Category Archives: Photographs

Stacks

Dining, Paintings

A lovely environment.

If you want to get into any of the three Stacks restaurants – in SF’s Hayes Valley, in Palo Alto or my local, in Burlingame – get there as soon after 7:30am opening as possible. Much later and there is certain to be a long line outside and there’s a good reason for that.


Stacks this morning. iPhone5 snap.

The service is world-class and the environment is reminiscent of nothing so much as a Tissot, although dress standards are not what they were in Victorian times:


James Tissot’s ‘Ball on Shipboard’ – 1874. Tate Gallery.

And while you can probably get similar food at the local greasy spoon for less, you will not get the atmosphere to be enjoyed here, at Stacks you will not be forced to converse with horny handed sons of toil at the bar. My son did serious damage to a couple of pancakes and I destroyed the all meat omelette. The pot of coffee provided, and left on our table, would have fueled a whole Arctic expedition. With tip our meal came to $30.

Have fun, kids

Photographs

A little joy.

Someone has painted these jolly faces on the wall of this long deserted laundry in a heavily Hispanic area of San Mateo. Guarded by a fence, I sneaked around the back and got up close and personal.

Taken on the Nikon D2x at ISO 100 with the 55mm Micro Nikkor, which makes for a 90mm focal length on the D2x’s APS-C sensor. This is a wonderful and very inexpensive portraiture and street combination. The ‘pro’ quality D2x may be ancient by digital standards, but remains better than 99% of the gear used by ‘serious’ digital snappers. Decent bodies can be found for under $600 and the Micro Nikkor I used here cost me $62 plus another $30 for the CPU. The D2x will outlive you, no matter how young you are.