Looking down from on high

Looking down on a street in San Francisco. You wouldn’t want to be afraid of heights walking around on top of a building!

We all want to see what the neighbours are up to and living in a high building is the perfect opportunity of peeping-toms everywhere. You can see all sorts of things – a parasol with lounger across the street, garden furniture, a tree; all invisible from street level.

The postman has been and delivered 100 minicards from moo.com! I ordered 100 duplicates in the order as well so I hope they’re on the way too. I got in touch with their customer service people just in case and am waiting on a reply from them now. Later – I got my reply. The duplicate cards are a separate order and were shipped separately. Should be here in a day or two!

Aperture ƒ/8
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/125s

Seating and the Bay Bridge

Public seating near the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.

I shot this on the first evening after getting to the city. Matt, Andy and I went for a walk down the street and I got my first sight of downtown San Francisco.

Technique: I cropped the photo to a 1×1 ratio, converted to black and white, duplicated the background layer. Set the mode of the top layer to Overlay and added noise via Filters->Noise->Scatter RGB. I adjusted the noise effect by changing the opacity of that layer.
One thing to note – when you resize an image you’ll have to add noise again because the pixels are softened up by the resize procedure.

Aperture ƒ/10
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/200s

Have bike, will travel

As you can imagine, I was quite tired by the time I got to San Francisco!

Picture above was taken just down from my Bird flying by photo. I know there are lots of awkward lines in this shot but the line of the Golden Gate Bridge is just about horizontal.
Automattic had it’s first meeting of the week a few yards from here in the glorious sunshine. Some of us suffered sunburn but it sure beat sitting around some dusty old conference table!

Aperture ƒ/13
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/320s

Bird flying by

A gull flies off after an inconsiderate photographer runs after it to shoot it. Beats having the kids do the running eh? They might fall!

This was taken in San Francisco, and that’s The Golden Gate Bridge in the background. I went through my shots from my August trip a few days ago and selected around one hundred images for processing. I’ll mix in a few shots over the next few week’s posts. There’s everything from bridges, street people and furniture, Memphis Minis and Alcatraz so plenty for all tastes.

Note to self – when traveling to a new timezone, change the time on your camera!

Aperture ƒ/13
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/400s

Bay Bridge San Francisco

This is the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. It’s the view from Matt’s apartment building. He brought Andy and myself up there to enjoy the view, and probably in my case to keep me awake after the long flight!

Aperture ƒ/7.1
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/100s

Waiting for Passengers

People wait expectantly in San Francisco International Airport for the first sight of someone they know to appear in the crowd off a plane.

Toni, Andy and I were there to meet Podz off his plane. I had flown in earlier in the day and was almost asleep on my feet but I managed to make this hand held long exposure shot!

I like this: Daft Punk at Marley Park because I wanted to go, heard that they were brill in Scotland, but Donal didn’t think much of their gig in Dublin. Nice shots of their light show though!

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/8s

The Brown Line to Kimball

Aboard one of the trains of the Chicago L, the elevated and underground train network in Chicago. I think this was taken near the south end of the Loop, possibly around the corner from the library.

The last time I was in Chicago I took the L for nostalgic reasons and because it’s not a half-bad way for a tourist to see the town. The stations of the Loop are all elevated above street level and some afford a good view down the main streets of downtown Chicago! Maps and schedules are posted in each station, on the trains and online too making it very easy to find your way around.

Here’s a tour of the Loop with pictures if you’d like to know more.

I like this: Real Esteli played its best match ever – couple of great football shots!

Aperture ƒ/5.6
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/100s

Wrigley Building Sky Bridge

This is the sky bridge between the two sections of the Wrigley Building in Chicago. We were walking through when I looked up and immediately noticed the leading lines of the buildings and the walkway.

Way back in 2003 I photographed the Wrigley Building a few times and I’m pretty sure it featured in the film Batman Begins too.

Wrigley.com has a page dedicated to the history of the building and it makes for interesting reading.

While searching ocaoimh.ie for those pictures, I came across this little nugget about Bill Gates from 2002. 🙂

Something else from the archives for you street shooters – A face in the crowd, tips from the Street Photography List on capturing the elusive face in the maddening crowd.

I like this: Cow & Gate, never mind the baby food.

Aperture ƒ/9
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/250s

The Thieving Duck

A duck robs a poor innocent woman as she’s distracted by the cute ducklings. Moments later they all rush off with their ill-gotten gains!

What you don’t see is the camera crew, make-up and lighting people and a small crowd watching from behind them. This was for some advert and of course the woman in question is a model.
I shot this on State Street, Chicago after stumbling upon the shoot by accident. They didn’t seem to mind, and I even got a dazzling smile from the model!

I like this: xtreme (login may be required)

2006-10-03 – Welcome visitors from snopes.com, thanks Kathy B for linking here, I appreciate it. Please feel free to leave a comment!

Snopes.com have now published this picture and the joke description on a separate page linking to this blog. Thank you!

2006-10-07 – John Marguess pointed me at Organized Crime which uses the same image in another joke email! Thanks John!

Here’s the text of the joke email (via snopes) for those of you who go searching for the origins of it. I’d love to know who concocted it in the first place!

Seems the Better Business Bureau got a complaint the other day about a scam in which AFLAC allegedly was taking advantage of women on the street and stealing their money.
Now we all at one time or another have thought that INSURANCE Companies have stolen from us; however, this scam is netting COLD HARD CASH from unsuspecting individuals.
The way it works is the thief uses children to distract the target. While admiring the cuteness of the kids the target is robbed of her cash and never knows what hit her.
I’m sending this out for all to be aware that this is happening and it’s right out on the streets in front of the general public.
A passer-by with a digital camera phone happened to capture the photo attached.
Review it carefully and use caution when distractions like this come along.
Good Luck, and don’t say you weren’t warned.

According to Snopes, it was an advert showing how safe Western Union money transfer system was. I really should have asked someone..

Sears Tower and Flagpole

Sears Tower in Chicago and it’s reflection in a flagpole on the grounds of the building. I love the light and shadows in this image and the mirror image of the reflection.

Aperture ƒ/10
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 18mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/250s

Children, wait in line

Children wait for their teachers in down town Chicago last year. They were standing on the pavement (oh ok, side walk) near the Chicago Board of Trade. I presume on a school outing, hope they enjoyed themselves!

I’ve been holding on to this photo for months now and since I don’t feel like working a shot this morning, this image finally sees the light of day!

Aperture ƒ/8
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 55mm
ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/125s