While walking up one of our favorite blocks on Kearny Street in San Francisco, I happened to notice this woman in a beautifully lit alley off to my left. She was eating an apple – and casting a lovely image against that stage of a background.
Shot with my Fujifilm X-E2 and post-processed in Lightroom with VSCO Film 04 (Velvia 50).
An earlier image from this series follows. I love the stars and moons in her shoes!
This morning I headed over to Half Moon Bay and then south on Highway 1 to the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. I was thinking I’d capture some of the fields of yellow that bloom in the springtime along the coast – but none of them motivated me to shoot! So I kept heading to the lighthouse – it’s always interesting and the weather can be hard to predict.
When I came up on it, it was swirling around in between the fog and the blue skies above – a very interesting subject to photography. The image above is one of the first. I’ve included a couple of others below. These images were shot with my Fujifilm X-E2 and Fujifilm X100S – and processed using VSCO Film in Lightroom.
A beautiful morning along the coast!
A couple weeks back I headed to Filoli for my first visit this year – with my trusty Fujifilm X-E2
Here are two versions of the same image from the X-E2. The top version has been processed in Lightroom with VSCO Film 05 which adds a film like quality to the overall image.
The version below is that same processed image but after a pass through Photoshop CC and a touch of the Oil Paint filter applied. I like both versions a lot – but find the visual interest added by the oil paint filter keeps my eye more engaged looking at the painterly version!
I’ve written before how one of the fun parts of street photography is to find an interesting background and then wait for something interesting to appear within it.
This is a shot like that – taken along San Francisco’s Kearny Street – when there’s no parking and the shops along the street provide a wonderful backdrop – a perfect stage. Gotta love those boots!
This image was shot with my Fujifilm X-E2 and post processed using Lightroom and VSCO Film 05.
In 2007, I got back into photography in a more serious way using the birth of my first grandchild as a bit of an excuse to get a “good” camera. That camera was a Canon 30D – and it served me well for a couple of years before I upgraded to a 40D and then, ultimately a Canon 5D Mark II. The 5D marks the end of the road for me with Canon – as I’m selling all of my Canon lenses and the 5D body to make way for the new mirrorless cameras from Fujifilm – but that’s another story.
In June 2008, I went to the helicopter airshow that used to be held at San Carlos Airport. One of the events that day was an enlistment ceremony conducted by the US Marine Corps. Here’s a shot, processing in black and white with a touch of platinum toning, from that ceremony.
Today was my friend Chris Gulker’s 63rd birthday.
I had the great good fortune of meeting Chris a few years before he died in late October 2010. We had a wonderful routine of twice weekly Tuesday/Thursday 1.5 mile walks around his neighborhood. I’d bring along Lily, our Cavalier King Charles spaniel, and the three of us would make the route together. Lily exploring all of the smells and sounds, Chris and I talking about the tech and photography news of the week. It was just wonderful.
Today is Chris’ 63rd birthday. This image is from October 11, 2010 as he was showing me some of his beautiful black and white prints from his years as a photographer in Los Angeles. Such a gentle man and a great teacher.
For about a year, back in 2012, the Raygun Rocket stood along San Francisco’s Embarcadero just south of the Ferry Building. It’s gone now.
This is an image shot with my tiny Canon PowerShot S100 of one of Muni’s F-line streetcars – in a beautiful orange and yellow paint scheme – easing on by the rocket with the Bay Bridge in the distance.
A friend commented on Facebook: “Looks like you shot this in 1950!” Indeed!…
Here’s an image shot with my iPhone 4S on one of San Francisco’s F-line streetcars. On this particular day, Doug Kaye and I were exploring around Fisherman’s Wharf as he was preparing for an upcoming photowalk scheduled for that area. When we were done exploring, we caught one of the F-line streetcars back to the Ferry Building where we then headed for home.
After getting on the streetcar, I capture this quick grab shot one we got moving. Post-processing in the iPhone originally using Snapseed and later in Lightroom and Photoshop – adding a touch of platinum toning.
There’s a wonderful Japanese restaurant in Menlo Park’s Sharon Heights Shopping Center – Mitsunobu. The windows at Mitsunobu have these beautiful wood inlays with lovely curves.
This is a shot snapped quickly at lunch using my iPhone 5s – post-processed using Picturesque and Instagram. Nothing fancy – but I find it pretty none the less with the beautiful color and texture in the wood and the abstract of the screen behind!
Filoli has a wonderful grove of olive trees outside the Visitor Center. I shot this image with my Fujifilm X-E2 – and post-processed it using Photoshop CC, Nik’s Silver Efex Pro, and more. A bit of platinum toning tweaked the color just a bit.