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San Francisco and New York have some of the most expensive hotel room rates which we have ever encountered in our travels. Thankfully due to our extended family and old college friends, we don’t ever have to look for hotels in these two towns. But staying with family and friends makes it difficult to go on photography endeavors on these trips. Usually, my wife gives me a stern talking to before the trip about how I should relax with the camera.
We lived in San Francisco for a short while after our marriage but never really spend any time exploring the city, and after being LA residents for five years, we finally decided to take a short weekend trip to explore the photographic possibilities of this beautiful city. I spend some time researching the landmarks of the city and the perfect positions for the shot. The problem was that we were there for only three days, and the best time for the city shots is usually during the blue hour, which happens after sunset. But we only had two evenings, and I had a ton of locations, we decided to dedicate the sunset towards the slacker hill hike and the treasure Island vistas, but that meant that the pier 14 shot that I had in mind would not be possible in the best light.
I knew that there was a blue hour in the morning as well, just before the sunrise and I decided to wake my wife up at 4 am and see if we could get a good shot. The day was unusually cold, and my wife agreed that she would stay in the car to guard it against the ever vigilant parking wardens. The blue hour was beautiful; the only problem was that it was way shorter than the evening version also it was much brighter due to the sun coming up rapidly. The brightness stole some of the contrast out of the city lights, but I liked having the opportunity to shoot at such a busy location with no one around me.