That Red Bridge

Ok so here is my take on the required Golden Gate Bridge.  I'm still not 100% sure it doesn't need a crop, I left the bike on the left just because many of my images from this trip are about bike culture.  I think it is probably a little distracting so I am sure if I ever print this image the bike will be gone. I am also going back and forth on color vs B&W but since I pretty much always show my B&W I thought I'd go against my usual instincts and show the color.

"Golden Gate"

Holga

Walk your Fixie

As you can tell I love me some bike culture!  Here is yet another image near Delores park with some fixie's being walked.  In their defense they are walking on the side walk as they should be :)

Well I am coming to the end of the images I captured in San Fransisco, only a couple left and then I will start on some of the images I took in Boulder, Co.  After that I guess I will have to get off my butt and develop the 3 rolls of color film I've had sitting around now that I finally have everything I need to try my hand at color developing.

"Walking some Fixie's"

Holga

Bikes and Beers!

More from my "series" taken in Delores park during my visit to San Fransisco.  I am sure it is becoming obvious that I fell in love with this park.  If I lived there I would most likely spend most of my free time there.  As a photographer and avid people watcher this place is a gold mine for "street" style photography.  It's strange because I live in a great city (DC), yet there is no place I can go and find such a diverse street life.  In New York and San Fransisco you never know what you are going to find around the next corner but at the same time I never go a day without plenty of subjects and photo ops.  DC has good diversity and plenty of culture and counter culture, but I find it is much harder to just walk around and find great subjects for street photography.  Maybe it's because there is so many tourists, but I rarely try and shoot in the obvious tourist areas.  Maybe it's because this is my home town and everything seems more normal to my eye's.  Who knows.  My plan for this year involves getting into the city more this year with camera in tow to try and capture DC's culture.  I figure it is where I live, I should focus n shooting the people who live here more.  Hopefully I will succeed.

"Bikes and Beers!"

Holga, Kodak Porta, Converted to B&W and toned

Fixie Style

So while in San Fransisco I of course noticed all of the fixie's everywhere.  There is a thriving bike culture around every block.  As expected anytime something is considered cool you will see the posers.  I can't count how many high end track bikes I saw being walked by people who were obviously using the bikes as an accessory, I mean really when your hair and make-up match your bike who do you think you are fooling?  I am for all things bikes so while I find the idea of a bike as decoration I can't really get worked up about it.  It is still exercise walking your bike :)

"Fixie's at Delores Park"

Holga, Ilford HP5

More Haight

I don't have much to say today so I'll just add another image from my day in the Haight.  All I have to say is I love the backpack!  Hope everyone has a good weekend.

"Skull and Bones"

Holga, Ilford HP5

The Haight

Her is another image from last years trip to San Fran.  Another of my favorite neighborhoods to hang out in is the Haight.  Gone are the days of swarms of drugged out hippies roaming the street, and gone is the general grittiness and all around awesomeness that I am sure this part of town possessed. But you can still see glimpses of the past if you look closely enough.  Now there is much more high end boutique shops and tourists taking pictures of the Haight and Ashbury street signs.  But there are some great independent bike shops, some good vintage clothing shops, great places to eat and all around great people watching.  Definitely worth a visit.

"The Haight"

Holga, Ilford HP5

Rededication to Photography in 2012...

Well at least that is the plan.  For whatever reason I spent most of 2011 struggling with motivation and my photography suffered a great deal as a result.  At one point I was seriously considering just selling all of my equipment and finding a new passion, but even as I thought along those lines I knew I couldn't.  Rather than spend time analyzing why 2011 was a bust I have decided that I just needed a break.  So to start the new year I have developed the last rolls of B&W film I shot last year, ordered a few supplies to start developing my own color film.  Yes I plan on shooting more color and figure it is high time I process it myself.  I have started editing the last few rolls I shot last year and will start rolling them out on a weekly basis here and on Flickr.

I'll start with another from my trip to visit my sister in San Fransisco.  Those of you who know me, know that I love cities.  While I am equally at home camping or out in the country side, I will always live in or very near a major city.  I am drawn to the endless opportunities to see and meet new people from all walks of life and frankly you just never seem to get that outside of cities.  I love that around ever corner can be a completely new scene.  My favorite way to travel to new places is not to research all of the "must do" tourist sites but rather to get a good map and a feel for what types of neighborhoods there are.  Then I figure out the public transportation system and start walking around aimlessly.  Driven by hunger and a desire to find good food I will roam with a few cameras and pretend I just moved to the area and start looking for anything that catches my interest.  This method of visiting a new place does sometimes send me into random and dangerous place, it can result in an entire day of boredom.  But it also leads me to find some really great places that most tourists don't ever see.

Years ago when traveling to San Fransisco with a good friend, we meet up with my friends friend (follow that?) at a little cafe on Delores St.  right next to Delores Park.  I was immediately drawn to the park.  Nothing more than a grassy area on a hill with a few tennis courts on one end, it isn't anything special to look at.  What drew me to the park was the swarm of humanity that gathers there. From young to old, hippies to the reserved.  People enjoying a nice picnic to those selling "medicinal brownies".  They don't gather there for a specific reason on most days as far as I can tell.  I have visited the park many times on all of my trips to San Fransisco and have never seen an event going on.  But everyday week day when the weather is nice people gather after work.  Every weekend there is a mass of humanity.  Everyone is just hanging out.  It's simply brilliant.  I am not the most well traveled person, but thus far I have never found a public space like this.  Yes central park in NYC has tons of people hanging out, but it is so vast you can easily avoid everyone else if you want.  I am sure there are part and times when vast crowds gather, but not like at Delores park.  There is just something different going on and I like it!

"Delores Park"

Holga, Ilford HP5

A day in Southern MD!

So back in November I spent the day visiting some good friends and doing some family portraits for them.  They were great sports and their two little boys were so fun to shoot.  We didn't spend too much time shooting, but hey when there are little ones involved if you don't get it in the first hour it's best to take a break and start again another day.  This is why I enjoy shooting for friends, they know that I will gladly come back again and again to visit and shoot if their little ones just aren't feeling it that day.  For those photographers that make a living at this I can't imagine how stressful it can be when you have a set amount of time to make the magic happen.  Me shooting friends is just as much about spending a day visiting with them as it is taking pictures.  I am still working through the images but here is a sample.

 

Now as I was editing this image I stumbled across something.  Might as well add a bit about my post processing here.  So the image you see above was shot digitally and converted to B&W (I know shocker that I would do that).  Anyway as is often typical, the sky doesn't always cooperate on the days when you have a shoot.  So when I converted this to B&W I created a duplicate layer and worked with the contrast on the sky using a curves adjustment layer.  Essentially I darkened the sky and increased the contrast to make it more dramatic and also give the image the impression it was shot near sunset.  In fact it was shot mid afternoon.  So then I used a layer mask to allow the adjusted sky to show through.  So then I accidentally turned off the layer containing the family in B&W and let the original color image show through and ended up with this:

So now I have the original color image (adjusted a bit with a slight sepia tone) and the background is in B&W.  I know I know!  I am not the first person to have color in a B&W image.  And yes in the scope of my typical photography this is just a nice family portrait.  But since that is exactly what I was attempting to create I am happy with the results.  The all B&W image is exactly what I envisioned while shooting.  All that said for some reason I have been stuck looking at the image directly above and I can't quite figure out why.

For some reason having the color foreground and B&W background give the image an enhanced feeling a two dimensionality (is that even a word) that I find interesting.  The color also enhances the "All American" family vibe if you will (I can't quite figure out how to really explain what I mean by that).  The background fades as a strong part of the image, unlike in the all B&W image above where the viewer is drawn to the image as a whole. 

Anyway I am just shocked that I am drawn to any color at all and I should probably go see a Dr. ASAP.  That said does anyone have any thoughts on the color, love it, hate it, why?