Night of laser and light art (and Instax Wide long exposures of them)

My Cousin met me last night so we could enjoy Illuminate's 7x7 laser light installation at Civic Center Plaza.  It is installed just across the street from their Fulton Plaza SPECTRA Light Installation project created by Joshua Hubert which is also a delight (and which moves through patterned sequences that are soothing to enjoy).

It was a warm-ish night; there was a talented DJ playing music within the sculpture; there was a person with a tall ladder and a bubble gun to create patterns in the lasers that were similar to fish shining in streams of sunlight.  It was DELIGHTFUL.

It wasn't truly dark until after 9:30!  I brought my full-sized tripod and several packages of Instax Wide, and made numerous guestimates of how long my exposures should take.  The best results came from around four seconds - LASERS ARE BRIGHT! - and my long and short exposures of City Hall all came out the similar from three to six seconds.

Another delightful evening with my Cousin and SF's Art!

Day of monochrome Polaroids

I had a rare day off, and spend it exploring my hometown and taking photos. Polaroids are... not very consistent.  It's not like my SX-70 rollers are dirty - the film itself has... let's call them quirks.  (The things I put up with for the love of my SX-70!)

One Kearney / 23 Geary Rooftop

There is a series of Privately Owned Public Open Spaces in San Francisco (see the sfpopos.com website for details), and having worked downtown for so much of my career, I've sat in MOST of them.  But not this one!  Accessible through the entrance to 23 Geary Blvd, after showing ID, signing in, and having the guard set up the elevator for you, it is possible to enjoy this small sun deck with its benches and potted shrubs - and the view of the wild roof of One Kearney.  It was a nice spot to visit. 

WelcomeSF: Rainbows of Lasers down Market Street

I have good friends who remind me to go see light sculptures! I was out far past my bedtime for WelcomeSF's installation in honor of PRIDE.  The lasers shining down Market Street were glorious!  There was a festival atmosphere: people were thrilled and standing in the street to admire it with joy and awe.

Being who I am, I decided to try to photograph it with a Lomo Instax Wide Glass camera.  I hadn't realized how many objects would me removed from the parade route for public safety: I had hoped to use bus shelter glass and similar objects to brace my mini-tripod, but they were missing.  I also learned that the bollards at the end of Market Street are WOBBLY, which... did NOT help me!

I wasted about ten frames on images with the camera braced against unstable objects, but I got a few successes.  Plus: light painting using the laser array is GREAT!  Too much for the film to manage, so it solarizes in a fun way.

Yaaay, lasers! 

Evening at the Palace of Fine Arts

It was all fun and games until the fog came in!  And the fog arrived with surprising speed.

My goal for the evening was to practice using Instax Wide in a Lomo camera that permits exposures of up to 30 seconds to capture the PoFA as best as the film would permit.  There are some tricks to it, and the artificial light is especially yellow in the images.  This also occurred on my digital images at certain speeds, and the light is truly yellow, so it's not purely an artifact of the film: the color shifts based on exposure in any format.

Overall, I found the Instax tricky.  Images taken from a distance required longer exposures than I expected, say 12 - 15 seconds, while closer exposures were shorter than 10 seconds.

The photos with the sky visibly blue were tricky.  The intensity of the lights on the structure was too bright in some areas and too dim in others to make an easy print.  But I'm glad I tried this, and I'm glad I stopped once my tripod head stopped cooperating with me. 

It was a lovely night to be out.

A prickly wall (earlier June 2026)

I've taken so many photos of this metal sculptural screen... 

Red and White (but not specifically Swiss)

Details from the longest lasting flowers in a bouquet from earlier in the week.  The tie in to my new, red Switzerland hat was not planned.  

Pier 70 Building 12 interior (13 June 2026)

I'm so enamoured of the industrial exterior that I don't usually venture into Building 12, but I had friends I was giving a tour of Potrero Point to, and so we went inside.  There is currently a small-but-high-quality art exhibit of paintings by nearby artists with shipyard/shipping themes.

Scenes from a library (which is actually a bar)

What a nice, semi-secret room. 

Suddenly, Switzerland (13 June 2026)

I found myself saying Grüetzi! and wearing a red hat with a Swiss flag on it upon stumbling into the Qatar vs. Switzerland world cup soccer (football) viewing party at Parklab.  The Swiss hype booth (Swiss and hype not being words I ordinarily use together) was a happy surprise.

Scenes from the East Bay (earlier in June 2026)

The sunny weather has made it difficult to go inside to work when it is still cool in the mornings or in the evenings; midday, work is GREAT because it is air-conditioned!

These are two scenes from the eastern shore of the bay.  The Pelican is ENORMOUS.  The sailboat, the Lady J, was washed up onto the rocks a couple weeks ago, and remained in good shape - but without an obvious path back across the mud flats to open water.   A storm managed to relocate it, but also pushed water into its open interior...  It is sad to see such a nice little boat in this state. 

Embarcadero Center with great landscaping (earlier June 2026)

The Embarcadero Center, the massive office-and-hotel-and-outdoor-shopping complex that shapes part of the Financial District's skyline, has very thoughtful and colorful landscaping.  

Historically I recall the landscaping was simpler: there were many hanging vines from the planter boxes that were built into many of the structures, notably including the Hyatt Regency atrium.  The outdoor patios in the lower-rise shopping center have always had many green elements, but in recent years those have been refreshed pleasantly.  Succulents now dominate the rooftop patios, with a mix of blooming shrubs, colorful maples, and other small trees.

I worked on contract at a few law firms in or near the complex, and so spent time there decades [cough] ago.  I find the new landscaping quite appealing, along with the updated outdoor furniture.  It's a pleasant area to spend with some takeout food, an iced coffee, and/or a book on a warm day.

Along with the rest of the Financial District, which hasn't recovered from shifts in working patterns since the peak of the COVID pandemic nor from corporate landlord fantasy rents (a problem in the City that officials are reluctant to address), I'm hoping this area is lively again in the future. 

Polaroid Purple 600 Reclaimed

Every so often, Polaroid comes up with a use for its chemical byproducts, and the latest version of this oddly creative recycling effort is Polaroid Purple 600.  I'd describe this is a pink-to-pale-violet base with dark areas rendered in deep blue.   Since it is darker than something like Yellow Duotone (where the background is yellow and the tones are black), I sought out high contrast architecture for my testing, since nothing will be as bright as white.

This film is made for 600 cameras, but I wanted to shoot in my beloved SX-70 Sonar, so I put a new, neutral-density filter over the lens in a new holder.  This isn't how I usually do this: there is a neutral density film that I can insert on each film cartridge, but this should have been easier, theoretically.

I initially was afraid my package wasn't working - my first print was gray, then showed a faint image, then faded...  I read the instructions: it takes TEN TO FIFTEEN MINUTES for this particular emulsion to develop.  (Instant? [cough])  I found a lobby to sit in while I waited for the first images to develop out, so I could make some adjustments to my exposure going forward.  I did try a light exposure indoors, and that was my only failure today.  

The images turned out well.  The look is novel.  I hope it is more stable than most other new Polaroid emulsions are!

Faceted Reflections (6 June 2026)

The clouds eventually did arrive during my long and pleasant walk, and I loved what they did on the surface of this building. 

The Design Museum, London (May 2026)

My jet lag (the 8 hour time difference) is catching up with me, so I'll just say that I enjoyed the Design Museum again, including a special exhibit (not illustrated here) of designs by Nigo, the founder of A Bathing Ape, who has been involved in a range of western design houses, plus Simone Brewster's sculptures and patterns.  And the bookstore.  Always the bookstore.

There was more to this trip than my jetlag will allow me to describe, so I'll keep some of those details to myself for now.  Just know that London has lots of interesting ingredients! 

Kew Gardens: Some Flowers (May 2026)

The plant collection at Kew is delightful.  No, I didn't take detailed notes about what these are: I was too busy trying not to collapse from the heat.

The heat wave was a deterrent, but as I remarked to my cousin, the absence of ambulances parked outside suggested that it might be at least somewhat cool within the gardens.

I can pretend I'll use each of these for watercolor painting studies someday, though that remains unlikely.
 

Kew: A Fox (May 2026)

I was startled to encounter a fox in Kew Gardens while seeking sculptures in an exhibit.  There is a lot more going on with its tail than I expected.  (Having just read 'The Fox Wife.' I already had foxes on the brain...) 

Kew Gardens: Victorian Styled Steel (May 2026)

The last time I was at Kew, I think the upstairs balcony of this particular conservatory was closed, so I was too delighted to get to go up the spiral staircase and see the ceiling structures up close.

As someone who got an A in truss design, I was too thrilled to look at this ceiling.  As an added bonus, this was one of the temperate conservatories, so it wasn't as hot as other structures, and so I didn't fear collapsing from heat stress.
 

The Lloyds Building Looks both Futuristic and Dystopian (May 2026)

It's retro! It's punk! It's surely in the background of one of the many versions of Ghost in the Shell!  Richard Rogers apparently had a lot of mechanical feelings he needed to express in the design of this particular structure.  Goodness. 

Various walks along the Thames (May 2026)

I've walked along the Thames River in prior visits, primarily on the sidewalks of riverside streets.  This time around, I sought out the Thames River paths on both sides of the river, including the Queens Walk.  While these are often interrupted, portions of them offer car-free walks and riverside views atop the various reinforcements to the channel's artificial walls.  

These paths were especially pleasant for evening walks when the sun was low in the sky, offering mild releaf from the heat wave toasting Europe during my visit.  The paths were generally clean, had low lighting, offered entrances for many riverfront restaurants and businesses, and had others out walking as well.  Away from major landmarks like Tower Bridge (at top of this entry) and a venue with music where people were dancing, the paths were rarely crowded. 

The moon was out and visible at dusk, which made for a pleasant sky.

I hadn't seen beaches anywhere but near the Tate Modern before walking from that museum all the way to the ferry service to cross the river to Canary Wharf, yet there were many small, rocky/sandy beaches along the river's shores.  And so many quiet neighborhood streets, whose quiet hid what were surely very high prices.