We have been busy preparing for an upcoming trip and neglected the blog for a few days, but I wanted to post something else about our city.
The one thing I really dislike about San Francisco is the traffic. It’s dense, aggressive and plenty rude. But then, since I chose to work nights, I get to enjoy it a lot more. I took these pictures at work with my phone, which explains the poor quality of some shots. But if you can get past that you might enjoy some of what I see every night.
A cruise ship docked at the next pier looks like a space shipThe Embarcadero in the fog
Now, the photo below shows Forbes Island with its mock-lighthouse (center left) and the silhouette of the WWII ship Jeremiah O’Brien in the distance on the right. Forbes Island is a restaurant, built by Forbes Kiddoo in Sausalito, which can only be accessed by boat.
Forbes and O’Brien
Looking towards the Bay bridge from the marina
Fisherman’s Wharf after dark
This next and last shot is disappointingly blurry but it has elements to it that I really liked, so there it is:
I’m frustrated. We’re watching a movie called “a cat’s tale” also known as “cats: the movie”, a live action shot on video (gotta stay mobile to follow the cats in the story), and I think they did a pretty good job at telling a story with creatures that, well, are doing pretty much as they please.
I guess it’s all in the editing, and thank goodness for video, otherwise the cost of film would be astronomical.
Point is, they did a pretty good job of it. Personally, I’ve been having a hell of a time trying to take pictures of Tito and the demon Mazuzu. Tito… Tito, the inexplicably paranoid kitty. I saw him creep up on a dust bunny and suddenly beat the crap out of it as if it were an intruder… Same thing with drapes. I don’t even ask anymore.
Oh, you wanted a photo?
I’ve taken to turning the camera on in another room because he sometimes (but not always) jumps nervously when he hears the electronic sound the camera makes. Yeah, he’s not exactly consistent about that.
Then he has to be approached in such a way that he senses me coming into the room, but not in such a way that he might think I’m about to move stuff (a big no-no which will send him scurrying). He is difficult enough to photograph in natural light, dark and jumpy as he is, but he also has an uncanny sense of the precise moment when the shutter’s about to close: he then closes his eyes or turns his head.
For every good picture we ever managed to take of him, dozens more were deleted.
Aaaaaahhhhhhh! It’s got me!
Oh, but Mazuzu is something else.
First, we can’t use the flash because his eyes, his blue peepers, are sensitive to it and he shuts them or turns away. We’ve practiced and gotten him used to being photographed without it, again in natural light. Given that the apartment is relatively dark, these two are making us work at it… If I contort myself and manage to get positioned just right for a close up, he will turn and present his rear end. Or close his eyes, still. But 8 times out of 10, I get the rear. At times, he’ll smudge his nose against the lens.
Kitsune’s blue peepers
Well, you know, what works in fashion ends up working in cat photography as it turns out. Load them up on catnip, turn the music up a bit, have someone rough-house them, petting them heavily while saying stuff like “work it Baby! Yeah, that’s right! Oh you like that?” And your subjects will squirm and mug for you…
If you want them to hold the pause, point the laser a few inches from their stoned – I mean impaired – noses and make it quick.
This. Is a lot of work…
