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photo by Donald Kinney
Color on the right and color on the left...
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photo by Donald Kinney
and color on the top and color on the bottom.
May 31, 2014
San Pablo Bay at China Camp -- color on the horizon
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photo by Donald Kinney
Color on the right and color on the left...
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photo by Donald Kinney
and color on the top and color on the bottom.
May 30, 2014
pilings from another era -- Sausalito
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photo by Donald Kinney
In an elusive tone, these pilings at the southern end of Sausaltio speak the past. Their specific location is important also, as they are located just across the bay and to the rear of Valhalla--where Sally Stanford--well known for telling stories about her ribald and adventurous past--operated a restaurant and inn on the Sausalito shoreline until her death at the age of 79 in 1982.
May 29, 2014
splashes of pinks and blues -- here and there
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photo by Donald Kinney
Its a light-show that not a lot of people get to see, but sometimes the morning sky can get rather pink.
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photo by Donald Kinney
This roadside honey-stand in Sonoma gets buzzing a bit later in the year.
May 28, 2014
at the crack of color
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photo by Donald Kinney
I'm not sure if I ever told those of you in "Blog-land" how much I've been enjoying my new wide-angle lens. Its a short zoom--24 to 70--and I find it is a more e-x-p-a-n-s-i-v-e way of seeing the world.
May 27, 2014
may she live long and prosper
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photo by Donald Kinney
Okay, I've got to admit that SOME old codgers [like Donald Kinney] spend WAY too much time talking about the days when we could mail a first-class letter for 3 cents. But I SWEAR I remember the days when they charged 25 cents to get across the Golden Gate, collecting tolls in both directions.
These days, and probably not for long, I pay $6 which includes a $1 discount for using my Fas-Trak transponder, capable of sucking $6 out of my bank account in the blink-of-an-eye. Nary a toll-taker in sight. We are SO smart.
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photo by Donald Kinney
Breaking ALL rules of design, I am combining a color image with a black and white in this post. The black and white version of this just didn't seem to work.
May 26, 2014
a rustle in the wind -- and its almost June
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photo by Donald Kinney
The hills and mysterious-plants-from-outer-space don't stay green forever.
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photo by Donald Kinney
Traces of green remain, but soon there will only be a rustle in the wind.
May 25, 2014
meanwhile, in a low density area of Marin
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photo by Donald Kinney
Volunteer oats at sunrise at Nicasio Lake.
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photo by Donald Kinney
Black Mountain, or as it is sometimes called; Elephant.
May 24, 2014
old St. Hilary's -- Tiburon
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photo by Donald Kinney
The small town of Tiburon was important because it served as the northern rail-head on San Francisco Bay. A busy place in the late 1800's when it was a barge terminal for freight--mostly timber--needing to make that last leg across the Bay.
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photo by Donald Kinney
The heirs of John Reed—who held title to El Rancho Corte Madera del Presidio, the Mexican land grant that included the Tiburon Peninsula—deeded the hillside site to the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which built the church as a place of worship for local railroad workers.
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photo by Donald Kinney
A large crop of Volunteer Oats in the process of going to seed greeted my arrival. Built in 1888, this is one of the few California examples of Carpenter’s Gothic style to survive in its original condition and setting. The land below the church is protected as a wildflower preserve.
May 23, 2014
Benjamin Lyford House, Tiburon
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photo by Donald Kinney
The Lyford House is a Victorian house located in Tiburon, California. Built in 1876, the house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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photo by Donald Kinney
The Lyford House is situated on Richardson Bay and was the home of Benjamin Lyford (1841-1906), a doctor in the Union Army--born in New Hampshire and raised in Cabot, Vermont. Lyford migrated to San Francisco after the American Civil War and gained substantial wealth practicing medicine.
Lyford married Hilarita née Reed (1839-1908), the daughter of John Reed, an Irish immigrant who was granted the Rancho Corte Madera del Presidio, comprising the Tiburon peninsula, Belvedere and much of southern Marin County.
The Lyford House was originally located at Strawberry Point as part of Lyford's Eagle Dairy Ranch, but was moved by barge in December 1957 when threatened with demolition and is now owned by the National Audubon Society. The grounds and beach are open to the public but close at 5pm.
May 22, 2014
pulling out all the stops
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photo by Donald Kinney
Briefly, and perhaps parting with reality just slightly...
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photo by Donald Kinney
I give you; Bay Bridge (top) and San Rafael to Richmond Bridge (lower).
May 21, 2014
please forgive my slightly enlarged moon
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photo by Donald Kinney
Well, yes, I fudged a bit on the size of the moon. Now, 1) you know, and 2) my virtue is restored. The moon WAS in that exact spot, but was really small--about one-quarter the size of the moon in this scaled image.
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photo by Donald Kinney
Isn't black and white wonderful? Everything looks better in black and white--and you can quote me on that! A tip for you photographers out there -- when a color photo isn't "working" in color, it will often look a lot better as a black and white.
May 20, 2014
mysterious floaters -- in the sky
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photo by Donald Kinney
I swear... Nobody really needs to go to the movies for special effects--they are there--right up in the sky. All it takes is a bit of imagination, and being there.
May 19, 2014
observation post at Battery Mendell -- Point Bonita
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photo by Donald Kinney
All is currently quiet on the western front, and only Seaside daisies--and maybe a bit of radar--stand guard.
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photo by Donald Kinney
These are remains of the observation post near Battery Mendell at Point Bonita. Not far below were two large anti-aircraft guns, part of the harbor defenses of San Francisco Bay charged with defending the area from enemy attack. Also rather critical was determining friend from foe.
By the early part of the 20th century the U.S. Army built Battery Mendell and four other batteries nearby at Fort Barry in the Marin Headlands. Mendell, which was completed in 1906, was outfitted with a pair of 12-inch guns on a "disappearing carriage". When the guns were ready to fire, they could pop up into position, fire a single shot, and then recoil down and out of sight for reloading. As I mentioned the other day--a shot was never fired.
May 18, 2014
volunteer oats -- in the sun
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photo by Donald Kinney
Just like any other year, there seems to be no shortage of volunteer oats.
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photo by Donald Kinney
And of course, thank our lucky stars, the sun does volunteer work as well.
May 17, 2014
modern-day cavemen
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photo by Donald Kinney
The other day while walking down to Kirby Cove I made a slight detour and re-visited Battery Wagner, just slightly off the beaten path with a commanding view overlooking the entrance to the Golden Gate. The Point Bonita area is peppered with the stoic remains of military emplacements, some of which, believe it or not, date back to the Civil War. A shot was never fired.
Of course, modern-day cavemen have chosen the surfaces of these bunkers as their canvases. It is a constant battle for the National Park Service to eradicate the graffiti, but since the mess here at Battery Wagner is mostly out of view of visitors, no cleanup has been done in the area.
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photo by Donald Kinney
In another area of Point Bonita is a restoration of a Nike-Hercules missile site, which was fully operational until the mid 1970's. These missiles were defenses against the threat of Soviet bombers, and were equipped with nuclear warheads capable of blasting a bomber out of the sky 90 miles out to sea. You can read all about them on a blog post I did in 2009 by clicking here.
May 16, 2014
sand dunes -- Abbott's Lagoon, Point Reyes
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photo by Donald Kinney
Thump, thump, thump… One sure way to get blood coursing through a photographer's veins is to plop him or her down in the middle of an endless field of rippled sand dunes. Snap, snap, snap...
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photo by Donald Kinney
And although the dunes near Abbott's Lagoon at Point Reyes might not have as much variety, or be arranged in such dramatic hills as the dunes we might find in Death Valley or Oceano, their stripedness will do just fine for me.
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photo by Donald Kinney
May 15, 2014
not sure -- but I call it wild wheat
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photo by Donald Kinney
I'm always duly impressed when some expert starts rattling off the names of plants. But since I am old and my mind is feeble, it is in-one-ear-and-out-the-other. I think my method is more fun anyway--I just make up my own names for all the mysterious plants and trees I encounter...
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photo by Donald Kinney
I call this plant "wild wheat". I don't know if that is even remotely close...
May 14, 2014
Nicasio -- more going on here than one might expect
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photo by Donald Kinney
Located at the geographic center of Marin County is the tiny town of Nicasio. We could probably count the number of homes in the "downtown" district on one hand (and have two fingers left over). Nicasio also sports a church and a popular rancho-style restaurant. Also in Nicasio is a volunteer fire department, a post office, a place to buy pumpkins in October, and a brand new cheese factory that draws quite a crowd on weekends.
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photo by Donald Kinney
Driving through most tiny towns is easy, but here in Nicasio drivers need to negotiate two 90 degree turns in order to navigate around the baseball field situated smack dab in the center of town. [snapped: April 2012]
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photo by Donald Kinney
Heading out to the west of Nicasio is a lake (actually a reservoir) that serves as a backup for Marin's water needs. It also serves MY needs as a fertile place for photographs--I try to visit often. [snapped: October 2013]
May 13, 2014
balls o' fire
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photo by Donald Kinney
You may have noticed I have been incorporating the sun into more of my images.
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photo by Donald Kinney
"Two stops down" usually does it. The other requirement is just "being there".
May 12, 2014
the famous GGB -- one billion and two
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photo by Donald Kinney
Oh, it has been snapped a billion times, but I guess there is no harm in just one or two more. But actually, the really cool thing is that I ended up shooting that morning next to someone who's work I have been admiring in one of the Facebook groups. We compared a few notes...
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photo by Donald Kinney
An image I snapped the day before, when fog was a bit more abundant.
May 10, 2014
ominous clouds -- damn little rain
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photo by Donald Kinney
Well, we had some big and dark clouds pass over in the past few days...
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photo by Donald Kinney
...but they yielded precious little rain.
May 09, 2014
experimenting with reduced clarity -- once again
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photo by Donald Kinney
Well folks, I'm back fooling around with the idea of "reduced clarity". Oh you know how this works--I run 'em up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.
May 08, 2014
more of our flighted friends
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photo by Donald Kinney
I suppose that for some creatures, like this Turkey Hawk--with civilization somewhat distant--each day is just another day in the old wild west.
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photo by Donald Kinney
Not a new image ^^^ taken April 2010
I feel badly when I spook an animal--that's not the way I like to get my shots--but sometimes I suddenly find myself in close proximity to an animal. Two choices; 1) pick my nose. 2) snap the shutter.
Notice that with these two images today, I mixed black and white with color--something I'm not supposed to do, but I thought the coloring of that Blue Heron is so interesting that it would be even MORE of a crime to convert the image into a black and white.
May 07, 2014
insistent honking, forceful flapping
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photo by Donald Kinney
The honk of the Canada Goose is insistent and probably even irritating, but once in a while they will fly directly overhead--silent--except for a ruffled sound from the forceful flapping of their wings.
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photo by Donald Kinney
The Sea Gull, a flighted acrobat in its own right--snapped September 2012.
May 06, 2014
fully aware that I am breaking a rule here...
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photo by Donald Kinney
Well, the big deal is we're never supposed to mix black and white with color...
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photo by Donald Kinney
...but I wanted to show this image also to point out the similarities of the clouds, taken on different days.
May 05, 2014
an avocation -- not unlike Lion taming
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photo by Donald Kinney
Oh you know...
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photo by Donald Kinney
...trying to get a grip on it, after examining all of the possibilities.
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