Hey all. It’s been a minute since I had posted up a motovlog but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been recording any content. I’m still staying busy and grinding. Below is my latest motovlog as well as other knucklehead things that I’ve been up to.
Weather in San Francisco is normally mild sitting in the mid 60’s. When the day is hot, 70 is hot for San Franciscans, I take full advantage of the day by hitting the beach.
Karl (the fog) likes to come out and play when the weather is warm. When warm and hot air mixes with the cold Pacific Ocean, the fog comes out in force and blankets the Golden Gate Bridge. I was lucky on this day as I captured a selfie of myself on the Golden Gate Bridge.
Honestly, taking a selfie while riding a motorcycle isn’t the safest or smartest thing to do. But the same can be said about riding motorcycles in general. Just use your best judgment. Ride safe folks!
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?
What a wonderful day it is! Beautiful days like this makes me wished that I called in sick to work. To bad I hold myself to a high standard of work ethic to do such a juvenile thing. Plus I am off tomorrow and the sun can wait just one more day.
I hope that everyone else is enjoying the day or at least close to a window to soak up the sun.
People say that God works in mysterious ways. This Easter weekend, God was working one of his mysteries by bringing us rain. But even with the rain and the gray skies, God was telling us Happy Easter
The sun setting on SloatDouble rainbows over FedEx
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!
I’m going to try posting something up every Friday which will be called Friday Escape. Fridays are when most people are ending their weekly grind and starting their weekend. If you’re like me, by noon you’re ready to bolt out the door and get your weekend started. Hence, Friday Escape.
The idea behind Friday Escape is to post something that is relevant to the weekend quickly. Whether it is telling you about my plan for the weekend or an event that’s happening in the San Francisco Bay Area, since there is almost something going on every weekend here.
This week March Madness started and we have San Jose hosting several games that started Thursday at the HP Pavilion. Saturday you can catch a game our local team Cal take on Syracuse or Oregon against St. Louise, that is if tickets aren’t sold out.
The weather is going to be great all over the Bay so you can play tourist in the City, play at the many beautiful parks throughout the Bay Area, or locked in your room playing God of War: Ascension. What ever you chose to do, try not to miss out on the great weather this weekend. Crack the blinds open if you’ll be cooped up indoors. Keep in mind that we have spring showers coming in next week.
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:
From the Raygun Gothic Rocketship to the Bay Lights
Touched up:
From the Raygun Gothic Rocketship to the Bay Lights
What an amazing journey for the San Francisco Giants as they reign supreme over the Detroit Tigers. The Giants didn’t just have luck on their side but they had the skill to capitalize on opportunities and the hunger for the championship to sweep the Tigers.
Miguel Cabrera walks away after striking out to end Game 4. The Giants won, 4-3, to win the World Series. Photo courtesy of AP photographer Matt Slocum.
Triple Crown Miguel Cabrera goes home only as an ALCS champion after Sergio Romo stuck him out to end Game 4 while Pablo Sandoval earned the World Series MVP.
Time for the City to party and celebrate the next few nights after the Giants have won their 2nd World Series in 3 years. For those of you wondering when the World Series Victory parade will be held for the San Francisco Giants, it will be held Wednesday 11:00 AM from the foot of Market street to Civic Center. More information here. If the route is the same as the 2010 World Series victory parade, then it will look like this.
Just fair warning, there will be a slight chance of rain during the parade. To see the predicted weather for the victory parade, click here.
Now I need to find a reason to get out of the office to catch the parade o.O
I took advantage of being off this past Thursday by going out shooting with my brother James and my friend Jorman. We spent that afternoon going to several places taking shots of iconic structures of San Francisco, one of them being the Palace of Fine Arts.
Built in 1915, nine years after the devastation 1906 earthquake, San Francisco was back on its feet and wanted to show the world how it well the city was doing by holding the The Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE), World’s Fair, for the opening of the Panama Canal. There were plenty of magnificent structures that were built for the event such as the Palace of Horticulture and the Tower of Jewels. Sadly, like all World’s Fair, these great structures were only temporary. From all the grandeur of the PPIE, the only structure that remains is the Palace of Fine Arts.
Below is a panorama of the Palace of Fine Arts where you can see people enjoying the day and appreciating the spectacle before their eyes.
The Palace of Fine Art, San Francisco CA
The Palace of Fine Arts received a long overdue restoration that was completed in 2011. Some of the things that came with the face lift was the removal of the inset faces from under the dome of the rotunda. Pun intended, even though the pun was corny.
Below The Dome
To help give you an idea to how massive the rotunda is, I took a photo of a couple folks within the rotunda as they were going about shooting photos. The way I was able to take this photo was ever so gently scaling the steps up till I was a good 15′ – 20′ above the ground.
Scale Figure
The steps that I scaled are actually planters and at the time of taking the photo, there were no plants within the planters.
Empty Planter Steps
James took a picture of me while I started my decent back down, then posted the image on Instagram. As you can see the urns are approximately 10′ tall, making me appear diminutive.
Scaling The Steps
The landscaping is done so wonderful throughout the area for the Palace of Fine Arts. I am not a horticulturalist so I can’t name all the plants that surrounds the area, but the flowers, shrubs, and trees sure do compliment the areas and make the Palace of Fine Arts complete.
The Redwood Trees that grow on the grounds of the Palace of Fine Arts grow along side of the columns so naturally that they appear to be a part of the structure. The branches and leaves of the Redwood works well with the Corinthians capitals of the columns.
Redwood and Corinthians
Finally, a great feature of the Palace of Fine Arts is that the lagoon creates a tranquility to the space around it that brings in wildlife. The various wildlife that makes the Palace of Fine Arts their home ranges from ducks, swans, turtles, frogs, and many more. I had a great opportunity to shoot a few of the swans while we all were walking around taking photos.
Swan Lake
I can’t wait till I come back to the Palace of Fine Arts to snap some photos of this place. Next time I’ll do some HDR and/or Time Lapse. And once the weather cools down and the fog stops being a constant, I’ll have a chance to shoot the Palace of Fine arts at night for the first time.
Please leave any comments, feed back, negativity, positive stuff, and what nots about my post, grammar, photo skills, poor post production editing, and story telling skills since I am trying to be a better blogger, photographer, writer, and person.
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.
Bay Bridge – San Francisco’s End
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 