With the Exploratorium opening next week, the back side of Pier 15 should be open up to the public (not sure if it is closed off due to construction). With a view of the Bay Bridge’s Bay Lights to the east and the City’s skyline to the west, Pier 15 can be a new hot spot for photogs. What do you think of the view?
Well, I found myself back at the Embarcadero this past Sunday. I was just planning on heading home right after work but my brother wanted to go out and shoot. So I went and grabbed my camera from home only to find it dead when I tried using it. Burn… Well, More panoramic shots from my cell phone. Cheers!
Last weekend I was down at the Embarcadero with my brother James. While I was there, I took several panoramic shots of the area with my Samsung Galaxy Note II. I’m pretty impressed with the quality of the picture and how fast the phone processes the image. Below you can view both the untouched original photo followed by a quickly edited version. Let me know what you folks think about both original and edited image or how great cell phone cameras are or how I need more practice on Photoshop. Thanks!
Original:
Touched up:
Original:
Touched up:
Last weekend my brother and I had time to check out the Bay Lights. I only had my GoPro Hero2 on me which I used to capture movements of the world’s largest art installation. Sadly the GoPro doesn’t record urban night shots that well. Instead of uploading an ok video of the Bay Lights, I figured that I’d throw it in a mix of videos and try to tell a story with it. Let me know what you folks think about. Thanks!
With the New England quake and today being the 23rd anniversary of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, I thought I’d share my experience from that October day.
In 1989 I was ten years old and growing up in the hard streets of Oakland, a city that is approximately 12 miles east of San Francisco. To better defend myself form the punks in the neighborhood, my mom signed both my brother and I up for taekwondo classes.
On October 17th, 1989 I was at my taekwondo class which started at 5. We were done with our warm ups and were beginning our stretches with everyone sitting on the floor in a circle. As we sat there facing each other, I felt the need to fart. I slowly turned my body to one side to help the gas escape out slowly and quietly. While farting all my concentration was on myself trying to be a ninja and not make any noise. Next thing I knew the everyone got up screaming and running towards me to get to the door behind me. The room was rocking left and right but I just thought that someone had bumped into me. This whole time my thoughts were that everyone heard me fart and the room smelled hella bad, which is why everyone bolted for the door to get outside. As I sat there alone in the circle, I noticed that the rocking hasn’t stopped. That is when I knew that there was something wrong. I don’t remember getting up, all I remember was running for the door.
As I look back to the event, I’m just glad that I didn’t shit myself. As selfish as it sounds, I’m grateful that I did not lose anyone close to me that day.
Below is a California Highway Patrol recount and investigation from that day:
Part 1 of 2
Part 2 of 2
A few days ago, after work, I headed over to both the Yerba Buena Island and Treasure Island to meet up with some friends (Joe Ercoli, Tom Finale, Paul Giani, … Continue reading Good Times on the Islands
I’ll be going out to Yerba Buena Island today after work to take some photos of the Bay Bridge. I’ve been wanting to take pictures of both the San Francisco span and Oakland span of the Bay Bridge ever since I posted pictures of the bridge on this blog. Joe Ercoli, Tom Finale, James Perez, Paul Giani, Jorman Koon, and I will be making the trek around the island. This time I’ll be taking my GoPro HERO2 and a POS Canon PowerShot ELPH 100 HS since I no longer have my Canon Rebel XSi.
With the GoPro, I’m going to attempt to do a time lapse of the sun setting in the west with the San Francisco Bay Bridge span in the foreground. I haven’t had the chance to pick up the LCD Back for the GoPro so I’ll be shooting blind, technically. I’ve played around with the GoPro enough that I have an idea of what I’ll be capturing.
Once the sun set, we’ll be heading to the east end of the island to take shots of the Oakland span that has both the new Bay Bridge and current Bay Bridge section. There has been a lot of progress done to the new span of the bridge since the last time that I was there on Yerba Buena Island. The bridge now have cables hanging down from the main cable.
The photo above was taken from an ACTransit bus as I was heading to the East Bay. So as you can tell from the Google Map photo from the very top of this post, that when compared to the Instagram photo above, there has been a ton of progress on the new span.
I plan on shooting the Oakland span with the POS Canon. I’m worried about the quality of photos that I’ll get. I hope that it wont be a waste of time trying to shoot with the POS. Actually, I know it wont be a true waste of time since I’ll be seeing friends that I haven’t seen in few months. I do know that the POS is not a DSLR and that the quality will not be as good.
We are just have to stay tuned to see how everything turned out. So stay tuned. Maybe if time permits I’ll post something from tonight’s photo adventure later early tomorrow morning.
I’ve been crossing across the Bay Bridge lately and each time I cross the bridge, I feel that it’s time to go take another visit to Yerba Buena Island. From … Continue reading Time to Visit Yerba Buena Island. Again.
It’s amazing how foggy San Francisco is right now. The fog is thick and damp as it covers the City while the rest of the Bay Area is trying to survive a heat wave.
This time last year, the fog was the same. I remember that the City was foggy last year because a few friends (Tom Finale, Joe Ercoli, and Paul Giani) came up to the city to do a photo shoot last August. You can see the photo from that photo shoot here. After the shoot, we had dinner and talked about what iconic landmarks should we shoot while in the City. Palace of Fine Arts, Legion of Honor, Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, Lombard Street, and many more were name dropped. The only problem those landmarks that night was the fog. Since the fog comes from the west, we decided to try our luck east. We ended up at the San Francisco’s end of the Bay Bridge.
The fog was present but light. The look on the faces of my fellow photographers showed misery but yet we made the most of the night. We ended up shooting the Raygun Gothic Rocket, the Bay Bridge, and other stuff that I don’t remember. Below is the shot of the Bay Bridge that I got from that night.
I’d love to shoot the San Francisco’s end of the Bay Bridge again but on a more clearer night. In fact, there are a lot of places that I still have not had a chance to shoot. We’ll see how the rest of this year goes and how much shooting I get done.
As for now, I need to take advantage of the fog and learn how to work with it as many photo ops are not going to be set in ideal conditions.
johnydecali 