Having fun in San Francisco (on a rainy day)

Yesterday, my wife and I made a quick trip up to San Francisco for a meeting. Needless to say, I never make a trip to the city without my camera in tow. Our meeting was not until 11am, but we arrived in SF at 9:30am to give us a little time to grab a coffee, relax and explore. Our meeting was in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency at the Embarcadero Center. As we exited the escalator and looked up, it was amazing to see hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of lights suspended from the heights of the lobby area.

I have been in this hotel many times before, but never at Christmas time, and it was cool to see the lobby sculpture with a backdrop of the cascading lights.

I pointed the camera straight up at the lights to accentuate the lines of the lights.

What was my favorite part of the quick trip to San Francisco? It was watching my wife taking very cool pictures with her iPhone and the Hipstamatic application. She has a really creative eye and I love watching her get that creative perspective that I missed. She was shooting some images of two gingerbread men and I happened to be on the other side and grabbed this shot through the gingerbread man.

A cool old street light near the Ferry Building.

As Annette and I walked back to the hotel for our meeting, we passed this barber shop. We were both fascinated by the "old school" look of this place. It reminded me of a scene right out of an old Norman Rockwell painting. Very efficient use of time, getting your hair done at the same time as getting your shoes shined. Love that!

When I got home and looked at this image, I just had to add a sepia tone to it, giving it that old time feel.

Then it was time for a nice lunch in the city. We went to an old steak house in the financial district and were lucky enough to get a seat by the window. I just could not help myself. I was watching all these people walking by with their colorful umbrellas and had to take some shots. Annette took this picture of me with her iPhone.

I could have taken images of the people outside and frozen them in perfect focus, but I wanted to show some motion in the shots. So, I slowed the shutter speed of the camera to 1/10 of a sec and panned with the walkers.

It is always fun to try new things with my camera, and Annette and I were equally amused with the people watching from our table.

This was my favorite of the motion blur images, because I like the fact that the woman in the back is clearly in focus but the woman in the foreground is more in motion. (Photographer note: For all of these shots, I prefocused the camera on a spot on the sidewalk where I assumed the people would be walking. This let me lock in the focus and not worry about this element as I was shooting. For this shot, I set the camera to 1/6 of a second and did my best to move at the exact same speed as the subjects. To get good results, you will have to practice this technique and take a lot of pictures. Not every shot will be a "keeper" but if you grab a couple of good ones, it is all worth it.)