Fine sentiment.

And one I identify with, being one of those happy people who does for a living something that is only ever a pleasure, as well as doing for pleasure that which others are forced to do for a living.

iPhone5 snap.

Some new views.

Part III appears here.

Some new views of the GGB, mostly taken from the walkway on the east side.

These Art Deco concrete columns are the pillars supporting the ‘Bridge within the Bridge’ on the south side:

The Bridge within the Bridge can be seen below. Mercifully, the architects decided not to destroy beautiful Fort Point, opting to span it with the sub-bridge you can see at the left here. There are four of the concrete Art Deco pillars supporting this sub-bridge, with the two main cables passing through these:

A slice of the walkway:

American pride abounds, and justifiably so:

Suspension cables – this is where you find out that your sensor needs cleaning!

Each tower contains 600,000 rivets, manually inserted when red hot, then hammered into place:

From the south-east approach:

Battery East from a point just west of the Presidio parking lot. Heavy guns used to be placed here to guard the entrance to the bay before the bridge was built and before rocket propelled weapons:

Looking north toward Marin County, the grain added in LR5:

All electronic toll gates:

Sadly, since my last visit this spring, the charming people taking your money at the toll gates have been replaced with cameras which photograph your registration plate then charge your credit card. Twenty-eight more jobs lost to technology. Sure, we save money, but we also lose our humanity with moves like this. Beck Diefenbach’s superb image testifies to a time now past.

Click the image for the story.

All images on the Nikon D3x using 20mm f/3.5 UD MF Nikkor, 35mm f/1.4 Sigma and 85mm f/1.8 MF Nikkor lenses.

More than meets the eye.

Say ‘Fisherman’s Wharf’ to any long time San Francisco denizen and the chances are that you will be rewarded with looks of distaste and words to the effect of ‘tourist trap’. And along the main drag through this community, replete with revolting T-shirts and even more tasteless souvenirs, that is largely correct.

But underneath the noise there is a real fishing community here and it doesn’t take any effort to walk off the beaten track to discover it.

It’s the start of the Dungeness Crab fishing season and crab pots abound.

Crab pots ready for deployment. 85mm MF Nikkor.

The stainless steel wires on these are laboriously repaired before the start of the season. It’s illegal to catch female crabs (a strange form of eugenics – don’t they need males?) and undersized ones can easily escape the pot.

Fishermen are not without humor. 85mm MF Nikkor.

One of the few concessions to modernity is the use of power washers to clean the floats which designate the location of the crab pots.

Cleaning the floats. 20mm MF Nikkor.

Truth be told, watching these chaps at work it’s clear they could do this far faster with an old-fashioned bristle brush, with less damage to the floats.

THE bridge is always present. 85mm MF Nikkor.

Every aficionado of early Manual Focus Nikkors owes it to himself to get the 20mm UD Nikkor made in the 1960s.

Eerie storage lockers. Processed in Snapseed. 20mm MF Nikkor.

Mercifully, I was able to find a parking spot among the fish crates.

Plutocrat’s Special. There’s money in fish …. 20mm MF Nikkor.

Moral graffito. 20mm MF Nikkor.

Surreal storage. 20mm MF Nikkor.

Capurro’s restaurant. 35mm MF Nikkor.

These get much cheaper as the season progresses.

Dungeness Crabs. 20mm MF Nikkor.

Tourist trap or not, this beats downtown Detroit.

Lou’s Restaurant. 35mm MF Nikkor.

All snapped on the Nikon D3x with the lenses shown.

In Mountain View.

In Silicon Valley, a stone’s throw from the Googleplex. Truly the center of the Western Hemisphere.

iPhone5 snap.

Santa Cruz beach.

Nikon D3x, 300mm f/4.5 ED IF MF Nikkor.