I don’t sleep so well while traveling. I’m not sure if it is the foreign bed or the fact that I feel like I’m wasting precious moments sleeping on trips, but insomnia and/or jet lag visit me every time I go somewhere. On our recent trip to San Francisco I took sleeping pills for two of our three nights. On the other night I slept for a few hours and then just laid in bed for over an hour before deciding to get up and do something at 3 a.m.

I drove to San Francisco City Hall, but it was dark. I’m not sure if they turn the lights off for the weekend or at midnight, but it looked great when we drove by after dark on an earlier evening. Not so at 3 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Next, I drove up to Twin Peaks and took this series of three photos which I then photomerged together. Back to bed after this panorama and I slept pretty well from 4 to 7 a.m.

Posted on December 5th, 2012 under Other. Tags: night photography, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Nikon D600, panorama, photomerge, san francisco. Comments Off on San Francisco middle-of-the-night panorama from Twin Peaks

It’s difficult to get this many San Francisco icons into one image while your feet are still on the ground. This is a series of six images I took and photomerged together. At the time I was hanging over the edge of the west side of Pier 39. From the left you can see Coit Tower, the Transamerica Pyramid Building, loads of sea lions, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz.

Click on the image for much higher resolution and loads more detail.

Posted on November 30th, 2012 under Other. Tags: Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Nikon D600, panorama, photomerge, san francisco. Comments: 2

Powell and Market Streets – San Francisco, California – Forever 21 in building on left and GAP on the right, cable cars in the middle

San Francisco has been forecasted to receive as much as a foot of rain over the next five or six days. Last weekend was beautiful blue skies as evidenced by this photo I took near the end of the cable car line that runs down Powell Street.

Posted on November 28th, 2012 under Other. Tags: buildings, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Nikon D600, photomerge, san francisco. Comments Off on Before the rain

I usually take a photo of the exhibit marker right after photographing the piece itself so that I can remember who the artist was and the name of the work. That didn’t happen with this one, in large part because it wasn’t the sculpture that intrigued me so much as it was how she fit in so well with the two paintings on the wall behind her and the lighting that so perfectly illuminated her.

Posted on November 27th, 2012 under Other. Tags: de Young Museum, museums, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Nikon D600, san francisco. Comments Off on M. H. de Young Memorial Museum

During our trip to San Francisco this past (long) weekend I brought only one lens–my Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8. This worked fine on my D600 in 90%+ of the situations, but occasionally I wished for my 70-200mm or an ultra-wide angle. Today’s photo was one such situation where a longer lens would have been nice. We were checking out the butterflies in the “Rainforests of the World” exhibit in the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. A wonderful exhibit, if you plan to visit, be sure to make it your first stop, and arrive before noon for best results. In the afternoon the line went on forever.

Posted on November 26th, 2012 under Other. Tags: California Academy of Sciences, insects, macro, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, Nikon D600, san francisco. Comments Off on California Academy of Sciences – butterfly exhibit