Jeepers Creepers

My girlfriend gets her hair cut over on Haight Street, and I went there with her since we were going to a friend's birthday party afterwards. Haight was having none of photography by 11 -- lots of hard light, and kind of a slow day, so I decided to step into Golden Gate Park.

I don't spend a lot of time in GGP -- it's sort of out of the way for the places I go in the city, so I always discover something new when I visit. This time, I had a little something more specific in mind. A woman in my portraits class had been to the Conservatory of Flowers there a few years back for a shoot, and I was impressed with the light I saw. Never one to be denied good light, I decided to check it out. :)

It's an interesting place -- with some decent light, but even with the frosted glass, I felt like direct sunlight was really hammering things. Would love to see it on an overcast day!

Anyway, that left me taking pictures of flowers, which is really not my thing. Did manage to catch this interesting plant though, which is one of those pitcher plants, who helpfully also look like something out of our collective horticultural nightmares.

Rearview

I've been spooked out by images in the rearview mirror of cars ever since I saw this Twilight Zone episode as a kid.

I was at an intersection and was looking in my rearview mirror. Brought out my 80-400 (which explains the focus and weird shake) and snapped this. Was flipping through it later in post and it kind of captured my imagination, and it's been growing on me.

Light Over the 80

I had a busy weekend -- went to a bachelorette party in Santa Cruz, and then took B to Napa for Easter. On the way up, it started raining. Fortunately, the clouds broke a little as we headed up the 80, and then a little light peaked through. I reached for the camera, and tried as best as I could to shoot around B (who was driving), and managed to get this. It's not technically perfect (there's a little shake from all the scrambling around), but the light really sings here.

I used this as my class assignment this week for "light as the subject", and was pretty happy with it.

d20

While this picture indelibly brands me as a nerd (which probably comes as no surprise), I also (no, really) think it actually works as an image. No cropping or anything either -- but I found myself looking at it about a half dozen times today, puzzled myself at why I felt like it worked.

Improbably, I still think it does.

Mind the...

Another one from Powell Street this weekend.

Miracle on Powell Street

Right after I shot "We Are Legend", I saw this guy walking down Powell street, and I chased after him. "Excuse me", I said, "I'd love to take your portrait since you just have one of those faces..." He interrupted me and answered, "Of course I do, I'm Santa Claus!"

That took a minute to set in, since when I saw him, I thought of precisely two things:

• Santa Claus
• Dumbledore

He went on to explain that his name was John Toomey, and he had been Macy's Santa for 20 years before they gave him the boot in an (imho) pretty gross display of Corporate Dumb. He said he had a new, more lucrative gig as Santa for Lefty O'Doul's, so it had all worked out well in the end.

John was an amazing performer -- the moment the camera came out, he only got more like Santa. On cue, the wind kicked up, and he cracked a big smile as he waved.

Awesome moment, and one of my favorite portraits from last week.

We Are Legend

My assignment this week for my portrait class was to go up to a random stranger and ask to take their portrait. I was walking along by Powell (by that touristy pizza joint), and saw this group hanging out. You know how you can tell a group of people in a crowd is a group? All those subtle signals, and something just different about the geometry of how they're together?

Well, these guys had it in spades. And sure enough, when I asked to take their picture, they didn't require any direction at all -- the shot just happened.

I take so few group photos I'm happy with (read, none), that I was really happy to snag this one.