Dusk blue

Rosy sunset sky

Masonry meander

Applied Wall Art, Lower Haight

Lower Haight Murals 6

Lower Haight Murals 4

Lower Haight Murals 3

Lower Haight Murals 2

Lower Haight Murals 1

Victorian cuteness (with dancing skeletons)

Corner of many corners

The mysterious tiny bay windows on the left

San Francisco in... intense grape

Pink to violet Lands End

I think it says something that I've been testing Lomochrome Purple at 200 ASA, and I chose the least purple image to illustrate the results I like.  

On lush greenery, in harsh autumn sun, 200ASA is brutally purple.  So purple.  SO VERY PURPLE.  

Somehow, I did not anticipate this.

"You bought a film with purple in the name, and you are surprised that it is purple?  IT SAYS IT IS PURPLE ON THE BOX!"

Yes, but... but...  I exposed it differently last time, and so it wasn't this purple.  It was nowhere near this purple.  It was more like the pink shot at the top of this page.  I am quite stunned.

"How purple can it be?"

Golden Grape Bridge?

"OHHHHHH."

Right?

Looking In My Archive

I sure have lots of undated prints.  My lab at this time printed LOTS of numbers on the back, but no dates.  Dates would have been nice.  (I can guess what year it was based on the address I used on the order envelope, in this particular case.)

I hope I have scans of these somewhere.  (Perhaps this stack of unlabeled CDs? Gah!)  These are images from Desolation Wilderness, up near Lake Tahoe, here in California.  It is a relentlessly gorgeous, high elevation, roadless wilderness with stunning lacks, snow still piled on the peaks in summer, and (at that time) a remarkable number of mosquitos. 

Yes, I am the kind of gal who hauls an antique twin lens reflex camera and medium format film into the high Sierras.  But you knew that.

Historic Fire Escape Shadow Obsession

I have boxes and boxes of photos that no one but my photo lab tech has ever seen, and found this representative example from a test roll to see if my Target Brownie Six Twenty works. 

Conclusion: it works!  It is a very old fashioned box camera, and has a little window that pretends to be the viewfinder, with little angled mirrors that more or less tell you where you are aiming.  More or less: the boundaries aren't especially accurate, and I'm a full frame composer, so it was vexing.  I wasn't sure what its focusing range was, so I have a stack of out-of-focus close ups of signs in this stack.

This print (from somewhere in the Mission, maybe on Bryant?) is a good example of  "things that are so detailed I don't want to draw them, but which I LIKE."  For some reason, which I never explain, fire escape shadows are one of those special things.  And you are lucky I don't post more photos like this.

Note that, if I drew this scene accurately, you would be convinced that I got the shadow of the ladder wrong, because the treads aren't visible from the side. But look!  The shadow makes sense!

The redness of the fire escape and alarm bell are satisfying.  I also like the inconsistency in my test rolls - I really AM testing cameras when I wander about.  I don't think I used this camera again, however, mostly because I have to respool film for it onto smaller "620" rolls (which take 120 film, but are just small enough to be a pain).

Fish bone bridge

One of the liberating things about posting on one's own site is: you can post whatever you like. 

By which I mean: I have very few friends who would find this bridge interesting, and if this were social media, this image would have no "likes," while someone's photo of their lunch at some fashionable spot would be racking up approval (if the lunch poster is a frequent liker in the endless cycle of liking that occurs on those sites).  But I'm out to please myself, so I don't have to worry about this particular bridge competing with baby photos, or cat photos, or lunch-in-restaurant-requiring-waiting-in-line photos.  It's so... easy this way!

Away from it all, or at least above it

A lush green escape from the office, if only for a short while.

Upstairs plaza sun

It was surprisingly cold today, especially in the shade.  It didn't help that the fog was reluctant to lift, and hung around the Bay Bridge until well into the afternoon.  But when it did clear, people went out to enjoy it! 

The park atop Salesforce Transit Center was considerably warmer than the streets three-plus levels below.

Urban bird

A captive tropical plant atop the Salesforce Transit Center, which is open for commuters yet again!  (And now I'll need to orient myself, because I'm used to the "temporary Transbay Terminal," which we have now had for years...)

Spiraling up

It is finally clad!  It's hard to photograph it without reflections, because there are so many angles.