Marshall Beach
Almost exactly one year ago, I was in San Jose and gave two talks at a conference and since my flight back to New York was on Sunday, I decided to visit San Francisco on Saturday which turned out to be an amazing experience and also a little bit of an adventure.
The whole journey started in my Airbnb in San Jose, where I told to my landlord about my planned trip to San Francisco and she said, that her husband comes from San Francisco and he can drive me to the train station in San Jose in the morning. I wasn’t sure if she was serious since I told her that I want to be there very early at around 4-5 am (and it was weekend), but then her husband joined the conversation and said that he gets up this early everyday for work and also on the weekends since he is so used to this rhythm that he cannot sleep any longer. Of course I was super happy since I didn’t have to take a taxi or an Uber and indeed, the next morning he got up almost the same time as I did and drove me to the train station. After buying the ticket, I enjoyed the ride with the Caltrain and around 7 a.m. I arrived at the San Francisco train station.
I actually looked up a lot of the things about the Golden Gate Bridge which I wanted to visit, but I didn’t spend time on reading about the public transport. First I was not sure, were my bus station was, and after asking a woman which turned out to be a bus driver, she told me that I should jump onto this bus standing there, but I can only pay cash and I do not get any change from the ticket machine in the bus. She was like „Hurry, otherwise you don’t catch that bus!“ and so I jumped into the bus and noticed that I only had 10, 20 or 50 dollar bills which I told the driver. He then looked angry at me and said: „Please stand back!“ Since I had no ticket and he sometimes looked back at me through the mirror, I got out of the bus at one of the next stations since I felt very uncomfortable. Funnily, another bus stopped right in front of my nose, the door opened and this woman from earlier was sitting in there and saying: „Did he threw you out of the bus?!?“ I told her that I decided to leave the bus and then she said: „Come on, jump in.“ We then started to talk, she was super kind and asked me where I’m from and what I’m doing here and after showing her that I don’t have any coins or one dollar bills, she gave me a ticket for free and even told me that this is valid for a few hours. Whilst driving through San Francisco, she then told me a lot of things like „Look, there you can see the famous Lombard Street a little!“ meaning that I got more or less a little tour during my bus ride. After a few stations, she then told me that I have to get out of the bus here and switch to another one which is already labeled with „Golden Gate Bridge“. So I got out of her bus and thanked her a few times since I was just so happy that she was so kind. Since I knew that my ticket was still valid a few hours, I decided to quickly walk back to Lombard street since I didn’t want to miss it if I’m already here on the other end of the world. After seeing this wound street and a lot of people there, I walked back to the bus station and jumped onto the bus to the Golden Gate Bridge and arrived there around 9 am.
First, I took a few images from the parking lot of the Welcome Center, had a look into the center to make up my mind which souvenirs I might buy later and then I decided to eat something such that I have enough energy to walk around and see all the viewpoints I wanted to visit. I then decided to first walk over the bridge which was pretty cool, especially when you feel this massive steel construction moving and shaking a little when cars drive by. At the other end, I walked up to the Battery Spencer viewpoint, one of the most popular viewpoints, at least judging from the crowds of people there. The view was indeed very nice, but there was no fog around the bridge or nice clouds in the air and thus it was photographically a bit boring. Nevertheless it was very nice and I then continued the road up the hill a little and after that I decided to go back down and cross the bridge again to get back to the Welcome Center.
After having some lunch and buying some souvenirs, I then decided to continue to the next „viewpoint“ called Marshall Beach. I was actually a little early for sunset, but I thought better be early than late, especially since I didn’t exactly know how to get there. It turned out that it was pretty easy to find and I went down the stairs and was at the beach around 4 p.m. Since there were a few hours left til sunset, I played around with some very long exposures which didn’t turn out very great. Since I was still pretty far away from the bridge, I noticed people climbing over some rocks at the other end of the beach and hence I did the same and got to another beach closer to the bridge, where I found this rock with all its algae on it and I thought that this might serve as a nice foreground. Since I’ve never done any seascape photography, I played around with different shutter speeds and timings and found, that I get the best results when I start exposing after a wave hits the rock and the water is flowing back into the ocean. I then took a lot of images as the sun went down and got my feet wet a few times due to some bigger waves which was totally worth it I think :) The sunset itself was not very spectacular since the sun was mostly behind the clouds, but there was some red color in the sky which I enhanced in post processing. Of all the images I took, this one turned out to be my favorite since I really like how the water winds itself around the stone in the foreground, creating this nice S-curve which leads to the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. Hope you like it too! :)
Marshall Beach
Almost exactly one year ago, I was in San Jose and gave two talks at a conference and since my flight back to New York was on Sunday, I decided to visit San Francisco on Saturday which turned out to be an amazing experience and also a little bit of an adventure.
The whole journey started in my Airbnb in San Jose, where I told to my landlord about my planned trip to San Francisco and she said, that her husband comes from San Francisco and he can drive me to the train station in San Jose in the morning. I wasn’t sure if she was serious since I told her that I want to be there very early at around 4-5 am (and it was weekend), but then her husband joined the conversation and said that he gets up this early everyday for work and also on the weekends since he is so used to this rhythm that he cannot sleep any longer. Of course I was super happy since I didn’t have to take a taxi or an Uber and indeed, the next morning he got up almost the same time as I did and drove me to the train station. After buying the ticket, I enjoyed the ride with the Caltrain and around 7 a.m. I arrived at the San Francisco train station.
I actually looked up a lot of the things about the Golden Gate Bridge which I wanted to visit, but I didn’t spend time on reading about the public transport. First I was not sure, were my bus station was, and after asking a woman which turned out to be a bus driver, she told me that I should jump onto this bus standing there, but I can only pay cash and I do not get any change from the ticket machine in the bus. She was like „Hurry, otherwise you don’t catch that bus!“ and so I jumped into the bus and noticed that I only had 10, 20 or 50 dollar bills which I told the driver. He then looked angry at me and said: „Please stand back!“ Since I had no ticket and he sometimes looked back at me through the mirror, I got out of the bus at one of the next stations since I felt very uncomfortable. Funnily, another bus stopped right in front of my nose, the door opened and this woman from earlier was sitting in there and saying: „Did he threw you out of the bus?!?“ I told her that I decided to leave the bus and then she said: „Come on, jump in.“ We then started to talk, she was super kind and asked me where I’m from and what I’m doing here and after showing her that I don’t have any coins or one dollar bills, she gave me a ticket for free and even told me that this is valid for a few hours. Whilst driving through San Francisco, she then told me a lot of things like „Look, there you can see the famous Lombard Street a little!“ meaning that I got more or less a little tour during my bus ride. After a few stations, she then told me that I have to get out of the bus here and switch to another one which is already labeled with „Golden Gate Bridge“. So I got out of her bus and thanked her a few times since I was just so happy that she was so kind. Since I knew that my ticket was still valid a few hours, I decided to quickly walk back to Lombard street since I didn’t want to miss it if I’m already here on the other end of the world. After seeing this wound street and a lot of people there, I walked back to the bus station and jumped onto the bus to the Golden Gate Bridge and arrived there around 9 am.
First, I took a few images from the parking lot of the Welcome Center, had a look into the center to make up my mind which souvenirs I might buy later and then I decided to eat something such that I have enough energy to walk around and see all the viewpoints I wanted to visit. I then decided to first walk over the bridge which was pretty cool, especially when you feel this massive steel construction moving and shaking a little when cars drive by. At the other end, I walked up to the Battery Spencer viewpoint, one of the most popular viewpoints, at least judging from the crowds of people there. The view was indeed very nice, but there was no fog around the bridge or nice clouds in the air and thus it was photographically a bit boring. Nevertheless it was very nice and I then continued the road up the hill a little and after that I decided to go back down and cross the bridge again to get back to the Welcome Center.
After having some lunch and buying some souvenirs, I then decided to continue to the next „viewpoint“ called Marshall Beach. I was actually a little early for sunset, but I thought better be early than late, especially since I didn’t exactly know how to get there. It turned out that it was pretty easy to find and I went down the stairs and was at the beach around 4 p.m. Since there were a few hours left til sunset, I played around with some very long exposures which didn’t turn out very great. Since I was still pretty far away from the bridge, I noticed people climbing over some rocks at the other end of the beach and hence I did the same and got to another beach closer to the bridge, where I found this rock with all its algae on it and I thought that this might serve as a nice foreground. Since I’ve never done any seascape photography, I played around with different shutter speeds and timings and found, that I get the best results when I start exposing after a wave hits the rock and the water is flowing back into the ocean. I then took a lot of images as the sun went down and got my feet wet a few times due to some bigger waves which was totally worth it I think :) The sunset itself was not very spectacular since the sun was mostly behind the clouds, but there was some red color in the sky which I enhanced in post processing. Of all the images I took, this one turned out to be my favorite since I really like how the water winds itself around the stone in the foreground, creating this nice S-curve which leads to the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. Hope you like it too! :)