Getting to grips with it.

Part II appears here.

On this outing I made for the north tower, pulling off the Bridge at the last Vista Point right before the Alexander Avenue Sausalito exit. Get a load of this! There’s an ancient walkway/tunnel under the bridge approached through unmarked stairs made from old railroad ties. You walk under the bridge, the walkway shakes like the devil and the whole thing is major league spooky.

I have embedded a brief video which shows this tunnel, together with purple haze from the iPhone every time it gets close to the sun, a serious flaw denied by Apple, of course. If the video does not appear, refresh your browser page.

I sent this video to a friend occasioning this hilarious response:

“Hitchcock would have you inch your way on the lower steel support until you were way out over the ocean. Then you would slip and fall but you grab the support with one last lunge of your left hand. Your shoulder bag comes off and the movie camera watches it descend out of sight. The villain (Alan Rickman) now carefully inches his way out, mocks your vulnerable position, and starts stomping on your fingers. In desperation you grab his leg, he loses his balance, falls, and grabs your foot at the last second. Now you’re both hanging as you struggle to hold on. He tries to pull his way up when your pants come off and there is a long scream until he hits the surging water below. Just then, a USCG helicopter arrives, lowers Alfred Hitchcock wearing an orange suit and helmet, and he straps you to his rescue harness. As you pull away and head for land, the entire GGB suddenly lurches, begins breaking apart, and disappears in a thunderous roar under the Bay.

Cut… wrap…..send to post production.”

Poking the lens through the old wires purportedly offering safety to those foolish enough to try this traverse, I got this:

Working on the GGB.

On weekdays there is abundant parking on this Vista Point and views of the Bridge and City par excellence.

That other Depression Era masterpiece, the Oakland Bay Bridge, is also visible:

Oakland Bay Bridge from the GGB northeast Vista Point.

Exiting the Vista Point back onto the Bridge, I took the Alexander Avenue exit to Sausalito then turned left on Danes Drive/Bunker Road, through the single lane tunnel (“Red Light up to 5 minutes”!), then left and up McCullough Road, left at the roundabout to Conzelman Road and up to the GGB overlook. Forget doing this on a weekend. Parking is impossible.

This is the long way around but worth it for the many great views.

Now some serious photographic opportunities presented themselves. The Bridge is backlit by the sun at this time of the year from this location, making for dramatic lighting. I had taken the 16-35, 50, 85, 180, 300 and 500 lenses but in the event nearly all the snaps were made using the wonderful 180 because, as everyone knows, it’s impossible to take a bad image with that optic.

Only one chance to get this one.

Mother and child.

Passing by.

Pacific mist.

Umbrella.

Sweet memories.

Wait long enough and you will catch a moment where there are no cars on your slice of roadway. The superb 300mm Ai-S ED IF Nikkor MF excels at this sort of thing, rested on a convenient park bench in this case.

Empty roadway.

The original roadway was made from reinforced concrete, replaced with asphalt-coated steel plates a few years ago. These are so much lighter that the roadway rose twelve feet!

As I was taking this a young couple approached me and the man said “That lens must be older than I am.”

I replied with an insouciant “Yup.” The duct tape on my beater lens adds that Kerouac quality.

“Manual focus?”

“Yup. My subject is not moving today.”

“So how long have you been over here, then.”

“Most of my life. I keep the accent as it connotes a level of intelligence I do not possess.”

Quizzical look. Goodbye. Back to business.

Battery Wallace overlooks the GGB and is another abandoned concrete plateau, replete with cannon emplacements, the cannon sadly long gone. It makes for some surreal scenes:

Battery Wallace.

Hose the camera around and there’s Alcatraz, in all its grim magnificence. Time we reopened it as a hostel for America’s CEOs who refuse to pay their country taxes which are rightly due.

The Rock.

For lunch after so visually rich a day I recommend Sausalito, just down the road. Taste of Rome does an excellent sandwich with a nice choice of California beers. Sausalito is tourist hell at weekends, lovely on weekdays. Sit on the sidewalk. A lamb burger, salad and beer ran me $16 with tip.

Taste of Rome.

Garish sky courtesy of the iPhone 5. If Ansel Adams was making images today, this over-saturated garbage would be perfect for his oeuvre.

All images except the last made using the Nikon D3x.

Another military conversion.

Just up from Fort Point on Marina Boulevard is Fort Mason. It’s actually in two parts – the lower half at sea level originally focused on storage of provisions and materiel, the upper dedicated to housing and the obligatory Christian church you attended before and after slaying people. The lower half has been skillfully converted to commercial use, including shops, restaurants and performing arts centers. The upper half affords a descending staircase behind the hostel which will take you down to the municipal pier, affording splendid views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz, as well as of the ships moored in the National Maritime Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf.

By all accounts these venues are zooed at weekends, but go there on a weekday and they are almost deserted, much favoring this photographer’s view of the world.

A lone gull hangs out below a wind-art mobile.

Almost deserted.

Truly a fortress.

The Eagle stands for America, the sword for militarism, the key for storage of provisions,
the wheel for transportation and its thirteen spokes/stars for the original states.

Alcatraz from the Firehouse.

One of the many artwork ‘benches’, none of which you
would want to sit on but all great fun to see.

Splendid views of the Golden Gate Bridge.

A typical store conversion in the lower Fort.

Bicycle paths galore, in view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

For a leisurely day of historical discovery and great photography, a visit to Fort Mason is recommended.

All snapped on the Nikon D3x using mostly the 105mm f/2.5 Nikkor-P pre-Ai about which it is hard to say anything bad, as well as with the 20mm f/3.5 Ai-S and 50mm f/1.4 pre-Ai Nikkors.

The last brick fortress.

The builders of Fort Point, America’s last brick fortress, were smart. Clearly aware of the power of deterrence, they made sure the world knew that a few shots from the battlements had sunk test targets with aplomb, with the result that no invader ever tried to steam down the channel into San Francisco Bay, now spanned by the Golden Gate bridge.

The Fort is closed Monday through Thursday to allow retrofit work to be carried out on the span of the Bridge above it. Entrance is free Fridays and weekends. As I wandered around the Fort on a beautiful morning, the sheer beauty of the brickwork suggested nothing so much as that the forbears of the artisans responsible doubtless built cathedrals and stately homes for their masters in Italy generations earlier.

The story.

The courtyard.

Cloistered landing.

Brickwork to die for.

Lone tourist.

Lovely, hazy morning light.

Cannon, once mounted on these emplacements, were never fired in anger.

The lighthouse.

Bricks galore.

The Fort is a National Park.

A fellow photographer was using a tripod and the Park guards seemed to have no problem with that. Handy for interior shots where the passageways are quite dark. I lucked out without one.

Nikon D3x, 24/2.8, 50/1.4 and 135/3.5 pre-Ai Nikkors.

Not easy.

Even the most casual of observers would have detected a distinct chill in the greeting I received from Bertram, the resident Border Terrier, on returning from the dog show at the Cow Palace in Daly City. Clearly yon Border’s nose confirmed his worst suspicions, namely that I had spent considerable time with others of the canine persuasion. Thus the chill. This is not an animal who believes in divided loyalties. I placated him, if placation was at all possible, with a fresh marrow bone which I had specially defrosted in advance of my return, expecting the worst, but mollified he most certainly was not. I don’t know if a beast with but one lip can actually sneer, but Bert did a very solid imitation of that emotion on grudgingly accepting the peace-offering.

That was only the first of my troubles. Rarely have I encountered worse light than in the aptly named Cow Palace, a vast arena set in one of the worst areas of the SF Bay Peninsula where it seems hockey games and the like are played in modern imitation of the blood sports at the Roman Coliseum of yore. The attendees, for the large part, appear to be direct descendants of forbears who got off on watching the occasional lion munching on the dismembered limbs of hapless Christians.

Now I had more or less prepared for the few fluorescent tubes, suspended 100 feet in the air, passing for illumination. The Nikon D3x with its respectable sensor – though no low light master like the one in the D700 – was accompanied by the fastest lenses in my modest arsenal. Two pre-Ai MFs, the 28/2 and 50/1.4, and the plastic fantastic, the 85/1.8 AF-D. All well-known and true. Little did I know that my frightful success rate would serve to embarrass me despite this cornucopia of all that is best and brightest in Nikkorland.

First, your subject moves. He moves a lot. He has the attention span of a politician on election day. Second, AF simply does not work. I switched quicker to MF on the 85mm than a pure bred would switch from scrag end to filet mignon. This was desperation time. Looking at the ‘proofs’, the first 100 snaps were pretty much a complete write off. The second 100 showed some signs of life with a winner or two, and the last 150 began to suggest that all was not over for this blog’s snapper-in-chief. Not a moment too soon, for some deep soul-searching had ensued, suggesting that maybe a career in taxidermy was a preferred option.

And here is what I managed to salvage from the whole near-catastrophe:

Mastiff and master.

Face time.

Kids’ choice.

Nap.

Dame Judy Dench dropped in.

Love.

Beauty.

Class.

A note on the Irish Wolfhound, last picture above. One of the oldest breeds known, dating back thousands of years, this truly magnificent animal stands some three feet tall at the shoulder. An adult weighs 180-200 lbs (male) or 120 lbs (female). Few breeds have such abundant reserves of warmth, charm and dignity as the wolfhound, married to a wonderful sense of humor. As the owner of the brother and sister pair above told me “When these dogs want to play, it does well to remember that a 200 lb. adult male barreling toward you at speed is not something with which you want to make contact!” I would be hard pressed to think of a more distinguished breed of dog. And one thing you will never have to do with a wolfhound is bend down to tickle his ear, for he will be all too delighted to proffer it at your height. You can tell me all day how smart your mutt is, but a pure bred dog is what dogs are all about.

Ever mischievous and looking for fun, the Irish Wolfhound in repose.

On the way out these worthies made their case for adoption:

Good intentions. Dumb agenda.

Sadly, they are letting their hearts rule their minds. First, every mutt adopted hurts the pure breds, leaving one pure bred unwanted. Zero sum game. Second, the key is prevention, not adoption. You don’t see too many pure breds at the adoption center and this is simply because they attract a different class of owner, one willing to make a decade long commitment. As with cell phones, the cost of entry is irrelevant to the economics of ownership. The cost of maintenance will swamp the cost of acquisition, nullifying the economic argument in favor of mongrels and half-breeds. Requiring that all mongrels be neutered at birth would solve the problem of more dogs than owners in one (dog) generation. Oh well.

Now I have to work on the pup to see if he will come around. Things are decidedly ‘iffy’ in our relationship right now.

All on the Nikon D3x, ISO 800, lenses as above, at or near full aperture, except for the last. The body was set to Auto white balance and appears to have done a fine job of neutralizing the ghastly fluorescent lighting.