Shots from my daily commute.
We got some heavy rain here in the Bay Area over the weekend. Today, fortunately, I had a fairly dry commute home. Towards the end of my long drive I stopped and grabbed this shot of the tail end of the storm as it passed over Sonoma County. The body of water is not a lake, but a large vernal pool swollen by the rain.
Lens: Canon EF-S 15-85mm at 59mm. 1/200 second at f/16, ISO 200.
Canon T2i on the first day of Spring.
I’ve been seeing patches of these blue flower spikes for years but never bothered to find out what they are. The solution? Take a photo! For several weeks, I’ve been eyeing this patch near where I run during my lunch breaks. The blooms burst this weekend, so today I stopped and grabbed a few quick shots with the G11. The large perennial is called “Pride of Madeira“. They are quite stunning, even under a bright, overcast sky in the early afternoon. I gave the image a bit of a faux HDR effect by converting a Photoshop layer to black and white with Nik Silver Efex Pro (version 1). During the conversion, I boosted the “Structure” 30%, “Contrast” 9%, and took the “Brightness” down to -5%. Happy with the black and white layer, I then duplicated the original layer, moved it above the Niks layer, switched it from “Normal” to “Color” in the layers menu at 100% and merged down.
Canon G11 filling in the gaps.
With gas approaching $4.00 a gallon here in Northern California, this is looking like a good compromise for urban transport. Photographically, it’s a bit of shadow play on a bright afternoon.
Lens: Canon EF-S 15-85mm. 1/125 second at f/16. ISO 200.
Canon T2i catching shadows.
Two blocks from where I work is Bayfront Park–the only open space in Menlo Park. During lunchtime, three or four days a week, I put on my running gear and slog the trails. I’ve been running there for years. Now and again the view from the hilltops is spectacular. To get shots of the vistas, however, requires a bit of a hike. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time at the end of the work day at the start of my long commute home to get into hiking mode. But yesterday, because of the wild sky, I decided to head up the closest hill from the back parking area and grab a couple of quick shots. This is my fave.
Lens: Canon EF-S 15-85mm at 85mm. 1/125 second at f/16. ISO 200.
Canon T2i from the stomping grounds.
Today, during my commute home, I got stuck in very slow traffic on 19th Avenue–when 19th bogs down it’s never fun. I turned up Moraga Street with the intention of bypassing 10 or so blocks of the jam up but ended up stopping to grab a few shots of these tiled steps. It was lightly raining and it was getting late (I’d already stopped to take photos earlier) so I didn’t have much time. I did, however, manage to get this very symmetrical shot of these very cool looking stairs.
Lens: Canon EF-S 15-85mm at 46mm. 1/40 second at f/9. ISO 200.
Canon T2i finding art along the commute.