view from Pine Hill on Mt. Tamalpais

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photo by Donald Kinney

My beloved Mount Tamalpais has broad shoulders, along with a plethora of views that stir my soul warm-the-cockles of my deep-and-dark heart. Having "Mt. Tam" close--almost right out my back door--is a true gift.

37 miles away is the double-peaked Mount Diablo, or "Devil's Mountain" (as she is sometimes called). There are sacred Native Indian legends about both mountains that are probably a "stretch" to most any rational thinking person, but regardless they tend to hold the imagination, and are all available here.



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photo by Donald Kinney

Swinging the camera slightly south brings in focus the peak of Mount Tamalpais. Many know her as the "Sleeping Lady" or "Sleeping Indian Princess", since her outline from one angle or another can be visualized.


"Photographing Marin County"

life is a beach

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photo by Donald Kinney

Oh lets see... Human suffering, illness and disease, malcontent, wars, distrust, lies, deceit, failed relationships, teenagers, theft and larceny, aspersions, nuclear disasters, natural disasters, global warming, foreclosure, the military-industrial complex, inflation and recession, extraordinary rendition, unemployment, Comcast, government snooping, vermin, viruses, germs, spankings, ugly words, ugly thoughts, farts and body odor, the dentist, aging, broken hearts, and last but not least--my sex life; but hey, once in a while and if we are very, very lucky--like I am, life is a beach!


"Photographing Marin County"

high on a cliff overlooking Rodeo Beach

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photo by Donald Kinney

I've been having great fun recently with my very dark 8-stop "neutral density" filter, allowing me to slow time down to a crawl. This was a 6 second exposure at f-14, ISO-100. Lots can happens in 6 seconds, but that tiny speck of a bird on top of that tall rock remained in place. S--n--a--p.



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photo by Donald Kinney

Rodeo Beach is part of our huge, wonderful, and incredibly beautiful Golden Gate National Recreation Area, but as fate would have it, the damn Feds are "in charge" here and they have a list of regulations a mile long.

To my dismay the Federal government was responsible for cutting down every single pine tree on top of nearby Hawk Hill two years ago. Now they are preparing to mess with the off-leash dog regulations on Rodeo Beach. Perhaps what the Feds need, more than abusive regulations about dogs, is their fair dose of Federal Sequestration.  I am angry?  Well, yes I am!


                            "Photographing Marin County"

Nicasio Reservoir -- a microclimate, extraordinaire

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photo by Donald Kinney

We are in the middle of a bad drought so Nicasio Reservoir, a long term storage reservoir for emergency use, has been getting lower and lower.



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photo by Donald Kinney

Nevertheless, Nicasio Reservoir is a stunningly beautiful place. And there is still enough water left to generate a microclimate all of its own. A cold night following a warm day can often be expected to produce a heavy fog the next morning, resulting in a highly mystical and rather beautiful morning treat.


                            "Photographing Marin County"

"bokeh" -- a phenomenon strictly photographic

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photo by Donald Kinney

Distracting backgrounds behind the subject are the bane of camerawork. Aside from selecting another background, the best way to cope with this situation is to employ a wide lens aperture, resulting in a shallow depth-of-focus. The subject will remain sharp while the background will be blurred.



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photo by Donald Kinney

But along with a blurry background something curious is likely to happen, especially if there are bright specular highlights. The blurred highlights will turn into circles, big or small, depending on the size of the lens opening. This is officially called "bokeh", pronounced as in a "bouquet" of flowers.


                            "Photographing Marin County"

on the edge of a restless sea

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photo by Donald Kinney

The sea-gulls were curious, as I must have been a terribly strange sight.



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photo by Donald Kinney

A 2 legged boy with a 3 legged tripod, in peril perhaps, of 1 large wave.


                            "Photographing Marin County"

viewed just a little bit differently

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photo by Donald Kinney

Perhaps this (above) is a bit abstract, so I've had my fingers crossed that you all managed to decipher what this actually is. Well, it is a 2 second exposure showing movement of water on a beach far below. What you are seeing here is the spent wave draining back out to sea.



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photo by Donald Kinney

Fortunately, I don't think I need to explain this image (above). Again, a lengthy exposure of 2 seconds gave the water a hint of movement. In order to achieve the long exposure I used an extremely dark neutral-density filter.


                            "Photographing Marin County"

Photoshop -- a big bag of tricks?

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photo by Donald Kinney

Okay, lets talk about this 800 pound Gorilla in the room. It answers to the often misunderstood name of Photoshop. I bring this up only because there have been SO many misconceptions over the years about Photoshop and what it is actually most often used for. Yes, certainly, Photoshop makes it possible to do cute tricks like swapping Diane Feinstein's head onto the body of Raquel Welch, but that is FAR from all of what Photoshop, or any of the other image processing programs, facilitate.

Photoshop is all about getting the MOST out of an image. But the main idea is to not make it obvious that any corrections have been made, and usually that calls for a bit, or a whole lot of restraint.

So, on the image above--aside from a slight boost in color-saturation, what you see is fairly accurate to the scene that was in front of me. Most of the work in Photoshop had to do with straightening the horizontal and vertical lines--corrections that are normally only possible with one of those huge "view cameras". Oh you know, the big old-fashioned camera with the accordion-like bellows and a multitude of swings, slides and tilts.


An oldie but goodie--my 4x5 view-camera with 210mm Schneider Symmar.



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photo by Donald Kinney

On the other hand, this oversaturated iteration of the image might look kind of cool at first--perhaps a throwback to the 1960's--but I assure you that I was just "having fun", taking Photoshop to its limits with reckless abandon. I should probably be ashamed of myself, but sometimes I just can't resist.


                            "Photographing Marin County"

and when nobody is looking

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photo by Donald Kinney

There is a certain time of day. And it is e-a-r-l-y. Tourists are safely tucked away in their $400 a night hotels. Yes, a most w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l time of day.



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photo by Donald Kinney

This second image is not new (taken August 1), and it really doesn't pair well with the first image, but I thought it deserved a repeat performance.


                            "Photographing Marin County"

no ripple stands alone

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photo by Donald Kinney

Yes, it takes a vast army of ripples, swept along by the wind, naturally, to place me into a special kind of g-r-o-o-v-e.



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photo by Donald Kinney

Closer if you dare. Fly if you must. 33-1/3 revolutions, played backwards.


                            "Photographing Marin County"

not that I haven't snapped this before

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photo by Donald Kinney

Now gosh, this goes way back in years, and I couldn't have been more than four or five, but I can vividly remember Grandpa packing all four of the "Skinneys", as we were called, into his brand new '54 Dodge for a Sunday visit to the historic shrimping village of China Camp on San Pablo Bay.


                            "Photographing Marin County"

orange you glad it's morning?

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photo by Donald Kinney

"Come here often, sweetheart?", she said, in bright oranges and yellows...



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photo by Donald Kinney

"Well, yes I do...", he said rather apologetically, as if it might be a secret.


                            "Photographing Marin County"

the "Morning Show" at Loch Lomond harbor

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photo by Donald Kinney

Getting up super-early can be a bit of a slog, but the big reward is standing alone in silent darkness, quietly waiting for the daily performance to begin.



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photo by Donald Kinney

A world of movement--here to there--seldom time to pause or let it soak in. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it...


                                    "Photographing Marin County"

morning mystique at McNear's Point

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photo by Donald Kinney

Those smokestacks and lights, on the left, belong to McNear's Brickyard--they've been making red bricks at this same spot on San Pablo Bay (the upper thumb of San Francisco Bay) for 145 years.

As vapors do, the purple-haze comes and goes.
And it all happens pretty darned early in the morning.


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