Tag: San Francisco

A Palace for the World’s Fair

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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.

Thanks!

The Bay Bridge

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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.

 

I Love This Shoreline

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Like many of you ticket holders, I received an alerting email from Ticket Masters stating that there are some changes to I Love This City. The news was shocking to me that I had to read the email twice to believe what I was reading. For those of you that have not purchased a ticket and are waiting for the right opportunity to purchase a ticket, You can click here to read the venue change. Below are the key changes:

  • ILTC venue will be moving from the At&t Lot to the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mt. View
  • The age limit to the event has been lowered from 18 to 16
  • The event has been extended from 11:00 to 11:30
  • Tickets that are available are for Lawn tickets

Some of you may be ecstatic that the venue is moving to a larger and more suitable location, while there are some that may be upset by the whole turn of events. I, myself, am upset.

Yes, the Shoreline has 3 stages that each will be expelling a plethora amount of energy and music. However now I have almost an hour commute that I have to account for to attend this event. My original plan was to get off work, catch the 22 to the Church station and take the T to the Park. Now after work I have to get to the park and then catch the shuttle to the Shoreline or find someone who I can carpool with. With the commute I will be missing 2 – 3 hours of the event. Then I have to head home either on the shuttle or with some friends.

With the age limit being lowered to 16, ILTC will be like going to an 18 and over club such as City Nights. That’s all that I am going to say about the age limit being lowered.

11:00 to 11:30. An extra half an hour. Wow. Really? Is that all that Live Nation is going to give us for their poor event planning skills? If I’m going to be out of the City having fun, I might as well do it right and stay out the whole night. Extend ILTC till midnight or 1 am! That would be great.

If you haven’t noticed, I’m really bitter about the change of venue. I’m sure that folks in the South Bay, East Bay, and Peninsula are stoked that they don’t have to drive into the City. I just moved into the city from Walnut Creek and was excited to go to my first SF event as a San Franciscan. Whoever was in charge of the logistics of the event should be fired. I emailed Ticket Masters to please explain why the venue has been change and hope to hear back from them soon. I should email Live Nation as well.

San Francisco already has so much events that take place in the city that I believe that ILTC could had still added much-needed revenue for the city and reaffirm that San Francisco is the go to destination for events in the San Francisco Bay Area.

As bitter as I am about the venue change, I will still be attending ILTC. When I get there I will enjoying myself to the fullest and not have negative vibes from the change of venue.

Obama 2012 Campaign

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As many of you know, or I hope that you know, that this year’s General Election is the Presidential Election and we will be electing who will be in the White House this coming January. Like many Presidential Election, this is the time that most people go out and vote while the rest of the time we let the absentee ballot sit in the junk mail pile or we find an excuse why we don’t have time to vote.

I’ll be honest, there were a few times that I didn’t take the time to vote because it was an inconvenient for me. That last statement is probably not the best thing for me to admit, but it happens. There’s so much going in our personal life that we (chose to) forget that it’s election time and don’t have the time to go out and vote. Work, school, relationships, polling locations, unaware about certain details of propositions, etc. are reasons that some of us make up not to vote.

Now that I am finished with college and have grown more mature, I have a better understanding on the importance of voting. Well I’ve always knew that voting was important but this time I actually care about what happens on my street, in my community, city, county, state, and nation that I am making a commitment to vote every time the opportunity comes up. To vote is not just my right but a privilege that many people do not have, not just in the US but in many parts of the world.

To mark this year as a year of change and growth for me, I am continuing the growth process by being active with Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign. The way that I am being active with the campaign is by volunteering my time with the local Obama campaign party in San Francisco. Thursday was the first time that I was part of a campaign to help someone into office. It was great meeting other volunteers, like myself, that are passionate in getting Obama reelected into office.

Today I did some cold calls telling folks that their past support for Obama is greatly appreciated and asked them if they are still in support of Obama. If they were in support of Obama, I would also ask if they would like to volunteer their time to help make sure that Obama stays in office. Asides from cold calling, I also did some simple data entry.

Over all it was a great experience and I am glad that I took the time to volunteer to be involved with the Obama reelection campaign. I look forward to next week’s volunteer event with the great folks that I met and fire people up to hit the polling stations in June and November.

To learn more about the campaign and/or want to be involved with the campaign, click here: OBAMA 2012

Thanks Fam!

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"Easy Rider"
The "Easy Rider" Nylon and Leather Messenger Bag from Kenneth Cole

My family and girlfriend are so great! They got together to chip in on a new bag for me 🙂

It’s funny how I was actually shopping around for a new bag for the new job that I start this week. I already have Dakine backpack and a Timbuk2 messenger bag but I was looking around for a new bag that was more mature and professional to take to work.

Today I was walking around with Matt and Annie at the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall when I followed them into the Kenneth Cole store. After looking around for a minute Matt and Annie tells me to pick a bag.

“Huh?” was my reaction.

That’s when Matt told me that he got together with the family to get me a new bag for work.

After almost an hour at looking at bags at Kenneth Cole I decided to go with the modern looking Kenneth Cole “Easy Rider” Nylon & Leather Messenger Bag. The Nylon material gives the bag a modern sleek look while the leather flap still gives the bag a classy traditional look of a working mans bag.

Thanks again to all my loved ones! I love the bag! This bag will help me give confidence and the look of a professional to succeed in my career.

Manning – Mullin

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Today Peyton Manning is officially a Denver Bronco. Yes many knew of the news yesterday but the announcement made today made it official. Manning watch is over and now the future NFL Hall of Famer will start a new chapter in the Mile High Stadium. There are still questions that need to be answered in Denver but as well as around in the NFL.

WWTP (Where Will Tebow Play) was trending for a second as the Tim Tebow nation pondered the question. What will happen to Alex Smith and the 49ers since they failed to court Manning? Who will control the AFC East now that Manning is the go to guy in Denver? Who else from the Colts are coming to Denver?

There is still a lot of free agency talks and rumors going around the nation. Plus we have the highly anticipated NFL draft next month. Then OTA’s, preseason, then finally the NFL regular season. I just love the NFL talk year round!

But let’s put the NFL talk on pause because last night an NBA legend and Hall of Famer, Chris Mullin #17, had his jersey retired in Oakland. The Warriors organization did a great job honoring Mullin by creating #17 signs for fans to hold up, gave away Chris Mullin bobble head dolls, and dedicated almost half an hour half time ceremony to honor Mullin.

The ceremony was going great until the end when Warriors owner Joe Lacob took the mic to adress the crowd. Once Lacob had the mic the Warrior fans let him know their displeasure on how he has handled the organization with a roar of boos. There are sport analysts that say that the Warriors fans did a disservice to Mullin by tainting his ceremony with boos, even though they were not directed at him. Some analyst argue that last night was the only time that fans could express themselves how they felt about Lacob.

I’m going to have to agree with the beforehand than the later. The way the Warrior fans acted last night was just classless and Mullin did not deserved to hear the boos even though they were not directed at him. The fans should be ashamed for booing while wearing blue and yellow at a time when honoring one of their own.

Closing notes: the Arizona Cardinals locked down their #2 receiver, Early Doucet, with a 2 year contract. And we’ll see if the Niners can close their 3yr $24M contract with Alex Smith tonight.