GONE FISHING

Copr. 1998, Dan Smith

A number of locations can provide standard stock shots that will be recognizable and elicit 'oooh's and aaah's' from those who see your image. On the Marin County side(North and East) you can shoot the bridge from the Marin highlands or the standard parking and tourist vista points. All work well. On the San Francisco end you have the same options and all work very well.

You shoot and come back often and get very different feelings about the bridge as the changing light and weather render this tourist attraction a good subject year round and almost any time of day or night. As I said, the place is a goldmine.

One thing I tend to do with a subject is to try an analyze and view it from different angles. In looking around on the Marin side I go down the hill to the Coast Guard station and look at the bridge from underneath. It is in this area that the crowds completely disappear and one gets a different view of the bridge, the bay and the city. (If you do go to San Francisco, it is referred to simply as 'the city')

On a few trips to the area I found fishermen on the rocks and shore area under the bridge. In the background is the City skyline. At different times of day with the ebb and flow of the tide you can walk out to the rock formation without getting wet and get a tremendous view while losing most of the noise associated with the bridge traffic.

I looked at the City view with the fishermen and realized I had a good image that would also be salable. The skyline with the fishermen in the foreground works well in showing the varied outdoor activity available in the bay area. The fog was cooperative this day in not being too heavy and obscuring the skyline as it had done at other times.

So, set up the camera and get to work.

This one is simple. Read the meter and go click. A 4x5 Linhof Technica with either a normal lens or a 300(I would have to go back & re-frame to be sure, but I think it was the 300). The 300mm in 4x5 is close to a 100/105 in 35mm. I shot at F/22(or thereabouts) which is one of the sharpest apertures on both lenses.

The time was early to mid morning with the highly directional light through the fog giving the pastel background outline of the city with its recognizable buildings. The fishermen in the foreground strongly accented by the rock face really help the perspective.

Fuji Velvia works well for this type of shot with its contrast and saturation. Very clean whites in the fog help a lot and the films sharpness helps me get the best out of the lenses.

I decided against a polarizing filter as I wanted the haze to show rather than try to suppress or penetrate it. On this morning the view from the bridge was much less as the fog was thicker just a hundred feet higher. So I am shooting under the heavier layer above me. This is one of the real challenges of shooting in the bay area-working with the fog. The only way I have found around it is to go back to good locations often and work with it as it rolls in under the bridge.

If I had shot the view in 35mm I would have gotten an excellent image also. I chose the 4x5 because I needed the movements to shoot the bridge and keep my lines straight as well as the fact that many editors really love the larger transparency. It also helps that I feel comfortable with the camera. In short, I shoot it because I like it and in your work that is probably reason enough to shoot whatever format you want no matter what the rest of us do.

For me, the image works well. I wanted to shoot it with the sun setting through the fog in the west with the city skyline silhouetted but was never there at a time when the conditions worked. But, when I go back to the bay area I will look again. Who knows, maybe I will see the same guys fishing.

shooter@brigham.net