All images © 2007-2013 Aaron Meyers
One of the reasons why I love San Francisco during the holiday time is that it gets an extra special treat to its skyline: the four Embarcadero Center buildings outline themselves with over 17,000 lights, the Transamerica Building lights their “Beacon” and several other buildings don themselves with festive colors. Trying to get Sammi to get into photography, I brought her on a trip to the Eastern Sierras with Willie and I where she froze her tuchas off. Wanting to give her a better experience I invited her along for our visit into the San Francisco to photograph its skyline. It wasn’t until I offered to take her to the “Boxing Room” for dinner (Southern Creole) afterwards that she agreed! Willie, Alan, James, Sammi, and I met high upon this hill overlooking the city. James had arrived early and setup 5 different tripods all over the hill. Reining him in, we all setup and waited. In previous years the Transamerica Building turned its “Beacon” on at 5pm but lately it’s been turned on at 6pm, almost an hour after sunset. The 20-30 minutes after the sun goes down is called “Blue Hour”, where the sky takes a beautiful blue/purple tone. By 6pm the sky is dark, shadows creep in, and the photos become boring. With high hopes for an early turn on I looked at the Transamerica Building at 4:55pm and saw the light was on! Yes! During the 20 minutes or so of Blue Hour I took a number of compositions. The scene is difficult because the Bay Bridge and its light provide a nice line on the left, but the city beneath it is somewhat boring. The main part of the city lies on the right but I didn’t want to ignore the beautiful lights of the Bay Bridge. To our left were some vines and a building that blocked the view and got in the way of our scene. I decided that a panorama was necessary and I wanted to get to make the city buildings appear slightly closer, so I through on the 80-200mm lens and took an 8-photo panoramic. I took a 9th shot to make the star on top of the Transamerica building even larger. I ended with a 177 megapixel image that I then cropped in various ways. Wanting to highlight both the bridge, the city, and the lines from the road leading through the photo, I cropped the full 177 megapixel pano into this 110 megapixel photo with a 2.5:1 aspect ratio. Zoom in to see all the amazing detail of the city in all its holiday glory! Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF 80mm, f/9.0, 6 seconds, ISO 200 8 shot panoramic, blended in Autopano Giga 9th shot at f/16 for the lighstar on The Beacon
Most of the time when there’s low fog at the Golden Gate Bridge I find myself there during sunRISE. OK, perhaps not “most of the time” ... I’ve actually never been at the Golden Gate Bridge for low fog at sunSET. On this particular evening, however, my plans to photograph the SF coast were thwarted by fog and I quickly made my way over to the Bridge. Although the fog had ruined my chances of shooting the coast, it hadn’t quite made its way over to the Golden Gate Bridge. In yet another detour from my plans, I made my way over towards the Pacific Coast side of Hawk Hill and looked out over a giant blanket of fog. Off in the distance the fog was beginning to envelop this hill and I loved the way the fog obscured the hills and created a giant blanket behind the trees. The line section of road helps draw the eye into the photograph. I chose to keep this photo dark so that it would stick with the mood of the scene. Additionally, since the sun had set and blue hour was now starting to set in, the fog took a slightly blue tone. Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D ED: 185mm, f/13, 30 sec, ISO 100
Normally I photograph low fog at the Golden Gate Bridge during sunrise but this evening was the first time photographing it during sunset. A failed attempt at shooting the coast (thanks to the fog) meant I ended up at Hawk Hill ready to photograph the Bridge. Prior to sunset the fog had stayed away from the bridge and was hugging the ocean, not quite making it into the city. Willie and I had wandered away from the bridge and were photographing some amazing fog formations on the Pacific Ocean as the sun dipped below the horizon. Every few minutes Willie or I would run over to the GGB and see if the fog had started to move in. About 10 minutes after the sun had set, and in the middle of photographing a neat “sand dune” of fog, Willie came racing over screaming “PACK UP NOW. WE’RE GOING OVER TO THE BRIDGE!” And off we raced. I think all the photographers around us thought we were crazy: “who are these guys running like there’s a bear chasing them?” We wanted to get into position before Blue Hour kicked in. Our running paid off and we arrived at our favorite Hawk Hill spot a few minutes before blue hour started. We spent the next 45 minutes or so enjoying the wonderful blue hour sunset fog. The fog glowed as the deck of the bridge was mostly exposed, and even a layer of fog started to light up as it crept into the city. Both of us spent some time taking panoramas for higher resolution but I also snapped some single exposures of the scene as well. The fog continued to creep in and it turned out that I liked this single exposure photo much better than the higher resolution stitched panoramas. What do you think of sunset fog? Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S: 42mm, f/14, 30 sec, ISO 320
