Posts Tagged "San Francisco"

Recently I rented a Fuji GFX 50s for one week. During that week, I had scheduled a photoshoot with one model and spent a couple days camping near the Golden Gate Bridge. My goal was to evaluate if the Fuji was a possible replacement for my Canon 5D MK IV. I have heard great things about the Sony Alpha 7 R II but when I used it, I did not like the view finder and the ergonomics. In contrast, Fuji came with a lot of expectations about the natural ergonomics and ease of use. Plus a 50 megapixels camera was very interesting to me.  It is true, I was able to use the Fuji within a couple minutes without even opening the manual. Everything is right where you expect it,  it’s like putting on an old favorite jacket (including finding loose change at the...

This post should have been posted a long time ago, but life made it hard. In early April 2016, I booked a photographic helicopter tour over San Francisco. I was waiting for the right condition to go fly, and when I could not book the time I wanted on a short notice (the helicopter was already booked), I made a bet and booked September 26th. My thinking was that September is the warmest month in the area, if I can hit a nice day it would be awesome. That was a lucky bet, because September 26th was one of the warmest day and evening of the entire year. We were twice lucky when the small helicopter I had booked was not available, I got upgraded to the bigger one (Robinson 66), which made possible for my wife to tag along for a small price increase.  It was so...

The Carnival in San Francisco was this weekend. I was following a salsa group called Rueda con Ritmo. Rueda is a type of cuban-style salsa dancing, where all the dancers dance as group and switch partners. We showed up early to photograph the preparation and the make-up of the dancers. The parade is always on the last Sunday of May. This year the weather was extremely pleasant and we all know it can be cold in May in San Francisco. The group had invited a professional cuban dance group, the All Stars, from Santiago de Cuba to parade with them. The parade was composed to over 50 different groups and it took over two hours for us to get going to the official parade route. Here is a couple of groups I was able to also get pictures: Leading the parade were old...

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...

After going south to Channel Islands National Park, this short trip will take out not far from San Francisco to Stinson Beach and Bolinas. If you leave in the Bay Area, you have probably been driving to Stinson Beach but the town is very different if you can actually stay there! I knew of Stinson Beach before this trip but I was interested in experiencing the early morning when the day trip folks are not yet there. I found a great rental property about 50ft from the beach. There are literally tons of short term rentals in Stinson or Bolinas, a quick search on AirBnb will let you find the one you like. If you have never been in this area, I would recommend going first to Point Reyes but this blog is purely focused on the Stinson Beach area (and Bolinas). Ours was...