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February City: Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California

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This shot required another 4am wakeup this Saturday morning, but "ya can't hit a home-run if ya don't swing the bat", right!?

 

I arrived at the Marin headlands, and noticed that this was one of the clearest, fog-free mornings I've experienced here, so I wanted to make a composition that included the lights of the city and distant Bay Bridge. Granted, I've only been here a handful of times, but it seemed pretty clean and clear with a some good cloud movement above. The clouds on the top portion of this photo didn't last long, so this is the only shot with those wispy-looking clouds up there. The city lights really do some magic theatrical lighting on the low clouds!

 

I had a great blue hour (pre-sunrise) shoot , but the sunrise was pretty much non-existent, as this area clouded-in just a short while after I shot this image. I also shot one with a freighter heading out to sea, which has a cool streak of lights (boat lights) from the bay to the ocean. I might post that at another time.

 

I kept my ISO at 50 for this shot to have a longer exposure for the cloud movement, and a semi-wide aperture to keep things sharp. I was on the side of a steep hill shooting this, so the foreground wasn't in play, and there wasn't enough light to illuminate it anyway. I really liked the silhouette created by the shorline, and made sure to keep my elevation and include the little rock-island in the lower left in the shot (That's why I was on the side of a steep hill shooting this!).

 

 

Comments and criticism are welcome on any of my photos!

 

Flickr Explore #71 Feb 21, 2010

 

This is one single image, no HDR treatment.

 

Canon 5D Mark II

Canon 17-40L @35mm

169 second exposure @ F9

Lee soft ND grad .9 filter

ISO 50

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Uploaded on February 21, 2010
Taken on February 20, 2010