The Palace of Fine Arts is one of those rare structures that harkens back to a simpler day and age when things moved slower and buildings were designed with romantic flare. It's no wonder that the Palace of Fine Arts has become one of the most popular place for wedding photos in San Francisco. Every day brides and grooms starts their lives together by having their
portrait taken in front of the lagoons fountain.

The Palace of Fine Arts was initially just one of many such buildings which were constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition (World's Fair) and used to showcase fine artwork during the fair. Most if not all of the other equally stunning structures created for the fair have long since passed in to history and replaced by more conventional construction and homes. Never meant to be permanent, The Palace of Fine Arts building was initially constructed of temporary materials and allowed to deteriorate to a state of disrepair. Reconstructed in the 1960's with seismic retrofitting finished in 2009 and has become a permanent attraction to tourist and locals alike.

This shot proved to be a tad hard to take and it took a number of attempts.
Want the details? Read on....

The fog in the city had become really dense as you can see above the Palace. It gave the photo a nice glow but eventually the dome on top the Palace disappeared.

The lights are extremely harsh on the building and controlling the contrast becomes really difficult. I believe they use sodium vapor lamps similar to what are used on the Golden Gate Bridge. This really throws the camera's auto-white point off and creates an even deeper orange cast than your eyes would see. I could have tried to deal with the white point in the field but
decided to work with it in Camera RAW instead.

Unfortunately, there is no light on the fountain so I (we) hand painted it using an LED Mag light which gives it a slight blue cast. I toned the blue tint down some Photoshop but liked that it had some color.

Still, the Mag light was not enough to make the fountain show up in the photo. To compensate I had the wife paint the fountain while I used a black lens cloth to block light from the Palace and Columns thus giving the fountain a longer exposure time than anything else in the shot. So the
fountain gets the full 30 seconds while everything else received from about 10 to 15 seconds as I moved the cloth across the front of the lens.

Finally, there were a number of people walking around the grounds and even climbing on the columns in this shot. Due to the long exposure they become nothing more than slight ghosts in the image. I could have easily edited them out in Photoshop but I kind of like having them in the shot. If you look hard enough at the posted size image you can just make them out. Clue, they are a lot smaller than you would think.

© Darvin Atkeson
LiquidMoonlight Studios

Tags:   San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts Palace Art Roman Greek Architecture Pacific World Fair Panama Exposition Hearst Wedding Weddings Night Long Exposure Light Painting Fountain Darv Darvin Atkeson Golden Gate Park Bridge Rotunda Gold Fog Desktop Landscape Wallpaper Background liquidmoonlight.com

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Ever beautiful San Francisco's Lombard Street winds to the left as cars zip past. The Bay Bridge can be seen just to the right of Coit Tower. An carnival on Treasure Island illuminates the sky with spot lights. In the distance you can make out the pyramid like lights that make up the new Oakland Bay Bridge that will replace the one which collapsed in the earthquake. This is one of San Francisco's most famous landmarks and it was quite busy with photographers and couples taking in the site. There's nothing quite like San Francisco. So many things to see, so many pictures to take.

I initially set out to find a hill to film Coit Tower. I was thinking the best view would be about two streets south of Lombard street. But alas, there was no parking to be found. As I circled the streets I kept having to drive up the steepest street you can imagine. It feels more like a Space Shuttle ride than driving up a street. You can really feel the G's s your car tilts skyward. Oh and then there is a stop at the top!!! Well we finally landed a spot just in front of Lombard street. I had seen some great shots by my friend and fellow photographer Matt Granz so I knew the street could make for some great shots. I have a similar shot without the car but think the streaks just add to the wonderful colors.

Darv

© Darvin Atkeson
LiquidMoonlight Studios

Tags:   Lombard Street Winding Coit Tower Bay Bridge San Francisco California Treasure Island Oakland Berkeley Night Long Exposure Darv Darvin Atkeson LiquidMoonlight.com Flowers Desktop Landscape Wallpaper Background

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The sunsets at Lombard Street in lovely San Francisco. Lombard Street is best known for the one-way section on Russian Hill between Hyde and Leavenworth Streets, in which the roadway has eight sharp turns (switchbacks) that have earned the street the distinction of being the crookedest most winding street in the world.

The light and color is so great on Lombard Street that it's one I will be returning to from time to time. Coit Tower, or the area around it might also be a good location to try and shoot from using a telephoto lens.

Darv

© Darvin Atkeson
LiquidMoonlight Studios

__________________________________________________________________________
Camera Nikon D300
Lens Tamron 10.0-24.0 mm
Exposure 15s
Aperture f/22.0
Focal Length 24 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash No
Software Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Camera RAW
Nikon Capture NX
HDR = No
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Tags:   Lombard Street San Francisco World Famous Landmark Sunset Long Exposure Night Winding Crookedest Road Transamerica Tower Bay Bridge Suspension City Skyline Cityscape Light Painting Darv Darvin Atkeson LiquidMoonlight.com wallpaper desktop background

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The stunning clarity you get at night from very high altitude is an astronomers dream. Here you can clearly see the constellation Orion rising over Lake Tioga at an altitude of 6,636 feet above sea level. At this altitude, the air is thin and crisp and makes for some stunning night photography. We were assisted by a nearly full moon that elegantly illuminated the peaks and forest of the High Sierra. A walk down to the lake can be breathtaking, literally as the air is much thinner. Lake Tioga lies just outside the Eastern entrance of Yosemite National Park. It's distance from the valley makes it somewhat less traveled and even more of a thrill for tourist who make the extra effort. It's truly one of the gems of the Sierra Nevada Mountain range.

You can clearly see the star Betelgeuse, bright yellow star on the left which is a Red Supergiant star and one of the most luminous stars in the sky. It outshines the second brightest star in the constellation Rigel, the star on the opposite corner that makes up the constellation. The clouds were so thin, wispy and moving at a good clip that the long exposure allowed the constellations to show though. I found this effect to be quite exciting as it allows you to see both the constellations and the brightly moonlit clouds at the same time.

I made the late night trip with fell Flickr photographers Matt Granz and Miguel (aka Amigo). As we drove past it was clear we would have to stop. We spent over an hour photographing the lake before moving on to Mono Lake and more stellar shots from the High Desert. The trip was mainly to photograph some of the Fall Color that dots the Eastern Sierra and we would not be disappointed. So stay tuned as there will be many more equally great shots to come.

Regards,

Darv

© Darvin Atkeson
LiquidMoonlight Studios

Tags:   Orion Lake Tioga Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park Tioga Lake Star Long Exposure Night Photography Sierra Nevada Sierra Nature Travel Vacation Deep Blue Sky Moonlight Darv Darvin Atkeson LiquidMoonlight.com Darvin Atkeson

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Explore at #64

Can you see the Big Dipper? It's in there!
Click on Preferred Viewing above to see it more clearly.

I think Polaris is in there too but am not sure which one. If you spot it, feel free to note it on the picture!

Mono Lake is a strange and eerie place in the daytime. Past might it takes on a whole new eeriness with coyotes baying at the moon just a few yards away it can be quite distracting and a little unnerving. Still the beauty of this strange lake cannot be denied even in the middle of a half moonlit night. The lake was dead calm with little to no waves making for stunning reflections. The cloud cover was neither too much or too little and the starlight was spectacular on this incredibly clear night. The strange rock formations are called Tufas (tou-fa) and are formed underwater. As the freshwater was diverted from the lake, these strange and eerie rock formations rose to heights of 30 feet or more. They are now receding back into the lake as less water is diverted from the lake which is a natural breeding ground for the California Gull and many other water fowl. And in about 20 short years the tufas you see here will have disappeared beneath the lakes surface.

The Big Dipper constellation can clearly be seen on the right side of the image with the handle of the dipper pointed down. I am sure if you are the least bit in to astronomy you can count a dozen or more constellations in the sky. I am not sure as to the cause of the orange glow on the horizon but assume based on looking at Google Earth maps that it is quite probably light from Reno & Carson City several hundred miles to the north. If you look carefully at the full size image you can see small rocks and gravel under the edge of the perfectly calm water. Grass actually grows along the salt shoreline and added some great green colors to the image.

Hope you enjoy this one.
Darv

© Darvin Atkeson
LiquidMoonlight Studios

Tags:   Moonlight Mono Mono Lake Tufa Reflection Starlight Shoreline Midnight Photography Landscape Nature Weird Constellation Big Dipper Polaris Formations Rock Glow Darv Darvin Atkeson LiquidMoonlight.com Reno Bridgeport Carson City Desert California Long Exposure Night Moon Light October State Park

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