- Where: Yosemite National Park, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Ektar 100
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
I have been to Yosemite National Park several times before, mostly around the year’s warmer months. This time it was during early March and the weekend before my visit the park was closed due to heavy snow storms. I had doubts that the park would open in time for my day trip from the San Francisco Bay area to Yosemite, but I got lucky and it opened just in time to moon me again with its natural beauty. In this first part, and the upcoming second blog post, I am sharing some of this beauty with you.
- Where: Alcatraz, San Francisco Bay, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
Alcatraz was a brutal place back when the prison was in use and a visit to the island prison complex gives a stark reminder of those times. The audio tour inside the cell blocks is especially eye-opening in that regard. The contrast between life behind bars and outside of the cell blocks and the prison yard was completely unknown to me. Of course, I had seen Alcatraz in movies, but before visiting the island I was not aware of how beautiful the island is. It looks like the prison is a cement block nestled inside a flower garden.
- Where: Santa Monica Pier, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: CatLabs X-Film 100 Color
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
My first visit to Santa Monica Pier felt strangely familiar. It was as if I had seen that in a movie or game, I played many decades ago. The pier is beautiful and has the cheapest paid parking I have seen in LA. Worth a visit.
- Where: Santa Cruz, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160, CatLabs X-Film 100 Color
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
If you visit Las Vegas, take a little detour and visit the Hoover Dam. It does not take that much extra time, you get to see one of the most popular dams in the world and you can cross the border from Nevada to Arizona, entering a different timezone.
- Where: Santa Cruz, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
Slightly North of Santa Cruz is a rugged coast paradise for surfers. I went there on a day with spotty weather that ranged from sunshine to rainstorms. None of the images in this post were taken in the same lighting condition, and their mood differs wildly in my mind.
- Where: Stanford University, Stanford, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
Visiting the Bay Area with some spare time, I sometimes park at the Stanford Shopping Mall and walk to Stanford University to take pictures. It is a bit of a walk to get there, but I am rewarded with the ridiculous grandeur of the campus design. While preparing the images for this blog post, I decided to play around with Generative AI Remove which just dropped as Early Access in Lightroom. The results are shockingly good and the tool enabled me to bend some images to my creative vision. To give a feeling of what I might have done to some of them, I have included a short explanation for those images that have been altered with Generative AI Remove.
- Where: USS Hornet Museum, Alameda County, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
This is the second of two posts about the Hornet.
- Where: USS Hornet Museum, Alameda County, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
When visiting the Bay Area over a weekend, I love stopping by the USS Hornet Museum. The old aircraft carrier has been restored by volunteers and is said to be the best preserved one of its kind. It is teeming with details to behold and to explore. Guided tours provide an insight into the bowels of the ship and the stories I have heard so far were truly fascinating. This is the first of two posts about the Hornet.
- Where: Thomas Fogarty Winery, Woodside, CA
- Camera: Fuji GW690 III
- Film: Kodak Portra 160
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
I visited the Thomas Fogarty Winery based on a suggestion from a friend at Hotel Strata in Mountain View. He told me there would be a great view of the Bay Area down from the winery’s premises, which falls right into what I was looking for as I searched for photo opportunities over my weekend stay there. Perched at the top of the spine of the small mountain range to the south of the bay, it features lush greenery and wavy slopes covered by grapevine fields. A beautiful place to stop by, have a glass or two (I did not, because I had to drive), and enjoy the scenery.
- Where: A lake somewhere in Bavaria.
- Camera: Rollei 35
- Film: Kentmere Pan 100
- Scan: Nikon Super Coolscan 9000
The second camera test roll developed in 510 Pyro. I tried to compensate for the overdeveloped border with a linear gradient in Lightroom, which worked well enough. I like the tonality that 510 Pyro produces.
