HDR Photography
In the era before the Bay Bridge and BART tunnel, the ferry between the East Bay and San Francisco departed from the end of a long pier. (The pier used to be even longer—the Berkeley Marina extended into the water around it.) The ferry ended service in 1937, after the bridge opened, but remained a popular location for fishing until it deteriorated to its current unsafe state. I’m kind of fascinated to see its skeleton jutting out into the Bay, a linear form amid rolling marine layer clouds.
Views like this one, capturing the marine layer rolling across the San Francisco Bay towards the Port of Oakland, are the kind that first attracted me to photography. I took this picture nearly four years ago, during my sabbatical to the Bay Area, when I was still shooting with my Nikon D7000 (already antiquated tech in 2017); I can’t want to be able to safely revisit Berkeley’s Grizzly Peak to capture more cityscapes with my new Sony a7R IV.
I produce a lot of photographs every year, but there’s still a special feeling when one of those images moves a friend or acquaintance so much that they ask for a print. This particular image, fully cleaned-up and pixel-peeped to optimizing for printing (after starting life on Instagram) is one such example. I have to admit, the sinuous curves of the marine layer snaking through the Golden Gate, and the shadows beneath the clouds providing additional contrast, are a solid image.
Decaseconds 