A Big Win For San Francisco

Well, there you have it. The Giants won the World Series with a 4 game sweep, and San Francisco went crazy! I observed the pandemonium from the back seat of a friend’s car, stuck in traffic in the city:

Go Giants!

…and go Suki! I tried to put a Giants hat on her here but she wouldn’t have it.

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Canon 1D X + 24-70mm f/2.8 II (night shots) | 300mm f/2.8 IS II (Suki shot)

The Golden Gate’s 75th Anniversary

Olympus OMD E-M5 + Lumix G Vario  7-14mm f/4 at 13mm | 1.6 sec, f/5, ISO 200

This past Sunday marked the 75th anniversary of what is my opinion the most beautiful bridge in the world. After a long hike up the Marin Headlands in the afternoon, we settled down at an ideal spot to view the evening’s fireworks show. To stay light during the long hike, I left the dslr at home and brought along my smaller Olympus OM-D E-M5 to cover the event. The show was beyond amazing! I originally thought there’d be fireworks out over just the water with the bridge as a backdrop, but I had to pick my jaw back up off the floor when fire started shooting from the bridge itself.

On the drive home, I discovered that the OM-D has a pretty neat image overlay feature. I used it to cobble together some composite images in-camera, which you can output as JPEG or RAW files. It’s a great way to kick your fireworks photos up a notch:

Happy 75th, Golden Gate. I’ll never tire of photographing you!

Hanging Out. That’s it.

  Fuji XPRO-1 + 35mm f/1.4 XF R 

Sundays. They’re always extremely, incredibly, ridiculously busy. But not this past Sunday, when we decided to do absolutely nothing. at. all. Except for hang out at Four Barrel. Hey, we all need a lazy day to recharge every now and then, don’t we?

Forgot to charge the XPRO-1 after shooting with it the night before, so it died before I could take more than one frame (above). Doh. Took the following spread with the X100, which I still love! Hey, it’s lighter, smaller, quieter, and at least to me, prettier than the new XPRO, so it stays in the bag:

 Fuji X100

I always get a kick out of how much attention Suki gets when she’s around crowds of people.

“Is that a fox-wolf-coyote-jindo-akita-teddy-bear-basenji-finnish-spitz!?!?! No wait, isn’t that one of them Shibu Ibubus?!?!?!?!?!” Followed by lots of pats on her head and scratches behind her ears. She loves it.

 Fuji X100

Not a good year for Suki so far, though. She’ll be out of commission for two weeks while she recovers from yet another bout with allergies that flared up right after we enjoyed this one lazy day together. Cone of shame!

Food Trucks and Pink Peonies

Nikon D700 + Nikkor AFS 35mm f/1.4G | ¹/4,000 sec, f/2, ISO 400

Off the Grid is awesome for two reasons: great food, and Suki is allowed. The large, 30 food truck Off The Grid Market is held every Friday night at Fort Mason here in San Francisco. It was windy and drizzle fell on us the whole time, but oh well. Let’s eat!

Nikon D700 + Nikkor AFS 35mm f/1.4G | ¹/2,000 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800

Bridget and I had a very interesting dish: spicy curry chicken over sweet potato waffle fries. Sort of reminded me of the Pork Fries at Broken Record. Great stuff. We also got to meet up with artist and blogger Karleen, along with her husband. We spent most of our time with our cameras pointed Shibaward:

Nikon D700 + Nikkor AFS 35mm f/1.4G | ¹/1,600 sec, f/1.4, ISO 400

Suki had no issue doing “roll overs” and “shake paws” with her new friends. Impressive!

I’m sure you can see from the last three images that Suki is quite a tolerant Shiba!

I should probably mention that the images in this post are all processed in Lightroom 3 using Cara Rose’s “Suki” preset, a custom preset inspired by the artist’s first encounter with Suki. Cara was kind enough to send me the preset as a gift! The punchy contrast and warm glow it applies to my images was perfect for combating tonight’s dreary weather. The “Suki” is available as one of 12 custom-made presets in Cara’s San Francisco inspired preset package, which she sells here. Thank you, Cara!

Nikon D700 + Nikkor AFS 35mm f/1.4G | 1/2,000 sec, f/1.4, ISO 800

My little X100 stayed in the bag most of the evening, mainly due to all the drizzle. It still found its way into curious hands, however. Make sure to check out Karleen’s work at pinkpeonyphotography.blogspot.com.