schmoo
Dec-13-2007, 08:52 PM
It's been a week since I've been back and I'm still trying to blink and regain my senses from a great weekend the San Francisco Bay Area.
I love SF. Its natural allure was made even sweeter by the temptation of the Smugmug bash and seeing friends that I don't see but once or twice a year. How could I not go? I skipped some work, hopped a plane and landed right in the middle of it. There was some scary flight stuntwork on the way, but it was alright. I know a couple of pilots and they're still alive (I think). :D
The weekend was a blur, completely swirling with smiles and anxiety and great food and great hunger and private jokes and totally clueless moments, new faces and old faces. Time has surely never slipped by so quickly and I am even more smitten by the beautiful Californian scenery. Good memories are evil like that, tainting the already existing draw of looking up job openings and apartment listings!
There was very little that I came back with photographically. The Saturday after the big SmugEvent was reserved for shooting but I hardly ever hit the shutter. 1 PM at Fort Point, that was the Big Plan. I was kind of secretly thrilled, actually, because I loved it when Jimmy Stewart jumped for Kim Novak when she threw herself after those rose petals.
Down Under
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/232096777-L-2.jpg
There's no way I could make this scene look new but at least I have one for myself, now. Soon after I grumped about sea spray on my polarizer and inadvertently blocked Devbobo's shot I followed Andy into the old Fort. "I always thought this place looked cool!" Shizam said, "and I wondered if you could go in."
My response: "D00D, YOU LIVE HERE!" :lol3
Devbobo setting up. He's such a nice guy, he'll sit there and talk to you forever and never tell you that he's waiting for you to get the f&$% out of the way he can take the shot:
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/232097198-L-2.jpg
It was kind of weird being in a (technically) abandoned building with these guys because this is a very different sphere of my life. But it was also very cool. I couldn't stop to think or set up, and the ghosts in this place were long, long gone. It's clean, neat, tidy - amazingly tidy considering there is no roof and the proximity to the ocean. Historic monuments like this are always sterile and a bit sad. Safe. I missed the smell of animal and human refuse, actually, because in a way the scene was just slightly out of true without the full sense-o-matic experience of an abandoned building.
I loved the geometric shapes created by the arches across the courtyard. As I was shooting the shadows and sunspots this runner came through my shot. I'm glad she did.
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/232028133-L-2.jpg
Although this is the smallest section of the Golden Gate Bridge, it is enormous when you're standing right under it. I remembered just a few days before someone had posted a thread with these views - and funny enough as famous as Fort Point is, I had never seen or noticed this perspective until I saw their shots and it just clicked. Thank you, I love my fellow shooters on Dgrin!
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/232096401-L-2.jpg
Sunset was planned for somewhere on the Marin Headlands. Ian chose us a spot way high up and we climbed down the hill a ways to get away from the main gaggle of tourists. It was a good spot. The inevitable line o' cameras was set up and we sat to wait. And wait. And geek, and joke, and snarf cookies, and wait, and slide on our butts, and wait.... you get the picture (pun intended).
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/230189680-M-1.jpg
Everyone was taking panos (esp that guy Devbobo, geeze! He's a friggin' pano machine) and I felt very unproductive standing there hopping up and down in the cold and watching them all do the dirty work. I ended up taking a lot of double photos just like these...
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/232103008-L-2.jpg
... but I never seemed to like the 5 or 6 shots that were sandwiched between them. We watched the cargo ships sail in and out of the bay, bringing goods from across the ocean from mystic lands. To our right was the Pacific, and although this is my far the least dramatic photo I took that day it is my favorite of the entire weekend:
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/232097371-L-2.jpg
Sunset over the ocean. I have never seen this sight before. Looking at this photo even now is a very personal and moving experience. After we packed up and headed to dinner we drove through some of the most beautiful Californian neighborhoods with some of the largest houses I have ever laid eyes on... but all I could see were the lights coming on across the water, the sun sinking below the horizon and the silhouettes of the cypress trees. The world suddenly seemed so big, so endless and so powerful.
Photography, friends, and one of the best cities in the world. What else could anyone possibly ask for? Thank you to everyone who made it possible. Everyone!
I love SF. Its natural allure was made even sweeter by the temptation of the Smugmug bash and seeing friends that I don't see but once or twice a year. How could I not go? I skipped some work, hopped a plane and landed right in the middle of it. There was some scary flight stuntwork on the way, but it was alright. I know a couple of pilots and they're still alive (I think). :D
The weekend was a blur, completely swirling with smiles and anxiety and great food and great hunger and private jokes and totally clueless moments, new faces and old faces. Time has surely never slipped by so quickly and I am even more smitten by the beautiful Californian scenery. Good memories are evil like that, tainting the already existing draw of looking up job openings and apartment listings!
There was very little that I came back with photographically. The Saturday after the big SmugEvent was reserved for shooting but I hardly ever hit the shutter. 1 PM at Fort Point, that was the Big Plan. I was kind of secretly thrilled, actually, because I loved it when Jimmy Stewart jumped for Kim Novak when she threw herself after those rose petals.
Down Under
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/232096777-L-2.jpg
There's no way I could make this scene look new but at least I have one for myself, now. Soon after I grumped about sea spray on my polarizer and inadvertently blocked Devbobo's shot I followed Andy into the old Fort. "I always thought this place looked cool!" Shizam said, "and I wondered if you could go in."
My response: "D00D, YOU LIVE HERE!" :lol3
Devbobo setting up. He's such a nice guy, he'll sit there and talk to you forever and never tell you that he's waiting for you to get the f&$% out of the way he can take the shot:
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/232097198-L-2.jpg
It was kind of weird being in a (technically) abandoned building with these guys because this is a very different sphere of my life. But it was also very cool. I couldn't stop to think or set up, and the ghosts in this place were long, long gone. It's clean, neat, tidy - amazingly tidy considering there is no roof and the proximity to the ocean. Historic monuments like this are always sterile and a bit sad. Safe. I missed the smell of animal and human refuse, actually, because in a way the scene was just slightly out of true without the full sense-o-matic experience of an abandoned building.
I loved the geometric shapes created by the arches across the courtyard. As I was shooting the shadows and sunspots this runner came through my shot. I'm glad she did.
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/232028133-L-2.jpg
Although this is the smallest section of the Golden Gate Bridge, it is enormous when you're standing right under it. I remembered just a few days before someone had posted a thread with these views - and funny enough as famous as Fort Point is, I had never seen or noticed this perspective until I saw their shots and it just clicked. Thank you, I love my fellow shooters on Dgrin!
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/232096401-L-2.jpg
Sunset was planned for somewhere on the Marin Headlands. Ian chose us a spot way high up and we climbed down the hill a ways to get away from the main gaggle of tourists. It was a good spot. The inevitable line o' cameras was set up and we sat to wait. And wait. And geek, and joke, and snarf cookies, and wait, and slide on our butts, and wait.... you get the picture (pun intended).
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/230189680-M-1.jpg
Everyone was taking panos (esp that guy Devbobo, geeze! He's a friggin' pano machine) and I felt very unproductive standing there hopping up and down in the cold and watching them all do the dirty work. I ended up taking a lot of double photos just like these...
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/232103008-L-2.jpg
... but I never seemed to like the 5 or 6 shots that were sandwiched between them. We watched the cargo ships sail in and out of the bay, bringing goods from across the ocean from mystic lands. To our right was the Pacific, and although this is my far the least dramatic photo I took that day it is my favorite of the entire weekend:
http://schmoo.smugmug.com/photos/232097371-L-2.jpg
Sunset over the ocean. I have never seen this sight before. Looking at this photo even now is a very personal and moving experience. After we packed up and headed to dinner we drove through some of the most beautiful Californian neighborhoods with some of the largest houses I have ever laid eyes on... but all I could see were the lights coming on across the water, the sun sinking below the horizon and the silhouettes of the cypress trees. The world suddenly seemed so big, so endless and so powerful.
Photography, friends, and one of the best cities in the world. What else could anyone possibly ask for? Thank you to everyone who made it possible. Everyone!