Cut the chocolate birthday cake

Yum! Yum! Alex cuts the delicious chocolate birthday cake in Herbivore, San Francisco! That crazy Matt Mullenweg fella can’t resist helping him with the cake. Come to think of it, did anyone not eat the cake? It was so nice!

Aperture ƒ/5.6
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 20mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/60s

California Sunset

On the way to the Automattic beach houses last night we drove along the famous road that featured in Basic Instinct. I opened the window on Toni’s car and took a few photos of the sunset. I hoped for it to happen, but I was very lucky that the sun was blocked out by the signpost.

What are we doing on day one? Robert Hoekman, Jr is talking to us about "Designing the obvious" and expanding on his talk from the first day at WordCamp. The talk is going great, and generating lots of chatter and ideas!

Aperture ƒ/16
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 21mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/500s

Live from WordCamp 2007

Here we are once again, blogging live from WordCamp 2007 in San Francisco. There’s Matt setting up the projector screen, Barry sorting through some notes and Michael Adams in the baseball cap. Check out my WordCamp 2007 set on Flickr for more photos from the weekend.

Shot handheld at ISO 800 in low light.

Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 800
Shutter speed 1/6s

Antennas in the sky like sentinels

Antennas reach to the sky above San Francisco. I’m not sure of the name of this hill, or how to get there again! Niall showed myself and Mark around up there before heading down by the Bay Bridge, grabbing a bite to eat in a local restaurant and finally ending up at the post-WordCamp bash with the rest of Automattic and everyone else!

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

San Francisco Tram

A tram waits for tourists a few blocks from Union Square in San Francisco. It’s a popular attraction. There was a long line of people waiting to board just behind me!

Technique – I used a blurred layer with a layer mask and circular gradients to create the blurred background. Black and white conversion with colour mixer.

Aperture ƒ/5.6
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/60s

Stop for four

The light says stop so we stop. A junction in downtown San Francisco as we walked about town. I just realised the vehicle in the picture is parked awfully close to the corner. There isn’t any driver staring madly at the camera. Hope he didn’t get a ticket. That’s Banana Republic across the street and what looks like Rinelli?

Off to the hospital again in a short while. Unlike the beautiful blue sky in this photo it’s overcast outside, but I’ll be in a hospital room for most of the day so it doesn’t matter..

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/640s

45 on the Golden Gate

The posted speed limit for the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco is 45mph but good luck to anyone who managed to reach that speed! Traffic crawled the day we were there and I suspect that’s the norm.

Shot from the car as we drove along. Thanks Andy for driving that day!

Aperture ƒ/8
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 20mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/500s

A motorbike’s shadow

A motorbike sits half in shadow creating an almost monochrome image. It was parked on a hill in San Francisco last year.

This is actually a moped, and I found much more on the subject on the Wikipedia page on Mopeds.

Aperture ƒ/8
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/250s

Looking up at Union Square

A festival or competition was being held on the beautiful August day we wandered through Union Square, San Francisco. It provided ample inspiration for photos although we didn’t linger long because we wanted to see more of the city.

The statue pictured is in the center of the Square and, “commemorates Admiral Dewey’s Spanish-American War victory at Manila Bay.” Here’s more and more on Union Square and the history behind it.

Department stores, Fifth Avenue and Tiffany & Co can be clearly seen in the background, it’s the center of the shopping world in San Francisco!

Aperture ƒ/11
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/320s

San Francisco Tourists

Tourists stopped on the sidewalk off Union Square in San Francisco last summer. Despite the city’s reputation for fog the day was sunny and clear.

I had a great time doing some street photography of course!

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

The most sent around duck photo

I would love to know who made an email attachment of my thieving duck and thank them. The Aflac Duck seems to be a well known part of American insurance marketing and people got a kick out of these ducks stealing money from a lady on the street!

Apparently my thieving duck has become “the most sent-around-ha-ha-look-at-the-duck photo evar” but I wish I had watermarked the image with my blog url. It has appeared on:

To those that linked back here, thank you. To the rest, shame on you, why didn’t you use Google and find my blog?

I’m still chuffed that an image of mine is now an “urban legand” of sorts. Not many can say that! More comments on flickr but please link here if you’re going to link anywhere!

Update – welcome visitors from the Zefrank forum!

Update on June 14th. It appears the News of the World newspaper used the Thieving Duck last Sunday. I sent them off an email this afternoon so hopefully I will hear from them within a day or two.

Aperture ƒ/6.3
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 55mm
ISO 100
Shutter speed 1/80s

Alcatraz Control Center

The Control Center in Alcatraz. This room is visible to all visitors to the prison and is beautifully preserved.

I couldn’t find anything specific about this room but Alcatraz History has a very good site with lots of information about the prison on Alcatraz Island.

Aperture ƒ/4
Camera Canon EOS 20D
Focal length 10mm
ISO 200
Shutter speed 1/2.5s