Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Post #3 - 8/7/07 - It's summer at the California coast..



..and the weather is rather monotonous (but absolutely *nothing* to complain about!) - "..low clouds and fog spreading inland overnite, clearing to near the coast by midday, otherwise, sunny and pleasant - 60's at the coast, to the 90's inland ". What a weather forecast, hunh?........
It's kind of a mantra (VERY repetitive!), but one I've come to appreciate & enjoy - if the coast is foggy?... in San Rafael where I live, it will be relatively clear, cool, and breezy (thanks to the fog burning off).
I am a really 'green' guy (not trying to be, that's just the way it works out) - I don't own a car, haven't for 15 years, I travel by foot & bus - and I can take several connecting routes, and end up in the Marin Headlands, just north of SF ( a nice place to be, and to make pictures), but only on Sunday - that's when SF Muni has a bus that goes there.
(( I definitely know how to pull a credit card out of my wallet, rent a car, fill it (partially!) with the little I need, and disappear to places far, far from SF...but that's another topic entirely, for a future post or 2... or 3...or more.))
If I plan it right?... going to the Headlands is quite enough, "that's the ticket" :-) - the fog spilling over the hills and evaporating has tourists of all nationalities veering into turn-off parking lots, across oncoming traffic - It's that fascinating a sight....

I hang out.. eat a sandwich, smoke a bit... and stick around way longer than any tourist - they pull up, take a few frames, and leave.
I am still there, waiting for the next surge of fog to spill over the hills...
The wait pays off.
That's where it's at: waiting...watching...and being ready.
I always carry a digital camera (Canon Powershot), and a film camera - either a Yashica 6x6 TLR... or Pentax 6x7.
Pixels are cheap, I shoot a lot of them - I save the film for something really worthy, that will 'work' in B&W....(easier said than done, especially when the subject is 'fog'!).
Fog has a personality all it's own - it behaves in ways that never cease to surprise....
In this image, the last of what was a blanket covering the entire Headlands struggles to survive over Pt. Bonita.
I guess a lot of the way fog behaves has to do with the land it is moving over, hunh?

One very nice thing about digital photography is the 'instant gratification' of downloading and checking out the pix while the sweat from the daytrip is still drying off your back - no lab, no drop off/pick-up... just 'download and view' :-)

For over thirty years I've been shooting B&W film, developing and printing it all myself ( I don't need a lab, I AM one!).
I've never collected images the same way in color, til recently, digitally... so it is a rather new experience - I'm still figuring out what I want to do with them.
One thing I do know I like doing... is making panoramas. I don't use any 'stitching' software, I do it all 'manually', so to speak (what's 'manual' about doing it with a computer?...oh, I guess it is my hand on the mouse).
A view of the lingering fog over Pt Bonita, is above.
This image, and a few more, including a panorama of the above view, are visible at:

www.bobbennettphoto.net/BeachBlog_MH_Fog_7_07/index.html
(copy & paste into your web browser)

.....next time round?..how 'bout some 'digital darkroom........'?
( yeeee-ah, OK, let's do that :-) )