San Francisco

It has been a while since we were both back in San Francisco so we decided to take a weekend trip up to eat, take some pictures, and visit Andrea.

We had an early flight out Friday am. Once we got there we noticed low fog hanging over the city so after getting the rental car we headed straight for Hawk Hill over the Golden Gate Bridge to see if we could see the bridge and city under the fog. I've always wanted to see this and as we climbed up the road we were treated with a spectacular view. The fog moves fast, and both the city and bridge were going in and out of view.







After these shots, the fog from behind rolled in completely. We drove down a bit and made the short trek up to Slacker Ridge because we have never been there and it was my sunrise location for the next day. The visibility was poor and we couldn't see anything when we reached the viewpoint, but at least I knew how to get back.





As we headed further down the road I stopped at Battery Spencer to get a closer view of the bridge. I had to wait a while but occasionally there would be clear patches that I could get the closer tower in view while the rest was still covered in fog.



After taking pictures, we headed back into town for lunch. I read about Tony's Pizza Napoletana on Yelp, and how his Margherita Pizza won the world pizza cup in Italy. We ordered the Margherita and the Quail Egg, White Rose Potato, and Guanciale.









Both were alright, definitely not the best we've had. I've read about a handful of other good pizza places so we'll have to try the others next time.

After lunch, I had a few more spots to scope out across the Bay bridge. We headed over to Yerba Buena island to check them out for my sunset locations. Tough island to scope out as there is no parking anywhere and the spots aren't the easiest to get to. Jaime had to drop me off at one location and come back and pick me up. But at least now I know where everything is for the next visit.

We had a few hours to relax before we headed out to dinner at Nopalito, which we saw on Triple D a while back.



We ordered and shared 4 of their appetizer type dishes:

Ceviche Verde de Pescado y Calamar - good


Tamal de Birria con Pollo - excellent (no pic because J started eating it right away)

Tacos de Pescado al Pastor - excellent


Quesadilla Roja con Chicharron - excellent...probably the best dish of the night


We will definitely come back to this place. I heard the mole is good, so maybe next time.



We headed back over the Golden Gate Bridge for sunset. Fog over the city was pretty much gone and the view towards the city wasn't great. So I headed over to the outlook in the back that looks out to Rodeo Beach. The fog blanketed the water and the view was amazing. I snapped a few as the sun was going down. I decided to keep the shot below. I am usually not a fan of sun flare, but I kind of like this one as the sun to my right produced some rays in my frame.



I was up at 4:30 for sunrise the next day to head back to the same area. I was hoping for low fog again but as everyone says its never 2 days in a row. When I got to Slacker ridge the fog was heavy. I put on my headlamp and hiked up to the ridge anyway and probably sat up there for a good 15 minutes before some of it started to burn off enough to even see the Golden Gate Bridge. I snapped a few during the morning blue hour and sunrise, but decided that I liked the morning blue hour shot the best.



The twilight hours produce some great colors even with overcast or foggy conditions. It's my favorite time to shoot city shots. I hung around and watched the sun rise and headed back to the hotel.

We were going to go hiking at Land's End but decided not to. Instead we headed over to Ike's Place for some sandwiches to take to the Ferry Farmer's Market. I read about this place on Yelp too, and we ended up deciding on the Hot Momma Huda (Buffalo Wing Sauce, Halal Chicken, Provolone, Ranch) and Matt Cain (Godfather Sauce, Provolone, Roast Beef, Salami, Turkey). Both were tasty, but Salumi in Seattle is still our favorite sandwich place so far.







We met up with Andrea at the Ferry building and spent the day at the Saturday Market and shopping downtown....well J shopped and I sat. We had early dinner reservations at La Mar. They also have a location in Lima, Peru so we wanted to check it out and see how good it was.



They start you off with some sweet potato/potato chips with dipping sauce. We also ordered the empanada sampler that had a trio of their beef, chicken, and mushroom empenadas.





J ordered the Lomo Saltado and I got the grilled seafood with aji and chimichurri. Both were very good. The Lomo was similar to the version we had in peru, more soy based and the beef was really tender and flavorful. The seafood was also amazing and real fresh.






After dinner we headed over to Yerba Buena Island for blue hour shots. The location I decided on was off a small pullout up near the housing on the island. I had to hop over a fence to get a good vantage point of the Bay Bridge head on. There was still a small bit of sunset color left in the fog as the sky turned blue for twilight.



Next time we visit, I am going to go to a location down to the left under the bridge where the bridge frames the city. I've seen quite a few shots from the location so have to get my own take on it.

I didn't wake up for sunrise on Sunday am as I was already exhausted so we spent the day at Fisherman's Wharf. We took the cable cars there and stopped off to eat at The Codmother for some fish n chips. I got the fish n chips and J got the fish tacos. Tacos were pretty good, maybe a bit too much tapatio as they use it to make it spicy. The fish n chips were bomb tho, real light and flaky. Some of the best we had was still in New Zealand but these topped all the others that we have tried recently.







We just killed time at Fisherman's Wharf until it was time to head to the airport. As always, we did way too much eating. We'll have to find another excuse to head back up north sometime in the near future.

On a final note, I wrote an article for Landscape Photo Mag which will be in the January 2015 issue. I'm working on another article as well which I will pitch to other mags once finalized.

Brandon Yoshizawa

B.A.Y | photography

www.bay-photography.com

Anza Borrego Camping

So this was the first solo camping trip J and went on. The JJ's couldn't go due to work stuff so we headed out Saturday morning to Anza Borrego Desert State Park.



Since we couldn't check in until around 2pm, we headed over to the visitor center to get some general information. They were saying that wildflowers were scarce this year, as they have been for the past few years.

We stopped by Carlee's Bar and Grill for lunch...typical American bar food but it was packed since it was still peak season and there aren't too many places to eat in Borrego Springs. After lunch we headed over to the campsite to unpack and setup. The site itself was nice and came with a shaded bench...just not as secluded as we would have liked.



We spent a few hours driving around looking for the locations of the Ricardo Breceda sculptures. We also drove out to Clark's Dry Lake bed. I'll be back one day to take some landscape pictures of the crack patterns and the mountains. Kinda reminds me of badwater in Death Valley, but the patterns in Anza Borrego are from the dry mud.

We cooked up an early dinner and brought it out to Font's Point. This is a popular sunrise/sunset spot, but only accessible by driving 4 miles out on a sandy/bumpy wash. Most guides recommend 4WD as it can be easy to get stuck in the soft sand, but my high clearance Tacoma had no issues getting out there. When we got to the parking lot it was PACKED so we had to try pulling over on the side of the road. I tried backing up on a sandy incline and ended up getting my wheel stuck. Another passenger saw me stuck, so pulled in front of me so I could attach my strap for him to pull me out of the hole. Out of all the places to get stuck, it was near the parking lot haha.



Font's Point looks out East and most of the clouds didn't light up for sunset that way. I was running around taking pics from various angles.

Jaime taking pics of me...





The patterns and textures of the badlands caused by the rain and wind are pretty cool. Lots of shapes and lots of different colors.



I took one right before the sun dipped behind the mountain.



I also took a panoramic closer to sunset.



I'll have to come back here for sunrise and some milky way shots next time. Kinda sketchy trying to navigate the 4 miles of dirt road in the dark tho. If we came back later in the year, the milky way is best after sunset so maybe I'll go before sunset and hang around until later in the night.

We ended up bringing dinner back to the campsite and eating once we left Font's Point.

Crappy pic of our dinner...Bratwursts, chips, and veggies.



Marshmallows and s'mores for desert!



We headed to bed early, but were woken up by the strong wind that came in overnight. It was pretty much blowing the tent so hard it was knocking us in the head.....so basically we only got a few hours of sleep. Since I was up around 3am anyway I checked the sky and the clouds were still pretty thick and the Milky Way wasn't visible so I skipped going out.

The next morning, we had to cook breakfast on the camp chef in the bed of my Tacoma to block the wind as it was still strong. We had to eat in the car too. Everything not being held down or anchored down pretty much blew away. After breakfast, we walked over to the Palm Canyon trail, a 3-mile hike that leads to one of the largest palm oasis in California.



The hike isn't bad...relatively flat, just un-shaded for the most part.







We headed back to camp to eat a quick lunch and headed back out in search of some other sculptures that we didn't get to visit the first time around.



So Jaime had this idea where she wanted to find a statue where I could back my car up to look like it was chasing us. One of the dinosaurs called the Spinosaurus was a good candidate so we waited until the pull out was free and I backed in.



We then did some other random crap. First one was Jaime on by back running away.



Second one was suppose to be us running away, but Jaime ruined the trio. She said she looked over at me and started busting up instead. So there I was running away, while she was just standing there laughing...



We visited a few other sculptures and spotted the one I knew I wanted to come back for Milky Way shots then headed back into town. We stopped off at the ice cream shop. I had some mocha almond ice cream and J had a root beer float





The strong wind blew all the clouds away so I didn't go out for sunset. So we hung around the site a bit. We had to cook dinner and eat in the truck again...hamburgers this time.





Wind seemed to pickup even more so we didn't make a fire. Luckily it wasn't cold and we just relaxed in the car. The wind was so strong it was shaking the car. We moved the tent behind the car to see if it would block the wind but no dice. So we decided to sleep in the car that night...or at least try. I couldn't sleep at all and by the time 3:30am rolled around I was already up. The wind cleared up the sky nicely so I took off to take some Milky Way pics. I posted these already, but these were my favorites:







I'm just glad I was able to get out one of the mornings to take some shots. Still want to come back for more from other locations.

I headed back to camp a bit before sunrise around 6 and got a little bit of sleep. We woke up to pretty much no wind, no clouds, and just a beautiful morning.

We cooked the classic: bagel hashbrown and a fried egg.





We packed up and made our way home. All in all another good camping trip. We'll be in San Francisco next month. I have some spots lined up that I want to take pics from so here's hoping for some nice photo weather.

Brandon Yoshizawa

B.A.Y | photography

www.bay-photography.com

Anza Borrego light painting

In addition to the silhouette shots I posted yesterday, I also did a round of shots with light painting. I haven't used this technique very much and it's a bit of hit and miss for me. I either end up painting it too long blowing out the exposure, or not enough. I only kept two that I liked and edited them.

One was the serpent, which is really cool as a silhouette as well.



The last one I did was at the location when I was near the Dinosaur statutes. One of them looks really cool and is staring down on you, so I incorporated this solo statue into my shot.



I'll post the rest of the trip soon.

Brandon Yoshizawa

B.A.Y | photography
www.bay-photography.com

Anza Borrego Silhouette Starscapes

So J and I came back yesterday from a 3-day camping trip to Anza Borrego Desert State Park. We did a bit of hiking and driving around to explore different places since the first time we came last year it was way too hot to do anything.

I'm still in the process of editing everything and I'll post the day to day once I finish. I started editing my astrophotography shots as I was excited to see how they came out.

The Milky Way is best seen pre-dawn in March/April so I knew I was in for a short night. The first night I woke up around 3:30am but the sky was hazy and cloudy so I decided not to go out. The second night however was crystal clear from the strong wind that pretty much blew everything away.

I was out in Borrego Springs around 4am shooting the Milky Way against the man made sculptures made by Ricardo Breceda. These things are scattered all across the park, some right off the road and some further in on dirt roads.

My first instinct was to get a silhouette of the sculptures. I was able to get to three of them before the sun started coming up. The first two are pretty close together and right off the road.





There was another close one of the bighorn sheep but the road they were on was closed and I didn't want to hike to them. So instead I drove south to the dinosaur sculptures that are off a dirt road. Was a bit hard to navigate there in the dark, but managed to find my way ok.



I framed this one to look like the dinosaur was eating the Milky Way.

I also did a round with some light painting with my headlamp, which was a bit of hit or miss as I haven't done too much light painting. I'll probably edit those next so I'll post them when I do.

Brandon Yoshizawa

B.A.Y | photography
www.bay-photography.com