Quality of Light - California Academy of Science

While I technically went to the California Academy of Sciences, I only really went to the Steinheart Aquarium. That's what I always did when I was a kid. I don't think that I actually went into the natural history part of the museum until my class went there in middle school because I always thought that they were separate places until this visit (why didn't the school let us go to the aquarium?)

This was me as a child.

The contents of a tiger shark's stomach.

I was so happy when I saw this alligator because I thought it was the albino alligator that I spent my childhood marveling at. When I got home I found out that it is in fact not the same alligator and the image has lost a lot of its appeal to me.

One of my favorite places in the world when I was a kid.

Quality of Light - San Francisco

I really wanted to go to the grand opening of the San Francisco Academy of Sciences, but vastly underestimated how quickly they would sell out of tickets so I took these images the day that I tried to get in.

(note: you can click on some images and make them larger, but not others, I'll try to get around to fixing that)

This image is mostly a reflection aside from the weird mannequin and red outfit.

This was inside one of my favorite restaurants The Blue Front Cafe. They were so nice to me when I took this picture even though I was blocking some foot traffic (and their Mediterranean wraps are amazing).

Quality of Light - Landscape

And the always popular landscapes. For these I mostly did sunsets, but I had a few daylights and night shots. I also played around with black and white so I'll include before and after images.

These are slightly different photographs, but I feel they are similar enough for comparison and the sun flare just looks off when the right image is colorized.

I really like being able to bring out certain colors in the black and white setting. It makes it easy to hilight the subject in your image.

Some people in class were wondering if this picture in particular would look better in color, but I find that the color takes away from how striking the crane is and makes it look much less imposing, which it always does in real life.

I once told a friend that I had always wanted a poster of the shipping cranes in Oakland and with disgust she asked why anyone would want a poster of something so ugly. I wanted it because I find them appealing. To me they represent the East Bay. When I’m on my way home from the airport or even just a long day in the city they bring me comfort because I know I’m on my way home. When I had morning rowing practice they would be light up along the highway and glow in the sunrise. And during the day they are striking additions to the skyline that look like giant prehistoric creatures drinking from the estuary. To me they will always be iconic, even if it is in an unconventional way.

Quality of Light - Pets

I know that I am going to inherently be more interested in pictures of my pets than anyone else so I spared the class of them, but this is my blog so I'm going to put up some of my favorites that I took during this assignment.

My cat Fluffy. Don't blame me for the name, he was a foster cat that I had no intention of keeping, but his mom had a disease that meant I had to keep him for a few years and he had grown on me by then. His nickname is rapidly becoming Zoolander because he always has the same look on his face in pictures

And here's Annie another foster failure:

And finally my dog Homer (I actually planned to get him)

Quality of Light - Downtown Concord

I over shot for the quality of light assignment. The problem was that I really wanted to shoot the Steinhart Aquarium the first week it reopened but quickly realized that I might not be able to get in so I went around shooting anything and everything trying to get inspired. And after I had amassed more than enough pictures for the assignment I finally got into the California Academy of sciences and shot another assignments worth. Because I shot so much I really had troubble decideing what I liked most so I'm going to split the posts up.

The first installment will be of downtown Concord.

(Ok, this is Pleasant Hill, but it didn't fit in anywhere else)