San Francisco at Night

Night in the city is bright. Rarely do extremely long exposures come into play like they do in the country landscape.

The opportunity is to change the wild variety of ambient light into poetry. Halogen, tungsetn, florescent, these sources are infinite in their variety as they combine and recombine with sunset, moonlight, stars, and sunrise.

The city is never still. It is constantly moving. Night photography of the city freezes these trails of motion. I can track the jitters of San Francisco with time exposures that show the passage of light.

Golden Gate Nocturne Tuesday evening I gave a presentation to the Marin Photo Club about night photography, then drove into San Francisco to visit Katie Rose in the hospital. My drive took me across the Golden Gate Bridge, and I pulled off in the Presidio Bluffs area for a little night photography of my own..... Read more
Bridge and Stars Last night at Kirby Cove the weather was balmy. I ate a chicken sandwich from Bakesale Betty’s in the dark and called home to say goodnight to the kids while the timer took care of generating thirteen exposures, each at four minutes and f/5.6 (ISO 100). I had to throw away one of the exposures later because the airplane trails in it were just too distracting.... Read more
Alone in the City Watching the lights come on, I decided one is most alone in the city. In the wilderness when I am alone I usually feel exalted and special, but not lonely. When I am photographing at night from a wild place near the city, distant activity and light pollution makes me feel apart, and maybe even lonely, an outsider looking in. Read more
Improv on Mission Peak Jack invited me on a hike up Mission Peak, along with his friend Eric. The plan was to meet in the late afternoon for an early supper, then get to the top of Mission Peak in plenty of time for sunset, staying until it was dark so I could photograph the landscape at night. Read more
Golden Gate at Night This is a two minute time exposure of the Golden Gate and San Francisco, taken at night in cold and foggy conditions, from the rather oddly named Slacker Ridge (one of the high points in the Marin Headlands directly above the Golden Gate Bridge). Read more
Do You Know the Way? From the top, the lights of San Jose looked startling below the roiling hills. Remaining clouds, one of them pointing right at San Jose, appeared black where the thickness of the fog layer preserved them from ambient light. I fired off this thirty second capture, and within a minute or two the clouds were gone. Read more
Golden Gate in Summer By now it was late and Julian was very ready for dinner and bed. But the sun had set and turned the world pink with the haze of summer. I drove up to the parking lot beside the Lawrence Hall of Science, pulled out my tripod, and snapped this twenty-five second time exposure of the Golden Gate in summer. Read more