Sketches of Napa in Springtime

It was a lovely early spring day in Napa, the first nice day after a long winter of cold and rain. The vines were dormant, simple rows of sticks, but the grass was green and flowers in bloom.

And so rain ponchos and down jackets were traded for short sleeves and sun dresses and two friends agreed to meet for wine.

One loved horses, one loved hiking. Both loved the fresh new weather.

And so they decided to convene at a local winery.

They drank and talked of friends and lovers, summer homes and winter blues and how today's wine was free and how lucky it all is.

It turned out to be a beautiful day.

A beautiful day for wine and conversation.

And so the afternoon rolled into evening and all was well. In nearby Lake Berryessa, overflow from recent rains drained down below the dam and into the river like someone pulled the plug on a giant bathtub. Sky and water lit up with the colors of the setting sun.

The End.

The City

You're in San Francisco. Look up.

Look around.

Look down.

Keenai - Keen Eye

I signed up for a free trial month of Keenai, the new photo storage service by Ricoh. It sounds too good to be true, unlimited storage for RAW and JPG files for $50 a year. I have a 500GB SSD that I've been filling with RAW files for a year and it's about two-thirds full. Soon I'll put this one away and start on a 1TB drive. Can I really keep a copy of all my RAW files, could be approaching 1.5TB in a few years, not to mention more prolific and established photographers with even more.

Full resolution JPGs will be nice. Google Photos charges $24 a year per terabyte and I've been restricting photo size 2048 pixels wide to keep my total files under a terabyte and the subscription cost at that two dollars a month. Which isn't bad, but I wouldn't put RAW files there, and when I want to produce a full size JPG I go back to that little SSD.

So I uploaded some JPGs, just whatever was in directories I've been creating. There's two from 2012, a tiny invisible blip on the far left. In the middle there's a spike in June and July, that would be summer in Napa. Then towards the right there's more regular activity with the tallest blip a trip to Iceland.

This isn't all my photos by any means, just a sample. Still, I was a little surprised to see my most common settings, a wide f/2.8, slow 1/40th of a second, and ISO 100. 

Now the pretty picture. Here is every camera I've used in the past five years, ranked. At top is the Ricoh GRII, followed by the heavier, more tank-like Canon 6D. The LX100 makes a fantastic vacation camera, and the Canon SL1 was my first foray into DSLR photography. Throw a couple phones and you round out recent history. Before that, for years I used the compact waterproof Sony TX10 (the photo there is a view of the clouds in front of Kilimanjaro as seen from a moving car).

It's the Saint Stupid's Day Parade!

Only in San Francisco will you learn about the First Church of the Last Laugh, that they have only one holy day on their calendar and it is on April 1st, which they celebrate as Saint Stupid's Day. Only here will you not be surprised to learn this is the 38th annual Saint Stupid's Day Parade. You will, however, be astonished at the creativity and cleverness with which stupidity is celebrated.

                

The Everyday Abstract

I was shopping for a hat.
     I like Nike hats.
          I went to the Nike store.
               I didn't find a hat.

                    I found this.

Spring is Here!

Finally, the equinoctial light at the end of the tunnel.

 So everybody get outside.

Might I suggest Point Bonita lighthouse?

Postcards and Not Postcards

Is there any possible way to take a picture of a cable car that doesn't look like either a unimaginative tourist snapshot or cheap postcard? I don't think there is. I've tried.

Nope.

So here's the story. A month ago I started a new job in San Francisco with a commute in which a train drops me off at the Powell Street cable car turnaround, where tourists line up to watch their novelty ride arrive and get rotated until its nose points dutifully up the hill, and from there, past the kiosk where they all bought the tickets they now protectively hold, I walk up four blocks alongside humming cable tracks, then left half a block to the office. In the heart of the city!

And every weekday for the past month I've been taking pictures on my way to and from work, at lunchtime, morning and afternoon walks, random meanderings around the block just to avoid the unhealthy trap of sitting at a desk all day. Since I always have my little digital shooter handy (the Ricoh GR II, a DSLR sensor in my pocket! tack-sharp prime lens! film simulation effects!), I thought this might be a great opportunity to expand my pictorial horizons and try what's known as "street photography." Imagine every day a photo walk, exploring new scenes, making interesting-looking compositions that tell a story, capturing city life like a wannabe Garry Winogrand, and-- hey! look! a streetcar!

 

People riding streetcars!

No, it's all very postcard. Hardly worth noticing. Who would bother?

Just keep your eye on your phone.

Walk on by.

Don't. Help.

Wow a trolley!

Now wouldn't that make a nice postcard?

And I figure as long as you're here. Why not.

Next thing you know it's getting to the point where lunch is a selfie and girls with cameras in coffee shops make pretty picture windows.


There are a lot of restaurants, a lot of coffee shops, and a lot of cameras.

I shouldn't be so cynical. 

It can be quite beautiful.

And people are having a good time.

So who am I to judge?