One year anniversary Bay Area travel

Armanius

Bring Jack back!
Location
Houston, Texas
Name
Jack
The better half and I had the chance to celebrate year one back in San Francisco, the site of our destination wedding. We relaxed and had a blast with a professional photographer, who took "post wedding" photos for us. We didn't have an "engagement" photo session last year, because of budgetary choices. So we had the "post wedding" photoshoot instead one year later. That will be the subject of another thread for another day.

Here is a hodgepodge of photos from our travel taken with the Leica M9 + 50 Lux, Fuji XE1 + 18-55, 35/1.4, and 14/2.8, and Fuji XF1.

On the first night, we had dinner at the Pacific Catch, a seafood chain restaurant in NoCal. Pretty good for a chain. There were long lines everywhere, which provided a variety of photo subjects.

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Pacific Catch - long lines to get a table by Armanius, on Flickr

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Someone is in trouble! by Armanius, on Flickr

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Long lines continue to get a table by Armanius, on Flickr

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Pacific Catch - manager looking out to the crowd by Armanius, on Flickr

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Pacific Catch - we are finally in by Armanius, on Flickr

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Sticky ribs to go by Armanius, on Flickr

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Tacos by Armanius, on Flickr

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Asian food requires chopsticks by Armanius, on Flickr

More photos to follow ...
 
Staying in Oakland, travelling into San Fran. We have a friend who will be doing a bit of steering us in the right direction. I'm also going up to Sacramento and Lake Tahoe.
We'll give most things a go, that applies to food as well. I heard there was a great Chinese teahouse. I love tea. We're going to the opera apparently, which should be fun.
Photographs - We like wandering about and shooting what we see. Each trip I maybe get 3 or 4 pics I like. I'm not sure that they have much in common. Oh dear, I'm not being very helpful, am I!?
 
Staying in Oakland, travelling into San Fran. We have a friend who will be doing a bit of steering us in the right direction. I'm also going up to Sacramento and Lake Tahoe.
We'll give most things a go, that applies to food as well. I heard there was a great Chinese teahouse. I love tea. We're going to the opera apparently, which should be fun.
Photographs - We like wandering about and shooting what we see. Each trip I maybe get 3 or 4 pics I like. I'm not sure that they have much in common. Oh dear, I'm not being very helpful, am I!?

For tea, there is a great place in the Ferry Building, Imperial Tea Court. I tend to buy my tea from Aroma Tea Shop - they have two locations in San Francisco. For food, they are so many restaurants to choose from. I'd probably start by reading the reviews on Yelp or at 7x7.com, a local magazine. I also get ideas for places to eat from our local version of Check, Please!.

For photo ops, I think you can't go wrong walking from Chinatown to North Beach, though I would go via Stockton Street and not Grant Street. There are many alleys in Chinatown and some great potential for photos. I also like wandering around the Mission District quite a few local neighborhoods. There's also a big red bridge on the north side of town that seems pretty popular with folks. ;-)
 
Staying in Oakland, travelling into San Fran. We have a friend who will be doing a bit of steering us in the right direction. I'm also going up to Sacramento and Lake Tahoe.
We'll give most things a go, that applies to food as well. I heard there was a great Chinese teahouse. I love tea. We're going to the opera apparently, which should be fun.
Photographs - We like wandering about and shooting what we see. Each trip I maybe get 3 or 4 pics I like. I'm not sure that they have much in common. Oh dear, I'm not being very helpful, am I!?

No, not very helpful! :)

Can't help you with teahouses for sure though. I'm a sweet ice tea drinker only (a Southern thing)! That's what I drink at McDonald's!

The original Chinatown is a great place for street shooting. SF in general is great for street because there are so many people walking around (unlike Houston).

Make sure to grab a couple of photos of the Golden Gate -- a must for every tourist! Shoot from the northwest side on top of the hills as it's a more dramatic look to get a higher view IMO. Here's an old photo from 2009.

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Here's another old shot, from the southeast side in the Marina.

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Or shoot from the northeast side in Cavalo Point, which is what I did this time around. Needed a new angle! And there are not many people there (at least on a Tuesday). So my wife and I had the whole place for ourselves most of the time.

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San Francisco is just a great place for photographic opportunities as it offers such a myriad of subjects -- people, architecture, artsy, landscapes, landmarks, etc. If you can be a bit more specific with what you'd like to see, I'm sure I can point out specific places for you. :)
 
Thanks guys, I'm sure it will be a hoot. I don't know how much free time we'll have or what the itinerary is, I'm just going with the flow mainly. I have found that pays off with the company I'll be keeping, being too rigid leads to high blood pressure in a very short space of time.

Really looking forward to getting my gear on! Debating whether to keep the tripod in my bag or not as we speak. Hard call.
 
Depending on the size of your gear, I recommend the Tamrac Zipshot for a highly portable tripod. That thing is small and light, and it works fine for light cameras. I've used the EM5 + PL25 and XE1 + 18-55 and 14.28 without any problems with the Zipshot. It's sturdy enough to use in all but super windy conditions. It's fun to do long exposure night shots at base ISO! I'll share later a 28 second exposure photo that came out pretty good!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...R40601_TR406_ZipShot_Compact_Ultra_Light.html
 
Day 2 of our 1 year anniversary trip

Spying on folks eating at PPQ. We had our rehearsal dinner at PPQ, but didn't get to enjoy the food at all, because we were too busy hosting everyone. We finally got to enjoy the food, and found out that the food is actually good!

Leica M9 + 50 Summilux

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PPQ is in the Richmond District, which has one of the several mini-Chinatowns in San Francisco. We strolled around a little bit, and I decided to try my hand with zone focusing with the XE1 + 14/2.8. The 14/2.8 is indeed a joy to zone focus with, successfully capturing subjects in motion, whereas the XE1's less than stellar AF would have not performed as well.

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As this kid was running by, the man on the background was yelling in Cantonese, "Just wait until I catch you. You are going to get a beating!" I assume he was kidding as he had a smile on his face, and so did the kid.

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I'm always amused to see photos of ogling eyes! But this was the first one I captured. And I wasn't even ogling. I titled this photo, "buttocks are better than ice cream."

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After returning to our rental house and taking an afternoon nap, we walked to the Wharf. We tell ourselves all the time that there really isn't much to do in the Wharf, but we find ourselves there every single time we visit San Francisco.

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San Francisco has got to be the metered parking capital of the world. Meters are everywhere. I suppose they've got to raise money to pay for the budget deficits. Houston is moving towards that path as my neighborhood is full of parking meters now.

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I noticed this lonely figure sitting by herself in front of this beautiful view. Hopefully, she was waiting for someone to come by and enjoy the sights and sounds with her.

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After eating dinner at the Wharf (at Boudin Bakery … again), we headed towards Ghirardelli for dessert. I saw this group of girls dressed a-like and walking hand in hand. Couldn't help but to snap a quick picture with the XE1, with AF this time around. Not too shabby.

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I had to meet my daily ice cream quota. So I grabbed myself a fudge brownie sundae. Yummy! Photo taken by the better half using a Fuji XF1 in EXR mode. And the red left eye … it wasn't the flash. I did have a red eye.

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And finally, a photo of the happy couple taken by one of the Ghirardelli servers, also using the Fuji XF1. Thankfully, we had to walk a mile and half back to the house, and we got to burn up the calories (or some of them anyway)!

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Thanks for browsing!

Day 3 to come.
 
Armando, it's hard to believe a whole year has passed since you and your lovely wife were married! It looks to me as though all is going really well for the two of you - and I particularly like seeing your Golden Gate pictures (and the ice cream shots, too!). Happy one year of nuptial happiness!!:flowers_2::drinks:
 
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