Posts Tagged "california"

A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go and photograph the old train station (on 16th street) in Oakland,CA. This train station was abandoned in 1994, when the newer train station was built. For over 50 years, this station was the main train station for the city of Oakland, CA. It connected the Pacific Railways to the local elevated electric tram. Think of this: in 1912, Oakland already had an elevated electric tram. There is almost no furniture left but the main hall is beautiful and so photogenic. The building is a private property, you can’t trespass but there is a couple of meet-ups that regularly organize private days there. It’s really cheap and you get a good 90 minutes to explore the building (almost by yourself). Here some of my...

Last year was not my most productive year as a photographer. I still took over 20000 images but it’s half what I did in 2014. And it’s not because I have not traveled abroad (I went to Ethiopia, Japan, France and Turkey) but I did not go out locally as much as I usually do. My day job kept me busy and I did not have much spare time. Even this blog is suffering from my lack of free time. Finally at the end of February, I was able to compile my best images for 2015. Better late than never is one my motto in life. Interestingly enough, there is a theme that is emerging from my images, I love cityscape (my top 4 images are Tokyo, San Francisco, Nice and San Francisco again). I love man-made structures, you have to go to my volcano image to find a purely...

The Golden Gate Bridge is like  few monuments in the world (Eiffel tower in Paris, the statue of liberty in New York, the opera house in Sydney, the burj khalifa in Dubai), it’s an iconic symbol that almost everyone recognizes instantly. It’s also extremely photographed and making a unique image of the Golden Gate Bridge is almost impossible. I have a strong attraction for this bridge and the map below that shows the GPS point of where I took my images reflects that fact. I have shot the Golden Gate Bridge at night, at sunrise, at sunset, from a boat, from a helicopter, from a car and there are still images in my head I want to make that have not happened yet. View San Francisco Photo Spot series: The Golden Gate Bridge in a larger map The...

Another installment of my San Francisco Photo spot series; this time it is about Treasure Island. I love Treasure Island because it has one of the nicest views of the Financial District. That’s from where I get some of my favorite images of the city at night. Especially at this time of the year where all of the Embarcadero buildings are illuminated for the Holidays. In addition on Treasure Island (TI), there is the gigantesque statue Bliss Dance made of lights and also the spot called forbidden access. Now, I personally like taking photographs where you can see the city lights. But for your camera to see these lights (and the sky), the city lights need to be at least as bright as the sky. In order to get those images, timing is crucial. First, where is...

After reading the book Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller, I became fascinated by the production of olive oil. I met Paul Piccirillo (from Athena’s gift) who is an olive grower in Gustine, CA. Each year, he organizes the “first day of harvest” where friends come and help him to start the harvest of his trees. After a quick training, we went to the grove to pick olives. I stopped for a couple of minutes to capture the process. Olive trees seem to mature at very different times. In some trees the olives are mostly black (or ripe), in some other trees, the olives are mostly green (or not ripe yet). But interestingly enough, to make good olive oil, you need both, so it does not matter that you pick all...