Frank and Konstantin called in on Saturday to see us in Hayward, on the east of the San Francisco Bay.
Near us is a park called Coyote Hills, which often offers a great view down the bay and shows the Dumbarton, San Mateo and Bay Bridges to good advantage when the light is right. This part of the bay was formerly used for salt production by evaporation and still has many remains of the equipment used to shuffle water from one pound to another. Much better photographers than me have documented the way the
ecosystem has rebounded from its former uses.
When we went to the park the light was brooding and monochromatic, so naturally I wanted my pictures to be the same.
The now-abandoned equipment included helpful warning beacons to alert me to Frank's whereabouts, which made keeping track of him quite easy:
Some pelicans with what looked to my eye to be immature plumage were fishing in the shallows as we looked down the hill, and I realised I had no idea how they fish until I watched them. They skim the surface with lazy strokes and every so often plunge their heads down into the water while still in flight. In some of my other pictures it's clear that they turn their heads on the side as they do so, but this picture just shows a pair, one with his head already in the water and one just on the brink:
The dark overhead cloud cover - very rare here with so many clear days - and the bright light the other side of the bay gave the water an extraordinary texture looking down on it from the hills and made the birds much more appealing as subjects for me than they would otherwise be. It also made me realise I have a lot to learn about photographing birds, but I find the images pleasing nonetheless.
Randomly, a
1929 Ford Tri-motor (yes, Ford made planes for a while) flew over the hills as we were walking around and posed itself rather nicely with a bench for me:
Normally light in the bay is a bit hazy at best, with not many days giving clear views of the San Francisco skyline. However, on this day the rainy mist had a different quality to it and I tried several different approaches to capturing the mood of it. None were really successful, but this one was perhaps the "least bad":
I like it because at first glance it appears a traditional "foreground feature" recipe for a landscape photo, but on closer inspection the city appears on the skyline.
There are
more photos from the day, but these were just a few to tell the story of what I saw on the day. I don't get many days just photographing these days, it was very enjoyable to be back at it.
I hope Frank doesn't mind me crashing his thread, and I hope he and Konstantin are enjoying southern California. Thanks for a great day.
