Beautiful Day Off in San Francisco

Enjoying the Day, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

I stayed up way too late last night cleaning up my Facebook profile. Woke up too early to keep at it. I did manage to get out of the house for a couple of hours and take some pictures. It was a bright, shiny yet mild summer day in San Francisco, exactly the kind of day I love the city for.

As for the pictures, just when I think I'm getting a style down I start playing with each picture so I can't even post 5 pictures that look like they have anything in common. Well, I'm still learning the art.

Like I said, I updated my facebook profile to better reflect where I am at both in the world and on the internet. I got friended yesterday by an old high school buddy. It was nice to catch up. I'm sure that's one reason why I've got Joe Walsh playing after listening to The Cure all night long. Days gone by, you know.

While I was poking around the old internet tubes I came upon yet another of those web 2.0 aggregators called FriendFeed. I like it, it's very easy to use and you can set it up for yourself or anyone else, whether or not they use the service.

Anyway enjoy the pictures. Back soon.

Testing the Prime

Gripman on Brake, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

I took my camera with me when I headed down to the Embarcadero to get a haircut. I spent part of the morning trying to decipher what the moderators were looking for in a flickr group dedicated to my favorite photographer Henri Cartier Brenson. The name of the group is Decisive Moments after HBC's collection of photographs covering 1930 to 1957. There was much debate about what exactly a decisive moment was. Some people took it as the moment when something signficant happens in the subjects life. Other's saw it more as a play of time and alignment between photographer, subject and environment. HBC wrote about the term like this, "...the decisive moment, it is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression."

After having 3 of the 4 pictures I submitted rejected I thought I would try to think more like Henri and only took out my 50mm "Prime" lens. No hiding behind a long lens today. No being lazy and using the zoom instead of my feet to frame the picture. It was tough but I did manage this capture which I like very much. I was sitting on the California line waiting for this guy and the conductor to finish their breaks for the ride home. I like this shot but I'm not going to send it to the Decisive Moment group. The one thing I think I have learned is that those guys are elitist jerks.

Stella!

This is a Berry Stella. It is my favorite baked good from Starbucks.
Ever. I have had one every work day since they started carrying them.
They seem to violate Starbucks rule against any moistness in any
breakfast bread. But they come with an bonus. Whenever the cashier
calls out to have it pulled I get treated to a personal audition for
"Streetcar Named Desire" Stellaaaa!

Vacation Almost at an End

Rincon Tower, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

Well tomorrow, scratch that, today is my last day off. I didn't take a lot of pictures, I didn't write on my blog very much. Still I'm not unhappy. I taught myself a new workflow using Capture NX and I'm sure that I'm going to be putting out better and better pictures because of it. I also managed to get all my image files into one place on Aperture and that was no small feat. But the most important thing I did was to finally get some pictures printed. I had 20 8x10 and 8x12's printed on Kodak ENDURA Metallic Paper. I love the way they turned out. I spent Monday mounting and framing 10 of them.

Anyway there are five new architecture pictures up on flickr. This one of Rincon Tower through a chain link fence is my favorite.

Theives!!!

Dykes on Bikes, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

Yesterday's column by San Francisco Chronicle muckrakers Maiter and Ross featured this photo I took during this year's Pride Parade. It is not one of the ones I submitted to the SFGate this week. I'm also not the person that forwarded it to the both the Chronicle as well as the Fire Department. Maiter and Ross are stirring up a controversy based on whether or not that is San Francisco FireFighter Sabine Balden's badge on her bustier. I've looked at the full size picture uncropped and blown up and I can't tell although it sure is in the right shape on top.

As the article was the #1 emailed on the Gate last night I guess I'm happy that one of my pictures got so much exposure. On the other hand I'm annoyed that it's up without my credit and that emails requesting my credit be applied to the picture have gone unresponded by both Matier and Ross and the Chronicle's photo editor. And I sure as heck don't want to get someone in trouble with at their job based on a picture I took.

Anyway here is a link to the Column.

Transamerica Pyramid

Transamerica Pyramid, originally uploaded by lacadaz.

I probably should have spent my day off working on the rest of the Pride pictures but I was hit by the desire to hit the road and take some more building shots. JPEG magazine has a submission theme open for "Geometry" so I thought I would take some photos of our city's most famous pyrimid.

Fire on Union Street

So this was the scene about a half a block from my store just about an
hour ago. One of the old buildings that houses a Tibetian shop run by
a wonderful lady named Gity Joon caught fire and it seemed like the
whole fire department responded. It looks like the fire was confined
to the upper floors and the SFFD had it out pretty fast but it sure
caused a stir to end the evening.