Lagunitas Creek

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photo by Donald Kinney

Yes folks, this is the Lagunitas Creek, which translates as "little lagoons" in Spanish.

This particular area is within the boundarys of Samuel P. Taylor State Park, or as they simply call it these days -- Camp Taylor.   It's a popular place to get-away-from-it-all, and the campground is booked solid this time of year.

Where I like to visit is about a mile downstream at the confluence of Devil's Creek, and over the past six years or so I have photographed it's mysterious and colorful ripples and reflections many times.

To find this miniature waterfall shot I continued down the creek about a quarter mile and crossed over to the west side where Samuel P. Taylor built and operated a water-powered papermill in the late 1800's.   Mr. Taylor had a plentiful supply of fir trees to use in his papermaking operation, but since redwood trees make poor quality paper he left those for someone else to come along and cut down for lumber.   Most all the redwoods in the area today are one-hundred year old second-growth trees.   Redwoods regenerate quickly, usually sprouting from the roots of the cut or fallen "mother tree".

Hope you enjoy the photo -- I had a lot of fun carefully making my way along the narrow banks and hopping from stone-to-stone and log-to-log in the middle of the creek, trying my best not to fall in or brush up against any of the stinging nettles.


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photo by Donald Kinney


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"D"earest Mouse + "D"iego Rivera

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photo by Donald Kinney

Whoopie !   It's "D"-Day on ABC Wednesday !

Last Saturday on a tip from one of my favorite blogs about San Francisco, www.whatimseeing.com I made a heartfelt visit to the Presidio Pet Cemetery, where military families lovingly put their pets to rest over the years.   The half-acre pine-shaded plot is full of the memory of dogs, cats, hamsters, birds, fish, and reptiles.   Gravemarkers are truly unique and expressive, reminding me that military people are just as caring about life and those they love as the rest of us...

If you would like to see more, please visit my new set of photos on this remarkable place, over at:   www.photoarrow.com/big/14/14presidiopetcemetery.html.


SPECIAL EDITION -- "D"iego Rivera mural at San Francisco Art Institute



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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


A week-and-a-half ago, on a whim, I stopped by the San Francisco Art Institute on Chestnut Street to snoop around -- it had been over 40 years since I had last visited.
It was early on a Saturday and I was the only person there, but the neatly dressed security guard let me freely wander around to snap some photos.

Off the open-arched Spanish style courtyard I entered the main gallery which was completely empty, as they were in the process of changing the exhibit, however one unchangeable wall holds a huge fresco assemblage by Diego Rivera, commissioned in 1931 by William Lewis Gerstle who was president of the San Francisco Art Association.

The colors are still vivid, and the overall impact of the mural is stunning!   It was a real treat to be able to stand there and absorb the socially conscious work of the master -- Diego Rivera.


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giant mitt at ATT Park

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photo by Donald Kinney

As a kid I used to love the game of baseball, and all of us in the vacant lot league used to get to get together for a challenging double-header, or two...   If we got worn out we might even let the girls play...   Keeping track of the score was problematic and could lead to some huffy arguments, depending on our mood...

But these days I am no longer much of a sportsman, and have only been to two professional games -- both at Candlestick Park -- one a football game and the other a baseball game, and both times "we" lost, so it really wasn't as much fun as it could have been...

This is the giant 27 foot tall mitt out in left field at the new ATT Park.   (yes, folks, if you have enough corporate money you too can attach your name to a stadium)   I'm not exactly certain what the giant mitt is supposed to represent, although the intentions of the giant Coke bottle next to it are obvious...   I understand that the Coke bottle blows steam whenever the Giants hit a home-run.   I'm only guessing here, but I suppose if the batter's ball is caught by the giant mitt he is out...



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photo by Donald Kinney



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photo by Donald Kinney



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photo by Donald Kinney




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foggy Golden Gate Bridge

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photo by Donald Kinney

One of my favorite vantage points on San Francisco Bay is the little spit of land at Travis Marina, out past Fort Baker on the north side of the bridge.   Early morning here is usually a treat -- groups of pelicans glide low on the water in small groups on their way out the gate towards their feeding grounds.   Other seabirds fly a bit higher, navigating around my vantage point.

Depending on conditions the City across the bay may or may not be visible, and the Golden Gate Bridge plays hide-and-seek with the fog as well.   This time of year we usually can expect foggy mornings.   Sometimes the sun pokes through early, but sometimes not -- it's a pleasurable experience either way...

I'm ashamed to say I can't identify them so please let me know if you can, but here's two of the local residents soaking up the beauty of the moment just below where I was standing.

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photo by Donald Kinney


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little exploding wave

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photo by Donald Kinney

O.k., I'll admit -- I'm spoiled...   For me, going to the ocean is as easy as getting in the car and stepping on the gas...   And yes, it IS a gas -- I never get tired of it, and it is always a different experience.

On Friday I was in the mood, so off I went at 5PM -- out to one of my favorite beaches -- the south-west part of Rodeo Beach in the Marin Headlands, not far from the Golden Gate Bridge -- but a million miles away from civilization in my minds eye...

Being the unsociable hermit that I am, I enjoy avoiding the crowds...   The main part of Rodeo Beach is usually littered with people and surfers, so I chose to take the steep trail to the harder to get to, but isolated portion of the beach that is normally blocked from the other end of the beach by the tides.   I had a fine time snapping seabirds, glistening wet sand, foamy waters, kelp and seaweed, driftwood, and of course -- the ceaseless waves...   I had a fine time...


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a "Smart-Blurred" sky

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photo by Donald Kinney

Quite a while ago I figured out that Photoshop's "Smart Blur" filter can turn an otherwise ho-hum photo into something rather interesting.   Photoshop offers a wide range of blur tools, including Box Blur, Gaussian Blur, Lens Blur, Motion Blur, Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Surface Blur, and my old favorite -- Smart Blur.   Smart Blur blurs the inside detail while retaining the clarity of the edges -- pretty smart, huh?   With Smart Blur you have two main settings;   "Radius", which (for a 640x427px final image) I usually set to 3 -- and "Threshold", which I usually set to 25.   Changing those values will lead to a variety of results, so that's where the fun of experimentation comes in.

While first learning Photoshop most everybody goes-wild experimenting with the wide variety of other filters -- and really, some of them are truly amazing -- but it's best not to over-do them too much, as they can become tiresome after a while.   But like I mentioned, they're sometimes great for turning an otherwise ho-hum photo into something rather interesting...

Here's a photo of you know who, using the Radial Blur:



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sunrise -- it's Sky Watch Friday !

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photo by Donald Kinney

Hope everybody is enjoying a great  Sky Watch Friday.

Well, it's been a while since I've seen a really spectacular sunrise out at China Camp, but I finally was able to oooh and aaah on Wednesday...

We had some clouds roll through the Bay Area Monday night, and San Francisco even got a brief shower.   Yes, we need rain out here in the west -- it's been dry as a bone.   But what we don't need right now is lightning-strikes -- the threat of wild-fires is extremely high.

Read more about the wild-fires in the west at Wikipedia, but here is a brief summary:

[[[ quote ]]]
The fires broke out after three years of below-normal rainfall dehydrated much of California's forests and woodlands, making them prone to wildfires.   Spring 2008 for California was the driest on record for many locations;  for example, San Francisco registered only 0.007 inches (0 cm) of rain out of a normal of 6.18 inches (16 cm) from March to May.   As vegetation turned into bone-dry tinder in early June, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought for the first time in over a century.   Dry thunderstorms and lightning, rarely seen on the California coastline in June, rolled onshore on the weekend of June 20 - June 21.   The storm unleashed 5,000 to 6,000 dry lightning strikes across Northern and Central California, igniting more than 800 fires.   The same thunderstorms also caused fires in Oregon.   High daytime temperatures facilitated the spread of the fires and the number of wildfires skyrocketed in the days after the thunderstorm.
[[[ end quote ]]]


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Al Capone Cigars

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photo by Donald Kinney

I'm not a big fan or cigars or cigar smokers, but I do like interesting neon signs -- and I think this one fits the bill...   I found it last Saturday in San Francisco on the corner of Polk and California.

Of course, curiosity finally got the best of me so I Googled around for some information on these cigars [cigarillos] and ended up at rateitall.com with this rather interesting rating of the primo smoke:

[[[ quote ]]]
These are the best thing smoking! This is all I smoke now.. nomore camels or nothing. This does it everytime. It isn't harsh, it doesn't burn hot, and it goes down oh so smooth. Before I smoke it, I love to lick the whole body down (i don't have a humidor) and then the sweet sweet tip, then smoke it. It smokes better this way to me alot better. I smoke it as a cigar and cigarette, sometimes enjoying the flavor in my mouth and then inhaling. Everyone i smoke around says it looks like weed and taste like weed, and smells like it but it isn't but its the best thing smoking! A must try! the cognac are good, and the rum are good. To me the cognac smells more robust and the rum more sweeter and appetizing.
[[[ end quote ]]]

Cough, cough, wheeze, cough...


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"C"able Car -- it's ABC Wednesday !

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photo by Donald Kinney

Hope everybody is having a great  ABC Wednesday.

In 1873 Andrew Smith Hallidie put his experience with wire-rope to good use pulling the now famous cable cars up and down the steep streets of San Francisco.   It is told that he witnessed the trouble horse-drawn street cars were having on fog moistened slippery streets, often resulting in terrible accidents.

Hallidie's father just happened to be the inventor of wire-rope, and before son Andrew put it to use pulling cable cars, he found new uses for his dad's invention in the California gold mines.   He also promoted wire-rope as an economic method for building suspension bridges.

In the late 1800's cable cars had to compete with the more economical electric street cars, but I suppose that by that time the cable cars had gained so much charm -- becoming an identifiable trademark -- that the City decided to keep them running.   And yes, I suppose the long-running television commercial for Rice-A-Roni helped too...

You can read more about the San Francisco cable cars over at Wikipedia.


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Coit Tower, San Francisco

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photo by Donald Kinney

Sometimes my photos turn out so "normal" that I feel I need to do something to perk them up a bit...   I had to "jazz this one up" by selectively treating the foreground.   First I saturated the heck out of it, then applied what Photoshop calls it's "Smart-Blur" filter.   It blurs the center of objects while leaving their edges sharp.

Shot on Saturday from the elevated patio at San Francisco Art Institute.

Here's another shot with less zoom, slightly to the right.   That's Peter and Paul's Church -- no, they don't make Almond Joy candy bars there -- on the right:

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photo by Donald Kinney


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San Francisco Art Institute

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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

Saturday morning I had nothing better to do, so I popped over to San Francisco and did some early morning spooking-around in Polk Gulch, followed by some other-world exploring in Chinatown, but as I was taking the route home up Columbus Avenue towards Bay Street I crossed Chestnut Street and spotted the old tower at the San Francisco Art Institute off to my left.   I actually found a parking spot and proceeded to lug my old bones up the steep hill to it's entrance.

The last time I had been inside was when I was about 15 years of age, and I'll be 61 near the end of this month so you can do the math, but it's been a heck of a long time since I've been there.   Despite a huge new addition it looks pretty much the same.   The Spanish courtyard fountain is still bubbling away, and the walls of the open arched corridors are still filled with art.   Aside from a neatly dressed security guard I was the only person there, so I asked if I could snoop around and he nodded yes.

Off to the left of the courtyard I entered what I remember as the main gallery, and although it was completely empty in preparation for another exhibit, there it was -- filling one complete wall -- an incredible mural painted by Diego Rivera in 1931.   And no, I didn't remember it from when I was 15 -- because in those days I didn't know who Diego Rivera was, or what he represented -- but his muti-sectioned mutal completely blew me away, and I busily snapped away trying to document it.

So, folks, I'm going to leave you hanging on that teaser -- you'll have to stop back in a week-and-a-half on Åugust 20 when we're doing "D" (for Diego Rivera) on ABC Wednesday...   Don't make yourself a stranger in the meantime, but I'll see you then...

ANNOUNCEMENT:   Yesterday I got around to adding 18 new photos (a few you may have already seen here) on my Mount Tamalpais set of photos on what I call my "big" site.   If you go to the site directly and you have recently visited the site, you may have to refresh your browser cache or you may not see the links to the updates -- or you can follow these links directly:
http://www.photoarrow.com/big/89/8904.html
http://www.photoarrow.com/big/89/8905.html
http://www.photoarrow.com/big/89/8906.html
and I also added another set to my Çhina Çamp set at:
http://www.photoarrow.com/big/84/8406.html


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Golden Gate Bridge shadow

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photo by Donald Kinney

You'd be surprised to know how many of us "locals" have never taken a walk on the Golden Gate Bridge, although we're pretty quick to grumble about how many times we've had to plunk down the outrageous $5 toll ($4 with Fast-Pass) for crossing the darned span by car...   Personally, I've only walked on it a half-dozen times in the four decades that I've lived just 15 miles to the north, and I readily admit that I still haven't found a reason to walk the eight-tenths of a mile out to it's very center...

Ah yes -- the center of the bridge -- it's a magnet for those hell-bent on committing suicide.   Since the bridge was completed in 1937 over 1300 poor souls have taken the plunge, and only a handful have survived the 260 foot fall...   Yes folks, I'm told that these days about two people each month mistakenly decide that suicide is the only-way-out...   As long as I can remember, the bridge directors have been considering building a suicide barrier, but about all they've been able to agree on is their regularly scheduled pay raises...

Many of you have probably already walked on the Golden Gate Bridge and know about this, but I am always amazed at how badly the whole structure shakes, rattles, rolls, and bounces up and down whenever a heavy truck passes over.   The rumbling is most apparent while using the pedestrian and bicycle cat-walk under the north side of the bridge.

An average of 120,000 vehicles pass over the bridge daily from San Francisco to Marin County.   Each of the two bridge towers is fastened together with 600,000 rivets, and the two 36 inch main cables are spun from 80,000 miles of individual wires...   An enterprising math genius could keep busy calculating the total length of the groups of four smaller suspender cables.   Scraping down, sandblasting, and repainting all of that metal is a full-time job for a large crew of painters and ironworkers.   The Golden Gate got it's name 89 years before the bridge itself was built, but many people mistakenly think the bridge is painted gold -- it's not -- it's color is what they call international orange.

The bridge is designed to expand and contract with temperature fluctuations, and the engineers built it to withstand six foot sways from side-to-side in heavy winds.   Most important has been the earthquake retrofitting that they've been doing over the past twenty years or so -- the shaky San Andreas earthquake fault runs parallel nearby.   Engineers are confident that the bridge will be able to withstand the next "big-one" -- if it isn't too big...   We've all got our fingers crossed, and some of us even say a little prayer before driving onto the span.   Heaven help us out here in earthquake country...

Here's a few more photos of the bridge:

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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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over the edge -- Mt. Tamalpais

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photo by Donald Kinney

This was taken looking down towards the ocean over the steep western flank of our beloved Mount Tamalpais.   A little curvy road -- Ridgecrest Boulevard -- runs along the ridgeline, and the views are so spectacular that the area is often used to film car commercials and other Hollywood productions.

In 2004 a geologist came up with a theory that there is a dangerous fault zone directly underneath Mt. Tamalpais -- something called a "blind thrust fault", similar to the Northridge quake zone in Southern California that did serious damage 14 years ago.

The geologist became curious about the steep 1800 foot drop-off (that you see in my photo), and his research showed that the San Andreas fault creeps more slowly, south of Mount Tamalpais, than it does in its sections north of Mount Tamalpais and in the Olema Valley, and the existence of a blind thrust fault may explain the different creeping velocities.   He predicted a 6 to 7 magnitude earthquake sometime in this century -- maybe I should get prepared...

You can read all about his theory in this 2004 San Francisco Chronicle article.

The San Andreas Fault zone runs just offshore -- and slips frequently, usually with no or only minimal damage, except for the "big shaker" we had back in 1989.   We're probably due for another "big one" on the San Andreas within the next twenty years or so...

Here's a shot of Mt. Tamalpais from the northwest, near where I live:
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photo by Donald Kinney


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incoming fog -- it's Sky Watch Friday !

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photo by Donald Kinney

Hope everybody is having a great Sky Watch Friday!

Yes folks, this is our fog -- our natural air-conditioning -- marching in towards the Golden Gate.   The photos you see here were taken from Ridgecrest Boulevard, the northern flank of our beloved centerpiece of Marin County, Mount Tamalpais.

I stopped by Wikipedia to get the official "low-down" on fog -- and thre it was, a picture of San Francisco, pretty much cloaked in the wonderfully cool stuff:

photo lifted (without direct permission) from Wikipedia.org

[[[ quote ]]]
Fog forms when the difference between temperature and dewpoint is (5 °F) 3 °C, or less.
Fog begins to form when water vapor (a colorless gas) condenses into tiny liquid water droplets in the air.   Conversely, water vapor is formed by the evaporation of liquid water or by the sublimation of ice.   Since water vapor is colorless, it is actually the small liquid water droplets that are condensed from it that make water suspended in the atmosphere visible in the form of fog or any other type of cloud.

Fog normally occurs at a relative humidity near 100%.   This can be achieved by either adding moisture to the air or dropping the ambient air temperature.   Fog can form at lower humidities, and fog can sometimes not form with relative humidity at 100%.   A reading of 100% relative humidity means that the air can hold no additional moisture and the air will then become supersaturated if additional moisture is added.

Fog formation does require all of the elements that normal cloud formation requires with the most important being condensation nuclei.   When the air is saturated, additional moisture tends to condense rather than staying in the air as vapor.   Condensation nuclei must be present in the form of dust, aeresols, pollutants, etc. for the water to condense upon.   When there are exceptional amounts of condensation nuclei present, especially hydroscopic (water seeking such as salt, see below) then the water vapor may condense below 100% relative humidity.
[[[ end quote ]]]


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