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| Waning Crescent Moon Above San Francisco |
When I got into bed last night I figured if I happened to wake up in time, I'd go out onto the Golden Gate Bridge to photograph the crescent moon rising above the city. Then I thought better of that half-hearted plan and set my alarm for 4 a.m., only to wake up at about 3:30 anyway. Plenty of time to make some oatmeal and drink a cup of coffee before heading out for the 5:33 moonrise.
I'm so used to biking to the bridge, I almost forgot the most direct route to drive there. Other than a couple of cop cars, mine was the only car in the lot when I arrived, and even the cop cars had left by the time I got back. I walked out around 15 minutes after the gate opened at 5 a.m. to allow pedestrians and cyclists onto the bridge. There are crisis counseling signs everywhere, and I got checked out--by a guy on the bridge and from a boat on the water--to make sure I wasn't planning to jump.
As soon as I set up my camera I realized I was going to be contending with wind-shake, bridge vibrations from passing traffic, and a bit of atmospheric disturbance, all of which would compromise the sharpness of any photos. The shot above was the best of the bunch, and a couple of them were downright blurry. As I was waiting for the moon to rise, I took in the Big Dipper and Orion, and when I turned my back to the wind I saw a cruise ship about to enter the bay, so I photographed it with a slightly long exposure since sharpness was not an option anyway.
A while ago I posted a shot of a nearby neighborhood intersection from 1928 to compare it with today. The owner of the house with the big pines in the "today" shot recently had all his trees removed. I documented the loss with my smartphone during the ten days or so it took to do the job.
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| Ship Passing In the Night |
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| Neighborhood Tree Removal |
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