Day 5: A Glassy Sunrise
Day 5
Vanlife
The forecast had Day FIve’s sunrise as being clear skies. I had an idea of where I would shoot from, but no real composition. First, I had to grab a few groceries and then get some rest.
BTS for sunrise
As mentioned in yesterday’s blog, I decided I would shoot Glass Beach from up on the cliff edges.
Good morning from Glass Beach!
The Ice Plant growing along the cliff edges made for a nice foreground as I awaited sunrise. With the sun out of frame, I suspected this was as good of a shot as I would get, so I packed up and began walking out after I took this image. I had a decent drive ahead of me. My intended destination was in the Sequias somewhere. There’s an old Bristlecone tree that I want to photograph with the Milky Way behind it.
I thought this bench/memorial was neat. What a nice spot to spend a few minutes with nothing but your thoughts!
Well, I never made it to the Sequoia area or the Bristlecones. I saw a sign pointing toward San Francisco, remembered an image that I wanted to reshoot, and took the exit. Taking the exit or not wasn’t a long internal debate as I only saw the sign with 1 mile to go before I either took the exit or passed it. Once I got to S.F., I was quite disappointed as the chain railing that I wanted to photograph was recently replaced with this not so aesthetically pleasing though likely a lot more safe tubing.
Lunch
After the disappointment of driving all this way and being let down by S.F.’s decision to replace the railing, it was time for another disappointment, a sandwich. It is day five of my road trip, so you can figure that this was likely my fourth or fifth sandwich at this point. I really need to expand my menu.
Time to kill in S
I typically use mid-day to scout around and look for compositions. This day would be no different except I also took a bit of time to take a series of images to use later on in a course that I am writing. In this particular lesson, I will demonstrate how to take a series of images that later allow you to create a time-blend which has no people/distractions in it despite being photographed in a public place with humans crawling around everywhere.
I guess the Five Billion Star Hotel is also a trash can?
After finishing up on the beach, I walked back to the FBSH to find this card laying on my rear bumper. I loaded up my gear and drove off forgetting about the card. This will come into play later…
Downtown San Francisco, CA
I wanted to do a few things while here in S.F. One of those things was photograph the trolley cars. It didn’t take me long to find a neat area with loads of photogenic opportunities. The lighting was harsh, but when in S.F…
Trollies on the streets of S.F.
The self driving taxis were interesting to see.
In addition to the trolley cars, there are many neat murals on the walls of the buildings.
Chinatown in San Francisco, CA
I ate the sandwich earlier so I wouldn’t eat when I got here. It’s a two pronged strategy. One prong is to save money. The other prong is because of my entanglement with an operating room last summer. Makes me so mad.
The sights of Chinatown
Remember the movie Big with Tom Hanks?
The Streets of Chinatown
Doin’ it for the Insta…!
You Dropped Your Phone!
A lady in the back of this tour bus dropped her phone while reaching out of the window to take pictures. I stopped the bus and handed it back to her. You can see it in the image down by the rear wheel.
After finishing up in China Town, I drove over to Pier 39 to see what all of the fuss was about.
After photographing from Pier 39 during sunset, I decided to treat myself to some pizza. The place that I wanted to go was new. It was so new that it wasn’t even open yet. Bummer. With that, I went to another spot that at least had pizza on the menu. Mistake. It was terrible. I won’t even mention the establishment’s name. With that,
Pelican on approach
I officially closed out my day and began looking forward to the next. I knew when I pulled into S.F. where I’d be photographing sunrise from. I was definitely looking forward to it!
