It is said that the best weather in San Francisco is Fall, the season we have just entered. But it seems like all this climate change – global warming, is changing the predicable patterns around here. Rainfall is rare this time of year? We saw some today!
We are surrounded on three sides by water: ocean and bay. If the temperatures in the East Bay are relatively hot that phenomena pulls the fog into the gate. Often the fog sneaks under the Golden Gate Bride before fully engulfing it. That was the case this week as the sun rose to give the waves of fog and the city in the sky an orange glow! The weather changes quickly and is significantly different from neighborhood to neighborhood here in San Francisco.
Like snow, the fog tends to throw off the camera’s ability to correctly meter the amount of light in a given scene. Bracketing helps, checking the histogram, and realizing that your fog is 1 or more stops lighter than medium tone are helpful in obtaining correct exposure.
The Marin Headlands gets you above as the low fog coming into the Golden Gate so you experience it as a cotton candy sea with curves and waves and curls. So you will want to capture these textures. Even if you time the photograph for when you feel there’s the most interesting distribution of fog, this fog may not retain its texture if the exposure time is not short enough. In general, the shutter speed needs to be a second or less in order to prevent the fog’s texture from becoming just a mass of white or blurred.
My second image is also benefited by the fog, but in this case as the great diffuser. It produced perfect light for capturing the details in this turban snail shell on dried kelp. What makes this picture for me is the orange ring in the turban snail shell and that same basic color in the dried kelp. Ad a vignette to help keep your focus in the image. I do this by simply burning in the edges in Photoshop.
Yesterday (Saturday September 24) there was a peace rally in San Francisco in the drizzling fog – but that did not dampen the spirit of the event or the enthusiasm of the marchers and participants. I hope these images arouse peace within your very being!