San Francisco, the light side and the dark side, the high and low, and the many moods of the mysterious Lady by the Bay…

Posted on January 5, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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Okay, so I got carried away with the title. I could have gone with: San Francisco, from two points of view, or something like that. But the title sometimes lures unsuspecting victims into the clutches of my blog… so… yeah…

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What this is is a post about looking out over the San Francisco Bay at the city and some other stuff, from almost sea level, and way up in the hills above Berkeley… at two different times on the same day.

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You get to see the Golden Gate, back-lit by a beautiful sunset, from high above…

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And in afternoon sunlight, from the water’s edge.

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You get to see Mount Tamalpias from above, in the late afternoon glow.

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And gaze up at her from sea level.

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Alcatraz Island, the famous prison of yesterday, from the hills.

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And from much farther down in elevation.

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There is this thing that I used to do… I still do try to do it, when I am in the Bay Area, and people come from out of town. I take them, in the late afternoon, down to the Berkeley Marina, to see the view. Then, we hop in the car, and rush up into the hills, the catch the sunset…

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One minute, you are a Cheerio, floating in the milk-filled bowl of life. The next, you are on the edge of the cereal bowl, looking down at all the little Cheerios floating below.

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This impresses the crap out of most people, especially people from other countries. It is a great way to see the bay. The Berkeley Marina is that little clump of trees far below, with the broken pier jutting into the bay.

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Yup, that pier, right over there.

Stay tuned for more on this subject… I have a lot of nice sunset photos.

 

 

 

 

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Well, I am back in San Diego…

Posted on January 4, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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Technically speaking, that picture was taken while I was still at my mom’s house in the Bay Area for Christmas. I took it with my laptop. I was setting up my new digital microscope for some pictures, and that reminded me my laptop has a camera.

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My younger daughter, Mollie, was seeing if she could reach both sides of the double doorway at my mom’s house. This is that weird moment when you realize your daughter’s arms are as long as yours, even though you are taller. I think my wife took these with her phone, and I had her send them to me. Hey, her legs look longer too. I must have one hell of a long torso.

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I had the idea of recreating that Da Vinci drawing, the one we sent into space on a metal plaque.

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The sunset, on that long drive up California’s Central Valley.

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As I neared the Grapevine… the pass leading through the mountains to Los Angeles, I spotted a weird optical illusion. In the center of the picture, the mountain in the background lines up with the mountain in front of it. It looks like a continuous line, like you can’t tell which part of which mountain is continuing on.

*** WARNING- Remember, kids, do not drive and take photos at the same time, unless you are a trained, professional driver and photographer, and a blogger with crack squirrels living in your head***

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That is my 95-year-old mother. She is sitting in the car, watching the sunset…

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This sunset, and this view, to be precise. I drove her up to my favorite view spot overlooking San Francisco and a large section of the bay… was that really only a couple of nights ago?

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So even though I am back in San Diego, and have to go to work in a few hours, don’t worry.

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I still have a lot of pictures to share.

 

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Up close and personal; fun with micro-photography… a closer look at an American 20-dollar bill… and don’t worry, this time I won’t try to make you play my game where you have to guess what the pictures are of… because when I did that earlier, nobody even tried to… sigh… part 2…

Posted on January 3, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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See, I even told you what these pictures were of right in the title! No stress, no pressure, no games, just look at the pretty pictures.

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I am having so much fun with the little digital microscope I got for Christmas.

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I keep thinking of new things to look at… and feel free to make suggestions.

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This is an interactive blog after all. You get more out of it if you participate.

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So this microscope, according to the daughter that gave it to me, is not expensive. Makes me wonder what a really good one could do. Can I get a digital electron-microscope next year? I want to see cells… molecules… atoms!

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But for now, this is pretty freakin’ awesome! You can see the fibers in the paper. And look at the sparkly paint!

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The funny thing is… (Hey, thing, long time no see… look at you being all funny)… that when you are this close to things, you have no obvious reference points.

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Fortunately, to deter counterfeiters… (hey, I spelled that right the first time!)… the money is marked with some very small print. I mean really small. If that was a normal sized font, all you would see was a corner.

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So you might have guessed what it was, without me telling you.

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Is that where I went wrong with the guessing game? Too many single or double shots of too many objects? Would it be better to do ten or fifteen shots of one thing, and make you guess what it is? Or do you just not like the idea of the game? Too much work?

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No, it’s fine, I will get over it.

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I am here to make you life better with weird humor, not add to your troubles by making you think about stuff. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him think.

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That would have been a good clue, you must admit.

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See, on the other hand, I don’t ever want to talk down to you, or patronize you. I know how smart you are.

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That is one of those same tiny ’20s’… but I zoomed down to the next level.

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I told you I would get better at this!

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Up close and personal; fun with micro-photography… and don’t worry, this time I won’t try to make you play my game where you have to guess what the pictures are of… because when I did that earlier, nobody even tried to… sigh… part 1…

Posted on January 2, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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No, don’t try to guess… it is too late for that. I will now post a photo of the things that I used my new Christmas present, a little digital microscope, on, and we can all just get on with the ‘being amazed at being able to take pictures with a small microscope’ part of our day.

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I already did some all natural objects in my failed guessing game posts. So I focused on some man-made objects this time. Be prepared to be amazed by a closer look at… a piece of tissue paper, a paper towel, a small Ziploc bag, one of my mom’s plates with a knight painted on it, a lined notebook that I used to make notes on how to use the little digital microscope, which is at the top of the picture, above the tissue paper, and the box the thing came in. I know, it is not a very exciting lineup. But wait until you see them a little closer.

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Since the very first picture was of the knight painted on the plate, let’s continue with that.

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What kind of paint do you use to stick to a porcelain or China plate? What do you cover the paint with to make it stay there through hundreds of washings and silverware being scraped over it? How hot do you have to bake it to make it last???

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What kind of tiny brush do you use, assuming these are hand-made?

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These are questions I never thought to ask, and I am a curious guy… who took glass blowing lessons.

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Maybe I should have taken a closer regular photo of the plate, so you could see it better.

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But I have to drive 500 miles back to San Diego tomorrow… so… oh, that might be the horse’s eye!?

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The piece of tissue paper. Not overly exciting, but different from the paper towel, which looks like this…

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It is a much rougher weave… or whatever you would call it.

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That is the Ziploc part of a Ziploc bag.

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And that is a little blue line, from a page of my lined notebook. It is really embedded in the paper somehow.

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And those are parts of something I wrote in the notebook, in black ink, to remind me how to use the microscope, and find the pictures in my laptop folders after I took them, so I could share them with you now.

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It is interesting to me that the ink isn’t bleeding and spreading into the paper more. Is it good paper or good ink, or both?

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More questions I never thought to ask… or Google.

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The amazing thing about the microscope is that you can actually zoom down to a whole, smaller level. That is what I did up there, which is why the blue line and my handwriting look even bigger. But at that level focusing is very difficult. I need to make the stand for the scope more sturdy. Any wiggle while adjusting the focus knob causes things to happen. Suddenly you aren’t on the target anymore. And you think you have it in focus, and then it self-adjusts for some reason. But I will get better at it.

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That is part of the metal loops that run down the side of the notebook, to hold the pages in.

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I liked it so much, I took another one. No rust this time.

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These last two are of the box my present came in… which reminded me…

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… that everything I was looking at in the microscope was actually turned upside down by the lenses… which explains why it was so danged hard to find things again if I bumped it.

 

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A crow on a dead tree branch, and a battle in the sky…

Posted on January 2, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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Crow on a dead tree branch… that should be the name of a band, or a song, or an epic poem.

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Have you ever seen crows or jays swooping at a hawk to drive it away?

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Hawks are fearsome on the ground, after a dive that stuns or kills their prey, and with their awesome weaponry.

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But hawks are built for soaring, gliding, and diving.

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They aren’t good at aerobatics.

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They just aren’t that maneuverable.

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Other more nimble birds take advantage of this. They mob the hawk, giving it too many targets for it to focus on just one.

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And if the hawk does go after one of their adversaries, the other ones swoop in from above and behind, plucking at his tail and back feathers with renewed ferocity.

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It is a dangerous game, but some birds have it mastered. Crows are particularly good at it.

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However, until yesterday, I had never seen a seagull do it. I know, it is a bad photo. The hawk had moved too far away even for the telephoto lens. But that, I assure you, is a lone seagull, harassing a hawk. It was like the seagull had watched the crows doing it, and figured he would give it a shot. I hope it ended well for him.

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But seagulls ain’t no crows. Just sayin’.

 

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Lights, camera, action; fun with ‘wiggly photography’… part 3… the final chapter?

Posted on January 2, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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No, this won’t be the final chapter. These are just the last of the photos I have already taken, using my new low-light-long-shutter-opening-wiggling-the-camera-around-like-a-maniac-and-trying-to-make-art-technique.

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These are photos I took from the mountain overlooking the San Francisco Bay.

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You can see the city of Oakland in that one… not enough wiggling.

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I am still trying to decide if it is better with the regular lens or the zoom, and the best distance from the light I should be, and how dark is the optimal level of darkness.

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I like this because you never know what you are going to get.

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But it is guaranteed to be interesting.

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So every now and then, when I am back in San Diego, I will try doing this again.

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And I will only try to show you the best ones, not the ones where I am still learning how to do it.

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Maybe there is even some fun digital effects to use on these to make them even better… hmmmmm…

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I do have other things to share.

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But I have to drive back to San Diego tomorrow.

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So we will see what happens.

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I sort of like that you can see the bay reflecting the sunset in that one.

Okay, see you soon!

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Lights, camera, action; fun with ‘wiggly photography’… part 2…

Posted on January 2, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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Well, I am not going to go into the whole story of how I came to take these photos, or what these are photos of. I did all that in part 1. But I will say that the picture above is one of the better ones I took, after I had gotten better at the wiggling part.

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That one is sort of cool.

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But moving the camera in interesting ways while the shutter is open takes some practice.

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You can’t just go up and down.

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And you can’t just go side to side.

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It is a little better if you go side to side with a little up and down mixed in.

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But you only have a very brief moment to move the camera before the shutter shuts again.

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I tried to do the same thing with some city lights in the distance.

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Good wiggling, but not as much color as the Christmas lights.

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And they seemed to be the right distance away. I think, if I keep trying this, I will find the perfect lights, the correct distance away, with lots of colors, and the right level of darkness with the best lens on the camera and my wiggling perfected.

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I did take my mom up to the top of the mountain overlooking the San Francisco Bay last night, to watch the sunset. I have photos of that, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I also tried a few more of these wiggly shots. That is the lights of Oakland in the distance, with the bay beyond them.

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Not bad, but I hope some of them turned out a little better than that. We will see, in the next post in this series.

 

 

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Lights, camera, action; fun with ‘wiggly photography’… part 1…

Posted on January 1, 2019 by pouringmyartout

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It started off, like most of my ideas do, as an accident with some lucky happenstance thrown in. I thought I was done with the Christmas photography, but I was getting ready to take a picture of a nice sunset from my mom’s front balcony here in the Bay Area… you know… like I do… when I noticed the reflection of the tree lights in the front window.

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I was trying to capture the tree, the reflections, and the sunset… but it was impossible to focus on all of them at once.

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I played around with the idea for a while. I was hoping to get a photo where the reflected lights looks like stars in the sky.

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And while some of these are fairly nice shots…

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They never really captured what I was going for.

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But I still think there is a good idea in there someplace, I just need better happenstances.

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Well, by the time I got done playing around, the sunset was gone. So I decided to take a picture or two of some lights way up the street. Well, as any photographer can tell you, night photography is a challenge. Without a flash, the shutter has to stay open longer. And without a tripod, that means that ‘camera shake’ comes into play.

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Either it was really windy, or I was shaking from the cold. But when I downloaded these images a short while later, I decided that I liked them. “So what,” I heard the crack squirrels that live inside my head say, “is stopping you from taking some pictures of lights while you wiggle the camera around on purpose?” Hey, sometimes those crazy little varmints are useful to have around.a 9

So I tried it on the tree. The first one isn’t that good. It just looks out of focus. “Not enough wiggling”, the squirrels assured me.

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And they were right. A Christmas tree turned into a magical light show. Also, when I keep them busy, they don’t chew on the wiring up there.

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What about the garlands hanging on the tops of the windows?

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Interesting, but I like the faraway lights better.

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What about the wild apple tree down on the street below?

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The white lights are too plain.

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And I was still refining my wiggling technique.

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And that was when I decided to focus… HA!… on the lights up the street for a few more tries. And that will lead us into the next post in this series. See ya!

 

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What the heck is that?; A micro-photography guessing game… part 2…

Posted on December 31, 2018 by pouringmyartout

I am going to put up a few more pictures I took with my new digital microscope. Try to guess what they are of. I will have a photo of what I was examining down below the post. If you enjoy this series, join me later for: ‘Does this look malignant to you?; A micro-photography self-examination medical guessing game’ where I show you pictures of my moles and other bodily growths, and ask if you think I should be worried…

HINT- These are all natural things, not man-made.

Also, I took more than one image of some of the objects.

Come on, answer in the comments. Take a wild guess. Play the game. And no peeking at the answer!

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Okay, are you ready to see what those things are?

Are you excited?

Are you thinking of cheating by scrolling down to look?

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The answers you have been waiting for…

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Are just ahead… or below, as the case may be…

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Here we go…

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Just out of curiosity, did anybody even notice that the last picture way up there was a photo I took of an airplane’s contrail with my telephoto lens?

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And now, the mandatory post of flower pictures in my mom’s garden…

Posted on December 31, 2018 by pouringmyartout

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I always do these posts when I visit my mom in the Bay Area.

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I love that steep garden, where I played as a small child.

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And the view of San Francisco and the bay, seen over the roof from the top level of the yard.

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The yard does look a little different.

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When my three brothers and I were young, there were a lot more forts back there. And underground hiding places, and tunnels, and random holes, and army men scattered about.

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Uh… that one is almost sexual, I just noticed.

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This is supposed to be a family-friendly blog.

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None of that plant porn here, oh no.

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Then again, as my 95-year-old mother says: ‘Nature in the wild is seldom mild’!

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The weather has been very nice… especially for the Bay Area in December.

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It has been t-shirt weather in the middle of the day, something which doesn’t always happen here, even in the middle of summer.

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Okay, I am going to get my new Christmas toy… the digital microscope… and make you guess what I am taking super-close-up images of. Come on, play the game. Nobody even tried to guess on the first post.

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Maybe some things from this post will make it into the next post. HINT!

 

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