Tomales Bay + fog bank

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photo by Donald Kinney

Ah yes, I do my banking at the Fog Bank...
And if fog was worth anything, I would be rich...


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Golden Gate Bridge in fog

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photo by Donald Kinney

This is a fairly common sight, believe it or not...

Fog often seems to cling to the cables and structure, and of course, in the San Francisco Bay Area we have no shortage of fog.


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Dark Strokes -- Photoshop filter

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photo by Donald Kinney

I was looking for something to jazz up this photo of my beloved Mount Tamalpais, and I applied the Dark Strokes filter to it, giving it this graphic rendering.


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beached boat

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photo by Donald Kinney

If you ever pass through the tiny hamlet of Inverness (California), on your way to Point Reyes National Seashore, be sure to stop at the Country Store and walk out to the beached boat out back...   This is a popular spot for photographers...   See you there...


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blurred clouds -- it's Sky Watch Friday !

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photo by Donald Kinney

Whoopie !   -   it's Sky Watch Friday !

It seems we haven't had a cloud in the sky for weeks around here, and I didn't know if I would have anything for today or not...   These drifted over yesterday...

For a bit more interest I gave these clouds the Smart-Blur treatment in Photoshop.


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at Pierce Point Dairy

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photo by Donald Kinney

This is the calf shed at the historic Pierce Point Dairy, established in 1860 by Solomon Pierce, at Point Reyes National Seashore.

The main house is still occupied by a park ranger, but it's great fun spooking-around the tank house, school, woodshed, carpenter shop, blacksmith shop, butter and cheese dairy building, horse barn, slaughter house, hay barn, hog shed, and a woodshed.

The location is remote, and in the early days the roads were poor, so they found it more profitable to turn most of the milk into butter and cheese, sending it south to San Francisco by boat.

Modern sanitation laws finally shut the dairy down in 1945, and other dairy farms in the area have taken up the slack since then.


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Lagunitas Creek

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photo by Donald Kinney

Well, there it is folks -- the Lagunitas Creek.

In Spanish, "Lagunitas" means "little lagoons", but in my language I just call it beautiful...


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"J"unior -- it's ABC Wednesday !

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photo by Donald Kinney

Hope everybody is having a great "J" for ABC Wednesday !

Normally I use brand new photos for my postings, but I had to go back about a year to find something that might remotely qualify as a "J".

Junior, here, seemed to really be enjoying himself...


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groovy water

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photo by Donald Kinney

I am as old-as-dirt (61 now) so I am fully qualified to use words like "groovy", "cool", and "far-out"...


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big splash

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photo by Donald Kinney

I hadn't really looked at this photo, but it has less of the brown color-cast, and I think I like it better than the photo from yesterday.   It's probably a bit more dramatic, as well...

I shot this from a newly found perch on a cliff near the north end of Rodeo Beach, a mile or two northwest of the Golden Gate Bridge.   The wind was being driven up the cliff at a fierce rate -- any stronger and I may have been concerned about getting blown off...


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color or black-and-white ?

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photo by Donald Kinney


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photo by Donald Kinney

I'd like to take a little survey today -- which do you prefer -- the first shot, with color;  or the second shot, in black-and-white.

The reason I'm asking is that a good buddy of mine -- a skilled and experienced Photoshopper -- told me that the first photo has a brownish tinge to the splash water, making it look kind of dirty.   He suggested that I change the brownish cast to more of a yellowish cast, or just turn the photo into a black-and-white, as in the second photo.   I kind of like the photo just the way it is, brown and all, but can you folks give me a second opinion?


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wet sand

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photo by Donald Kinney

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney




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red sunrise

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photo by Donald Kinney

I hope everybody is enjoying a fine Sky Watch Friday !

I shot this several weeks ago when we still had a lot of smoke in the air from the multitude of forest fires that were burning in California -- hence the redness of the shot...


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golden reflection

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photo by Donald Kinney

I normally don't do much planning for my photos, but in this case I had been waiting for a low-tide very late in the afternoon -- I needed to get the sun more-or-less behind me, and to do that I needed to get out on some rocks that are normally inaccessible.

This photo is so abstract that it may be difficult to tell, but that's wet sand (at the southern end of Rodeo Beach) reflecting the color of the yellow cliffs nearby, plus the color of the sky overhead.


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"i"lluminated beach - it's ABC Wednesday !

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photo by Donald Kinney

Hope everybody is having a great ABC Wednesday !

Someone once told me about the golden-hours of photography, and that I should probably just put my camera away during the middle of the day.   Of course that isn't always practical or necessary, but I still think it's pretty good advice.


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water pattern

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photo by Donald Kinney

Sorry folks, I can't find any words for this shot...


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colorful water

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photo by Donald Kinney




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and more fog...

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photo by Donald Kinney

Fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog, fog...


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more foggy Mt. Tamalpais

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photo by Donald Kinney

O.k., back to stuff like fog -- that I know more about...


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etheric sky -- it's Sky Watch Friday !

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photo by Donald Kinney

Hope everybody is enjoying a great  Sky Watch Friday !

Now, I certainly am no expert on the precise definition of the word "etheric", but I found this most beautiful painting in the Catholic church in Tomales, California.


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more foggy clouds

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photo by Donald Kinney

Well, if those pesky foggy clouds weren't in the way you would be able to see Stinson Beach and the ocean...
Way out on the right would be the tiny town of Bolinas, and Point Reyes beyond.
Way out on the left would be the Golden Gate, and California coastline beyond.
--Oh, those pesky foggy clouds...


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foggy "h"ill -- it's ABC Wednesday !

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photo by Donald Kinney

Hope everyone is having great fun with their "h"'s -- it's ABC Wednesday!

This is a view from Ridgecrest Boulevard on our beloved Mount Tamalpais, here in Marin County, California.

At the bottom of the hill -- under that blanket of fog somewhere -- is the Pacific Ocean...


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Buffalo Bill's Brave

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photo by Donald Kinney

Thanks to all of you who commented yesterday:
Kjpweb, Evlahos -- (thanks)
Photowannabe -- I think they keep a secure eye on them at night.
Janice -- Yep, that would have a totally different feel in fog...
Louise -- Imagine my surprise when I discovered these...
Ivar Ivrig, Fish Whisperer, Roses+Lilacs -- (thanks)
Chrisj -- Wish you were here too...
Aileni -- How unique that your father saw the Buffalo Bill Show when he was a kid...
Louis -- Hope you get out there -- money back guarantee...


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photo by Donald Kinney

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney


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Buffalo Bill's Roadshow

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photo by Donald Kinney

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photo by Donald Kinney

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

I discovered something rather amazing on Friday at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, not far from the Cliff House...

It's the work of Thom Ross, and he has put a whole lot
of work into these highly decorated plywood stand-ups of Indians and their
horses.

When I first saw the installation I thought it was a unique celebration to the American Indian, but as it turns out it is a recreation of a turn of the century
panoramic photograph of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, in which one hundred of his warriors posed on their horses in that same spot.

To quote SF-Gate:  "The life-size plywood cutouts, above, lining the beach just below the Cliff House, are the work of Western artist Thom Ross, who based the richly colored tableaux on a famous black-and-white photo of Buffalo Bill Cody and his Wild West Show, below, that was taken on the same stretch of Ocean Beach in 1902.   "It's a Valentine to my hometown," said Ross, a San Francisco native who lives in Seattle and sports a Vandyke much like the one worn by the Buffalo Bill on the beach.   Ross, who re-created Custer's Last Stand at Little Big Horn with 200 wooden figures in 2005, will put on his Wild West show through Sept. 15."


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young deer

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photo by Donald Kinney

Deer like to keep their distance, but this one was extra close.

I found this little one near the beach at Point Bonita on Friday.


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unaltered sky

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photo by Donald Kinney

And yup, I think I like this version better.   Thanks for everyone's input...

I've been busy-busy-busy, so I didn't get to all of the Sky Watch Friday blogs yesterday.
I'll see if I can get caught up later this weekend.


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saturated sun -- it's Sky Watch Friday !

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photo by Donald Kinney

Hope everybody is having a great  Sky Watch Friday !

Take your pick -- the larger header shot, or this color-saturated smaller shot.


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water designs

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photo by Donald Kinney

Welcome to my hobby of looking for ripples and water patterns in my beloved Lagunitas Creek...


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photo by Donald Kinney


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photo by Donald Kinney


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"G"olden "G"ate Bridge -- it's ABC Wednesday !

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photo by Donald Kinney

Hope everybody is having a great "G"-day...   It's ABC Wednesday !

This is a foggy "posterized" Golden Gate Bridge...
I like to use this technique for turning an otherwise "ho-hum" photo into something a bit more spectacular.

There's two different ways of making these --
1)   By saving the JPEG as a GIF and selecting the number of colors.
2)   Using the Posterize feature in PhotoshopCS3 so the image can be saved as a JPEG.


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Sunset number two

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photo by Donald Kinney




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Sunset number one

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photo by Donald Kinney

With the banner-image, here's two versions on the same theme...
Taken Saturday afternoon at Rodeo Beach, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge.


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