San Francisco’s Bay Bridge Turns 75

Fuji X100 | 4 sec, f/8, ISO 200

On November 12, 1936, the Bay Bridge opened to traffic, making today its 75th birthday. So on my way to the East Bay this evening, we made a brief stop in Treasure Island to get a classic shot of the bridge with San Francisco in the background. A quick frame made with the X100 on a Gorilla Pod, jpeg processed in-camera.

iPhone 4s | 4.3mm f/2.4 | 1/20 sec ISO125

I actually had no idea about all this until I saw today’s newspaper this morning. The front page had a cool shot of the bridge taken the year it opened. Glad I checked, since I was passing over the Bridge today. Hope the sunset is equally beautiful tomorrow!

Faster Than Light

Well, not really but I thought it was cool title. Took this shot last night on the way home from the East Bay. That’s the wife driving, by the way. This was taken in the tunnel going through Treasure Island that leads to the upper deck of the Bay Bridge’s main span.

I have a second shot taken on the actual main span that looks really cool too. Check it out on my flickr page!

Nikon D300s + Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 at 11mm f/2.8 ISO200, 4 Seconds

The Dog Park Greeter

Nikon D300s + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D at f/2.0 ISO200 1/500 Second

Suki is an extremely social and friendly dog, especially for a Shiba Inu. At the dog park, she has this tradition of being the first to personally greet every dog that enters the gate. Every time she sees someone new entering the outer gate, she runs over to the same exact spot and sits while the newcomer gets ready to come through the inner gate:

Nikon D300s + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D at f/1.8 ISO200 1/250 Second

This wasn’t always her custom. When she was younger she’d rush the new dog and start wrestling with him or her. Now she keeps sitting as the new dog moves toward her. As the newcomer comes closer, she assumes a more playful stance:

Nikon D300s + Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D at f/1.8 ISO200 1/250 Second

Once they meet, Suki determines how social/anti-social the other dog is, and they usually end up running together and wrestling for a bit, that is, until the next dog begins to enter and Suki runs back to her “greeting spot.”

In other news, my latest Flickr photo appeared on Flickr’s Explore front page. Pretty cool!

click above to go to the image on flickr

This shot of the Bay Bridge was taken a couple months ago, but I wasn’t satisfied with the final result. I spent some time the other night re-interpreting the RAW file and finally came up with something I was happy with. I guess my Flickr contacts approved of it as well!

I’m not sure how the above images appear to you unfortunately. They appear washed out and stripped of contrast in Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. Sigh…

**update**

I finally figured out why these images were appearing different on my posts and am in the process of editing my affected blog posts one by one!

Back to Pier 14

Nikon D300s + Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 @ 11mm f/11, ISO200 45.0 Seconds

I took this photo this morning, after deciding to roll out of bed at 4:30am to catch the magic hour before dawn here in San Francisco. This is the black and white version of the same photo I’ll be posting on my flickr page. I set up out here at about 6:15am and waited for the sky to start changing color, which happened very suddenly at about 6:35am. I really wanted to stay longer, but I was parked at a metered parking spot that started at 7am. I also had to be at work by 8am, so I was long gone before the sun moved passed the eastern horizon. I really love shooting at dawn. It’s so peaceful and serene in the city before rush hour.