August 26, 2010

early morning at Pier39


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photo by Donald Kinney

No, didn't Photoshop that bee into the image -- the little bugger was more than willing to help out.   I must have snapped fifteen or twenty shots but this was probably one of her best poses.

And yes, that's Coit Tower bathed in morning light in the distance -- it's so out of focus that it may be difficult to tell.


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photo by Donald Kinney

Now, let me tell you that no self-respecting San Francisco resident or photographer ever goes near Pier39 -- the place is full of tourist oriented fluff -- tacky, tacky, tacky.

It was early, very early, so I don't think anybody spotted me.   The security guard told me she knew how to keep a secret. Lets hope she does.



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photo by Donald Kinney

Tourists who sign up well in advance and pay the required $26 can take the short ride over to Alcatraz (and back) -- I suppose it's really the cool thing to do when you're in San Francisco.   Go ahead -- buy one of those over-priced black and white striped t-shirts.

I've been to Alcatraz once, a year ago, but besides a few great photo opportunities, I found the whole place terribly disturbing. Not a fun place by any stretch of the imagination.



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photo by Donald Kinney

Wish I could tell you more about this curvy and twisted sculpture but there doesn't seem to be any nameplate or explanation anywhere. Incorporating Coit Tower into the composition is the obvious shot.



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photo by Donald Kinney

This is that same curvy and twisted sculpture taken in almost complete darkness. I was curious if I could get anything at all with such a low level of light but some of the reflections were really quite bright.

I used my highest ISO of 1600, braced the camera as best I could and shot at one-half second at f-4, the largest aperture on my 70-200 "L" zoom. The high ISO gave me an undesirable amount of noise (similar to film grain), which I mitigated with the Noise-Reduction feature of PhotoshopCS3.



click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney

Using such a high level of Noise-Reduction can play certain tricks with the image; resulting here in sort of a ghostly halo effect.



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1 comment:

photowannabe said...

I know I keep saying this, but, this is some of your best work. Its visual eye-candy to me.
The dawn light on the pier 39 lamp is terrific.
When I first looked at the flower and bee I thought it was your finger pointing to give size perspective. Then I realized what the tower was. Good stuff.
Love the swirling sculpture with the reflections and halos.
My son is going on some kind of CityWalk photo shoot in SF on Saturday. I'll have to find out more about it and see if its something you attend.

 
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