Colorful boats along Fishermans Wharf, San Francisco, California.
I photographed these colorful boats early one morning last week.
Nisene State Park
Greg Hales running through the redwoods in Nisene State Park, Aptos, California
I had never heard of this beautiful coastal California State Park until my buddy and Aptos resident brought me there last week. It is a beautiful area!
Greg is a lifelong friend and former college cross-country teammate of mine who continues to run at a very, very high level making him a perfect subject for these trails. With wonderful trails like this, it is easy to see why Greg enjoys running so much!
Not to be left out of the action is Greg’s wife Boom. It worked out well as my everyday model Janine wasn’t too excited to walk out on the log!
Boom Hales ih the redwoods of Nisene State Park, Aptos, California
Lightning
Lightning over Las Vegas, Nevada.
This was an image from a crazy lightning storm last night over Las Vegas – the thunder from this strike came quick, and was loud! The lightning was bright, it must have been close!
We almost never have lightning on the Alaska coast and because of this, I had never attempted to photograph it before. So that is why this image is from our campground. I thought I would experiment from camp to see what I got and wow, that is cool! It sounds like there is a good chance for more tonight – if so, I will go to a little more interesting location, maybe somewhere on the Strip or out into the middle of the desert.
For this image I set my ISO at 10o, and then dialed in an aperture small enough to give me a 30 second exposure which ended up being f/11, and then stood there and hit the shutter every 30 seconds. Of course it seemed like most of the good strikes happened between images, that is until this one.
I intend to share a few more photos from our jaunt to the Bay area here on the photo blog, but as you can see we are now in Las Vegas. We will work on some projects here for the next week or so before moving East towards Arizona / Utah.
Cable Cars
Cable car, San Francisco, California.
The San Francisco cable cars are hands down the funnest way to get around just about any city. These things have been in use around San Francisco for over a hundred years! Today, they would never build something that required some of the passengers to stand on a narrow platform using a single bar for balance as you hang off the side of the car and sometimes pass within a foot of similar passengers hanging from on-coming cars! It is crazy but fun.
Last week we walked almost the entire length of both routes trying to find different vantage points to photograph this attraction – these are two of a handful of photos that will one day be added to our collection of San Francisco photos.
Riding a cable car in San Francisco, California.
Alcatraz
The Cellhouse at Alcatraz, San Francisco, California.
This place is just eerie but fascinating – it is hard to imagine what prison life was like on this cold, remote island.
I took the tour to Alcatraz some 20 years ago and thought it was one of San Francisco’s best kept secrets. At the time the boat ride alone was worth the price of admission. Today the place is anything but a secret. Alcatraz was so crowded with visitors all walking at the same pace listening to the prerecorded message on Ipod like devices, that it is almost hard to pass through some areas. But, the recordings are really well done and include first hand accounts from guards and former prisoners. Really the whole place is a very unique experience and should be near the top of the list for any visit to San Francisco. Just be sure to swing by a day or two before to buy you tickets.
Glitz, Glamor and Gloom
A homeless person sleeps on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco, California.
I was attracted to the dichotomy of the high rise building and glamorous model compared to the homeless person sleeping on a sidewalk early yesterday morning. I was glad he didn’t hear me taking this photo.
Some more random thoughts:
San Francisco is a very interesting city. Along with the fancy buildings and wealthy businesses and individuals is a large homeless population. I don’t remember seeing so many homeless in a city except maybe in Reno. Along with the homeless is a large population of, for lack of a better word, weird people. After just one full day, seeing someone walking around talking to themselves doesn’t even draw my attention any more.
San Francisco has to be right up there in cell phones per capital and by in large the most technically advanced population that I have encountered. Last night I saw a person digging through trash cans for recycled bottles stop to answer a cell phone!
Thanks to Priceline, we were able to rent a nice car for $21 per day – I didn’t except to pay more then twice as much for a 24 hour parking spot then I did for the actual car! Although that is part of what makes San Francisco great – thanks to a wonderful mass transit system, you really don’t need a vehicle unless you are heading out of town.
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