in focus – or on the area where the person/people might be. It’s your creative choice – but get the camera ready.

Sam Abell, as described by one of the attendees at one of his workshops, described his approach: “A key idea in Sam’s approach is to first identify the background. With a promising background, you then wait for the light and the subject to complete the photograph. … Find the right background, wait for the right light, wait for the right subject, nail the exposure, pay attention to details of micro composition, take the picture.”

I’ve written a number of articles here about images I’ve shot using this notion of stages – you can see them here.

This particular image is inside Radio City Music Hall in New York City – shot with my iPhone 5s. Of course, it’s just a stage – waiting to be filled!

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New York City Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S90

In Love in Central Park

In Love - Central Park - 2010

I just finished watching a street photography course that Ming Thein recently published – and have been going back some of my earlier images from visits to New York.

Tonight I came across this image – of a couple in beautiful light on a rock in New York’s Central Park. The original image wasn’t very sharp – shot with my tiny Canon PowerShot S90 – so I opted to exploit the light and textures instead – using a painterly treatment in Photoshop CC along with some other tricks.

I love how the light turned out – and how they’re so present in the image.

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Instagram iPhone 5s Photography Stanford

Channeling Edward Hopper at Stanford’s Cool Cafe

Lone Diner - Cool Cafe at Stanford - 2013

We headed over at lunchtime today to meet friends at Cool Cafe – Jesse Cool’s delightful cafe at the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford. I’ve recently had foot surgery (hammertoe) so I opted to grab the tables for the four of us while the others ordered.

While waiting, I happened to look left and noticed this lovely shot – which I captured with my iPhone 5s and adjusted using a couple of the iPhone adjustment apps including Instagram. The colors and effect reminded me of the beautiful work of Edward Hopper!

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Photography Photography - Canon PowerShot S100 Photoshop CC San Francisco/California VSCO Film

Car 28 on Powell Street

Car 28 - San Francisco - 2012

In April 2012 Doug Kaye and I met at the San Francisco Powell Street BART station. Because of the weather, we thought we might spend our time that day on the trains and in the stations – but when we got to Powell Street we could see daylight so we met in the station and headed upstairs.

This image was captured with my tiny Canon PowerShot S100. I was always drawn to this image because of the street advertising on the left side – seemed pretty cool!

The image was post-processed in Lightroom 5 using VSCO Film 04 and then into Photoshop CC where a radial blur filter helped add a sense of motion to the cable car coming down the tracks.

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Berkeley Cuba Faces of Cuba Filoli Photography Rodeo Beach

Picking Five from 2013

Picking Five from 2013

[Note: First published earlier today on InMenlo.com: A few great memories from photography explorations in 2013]

Looking back over a year is something many of us do at this holiday season. I’ve enjoyed looking back at 2013, as it appears in my Lightroom catalog of images captured over the year.

I find it sort of amazing that Lightroom reports I’ve taken 7,697 images in 2013. Good grief! I recently put together a Flickr set of the top 100 images of mine from 2013 based upon views and votes as favorites. But I wanted to also do a more personal look back, choosing just five images from my photography explorations this year.

Much of my joy of photography, by the way, comes from long walks taken a few years ago with InMenlo co-founder Chris Gulker â€” a very talented photographer who taught me well.

So, here we go…