Pier 14

Nikon D810 + AF-S Nikkor 24-120mm @ 24mm F/16, 30 sec, ISO-100. pano blended with 3 horizontal shots. (taken on 05-14-2016)

Skyline nocturno de la ciudad californiana con vista parcial del Puente de la Bahía.

• Muhammad Ali.

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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.

• William Feather.

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A shot from pier 14, downtown san Francisco, taken on our trip last month. This was the blue hour shot that went there for. I wanted to experiment and see if a morning blue hour will work with a skyline shot. The problem with the early morning timeline is that the lights in the buildings are not as prevalent as in the evening.

I want to try a long exposure here next time around the sunset time to get some more colors and smooth out the water a bit more. Hope ya’ll like it.

• Confucius.

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So this is the shot that I wanted from Pier 14. I took this shot at morning blue hour instead of the evening one. On second thoughts, I think I should have stuck with a post sunset shot as the buildings would have more lights and would have made the exposure a bit brighter. One cool thing about making this shot was the moon that started to rise and gave some interesting sky conditions.

Shortly after this shot was taken a thick layer of morning fog descended and pretty much greyed out the sky. I had hoped to take a shot of the Lombard Street but that plan went out the window when we realized, we couldn’t even recognize the iconic street from the viewpoint due to the fog. Anyways hope you all like it.

• Isaac Newton.

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The first time I saw pier 14 near the port of San Francisco, I was playing tourist with a bunch of family members visiting from the east coast. I made a mental note that the pier will be a great spot to get a nighttime shot of the San Francisco downtown. I was a bit put off by the fact that it was such a popular location. I knew it will be tall order to get a clean skyline photo of the city.

I have been taking cityscape images for a while and I think I have the process down. Here is the secret to a good cityscape shot, do not wait till its completely dark out. You want some color in the sky to complement the lights coming from the buildings. The best time is the blue hour in my opinion. That’s when the light has that beautiful quality but not strong colors to overwhelm the subject.

For this shot, I decided to try my luck during the morning blue hour. So we woke up around 5 am and drove from our hotel to the pier, parking was still a struggle so decided to walk out to the pier while my wife stayed in the car nearby. I was worried that the pier might have some kind of gate to keep people out during off hours but that was not the case. It was a really cold and windy day so nobody else was on the pier. I set up my camera and got my shots way before the first jogger ran up the pier. I could have gotten a bit more intense blue during the night blue hour but I think the pale blue works well for the scene. Let me know what you think.