San Francisco, CA – Golden Pate Park

If you live in or a traveling to San Francisco in the summer and you want to take some lovely portraits…visit Stow Lake.  Here you can find a breathtaking Roman Bridge and  cool waterfall.  Both within a few minutes walk of each other.  The waterfall is actually in this picture…you can see part of it on the right.    When I was there this day…I saw a Bride getting her pictures taken.  If I had a flash…even this beautiful stairway would be a great spot!   Have fun!

Talke Photography Settings:

• Camera:  Nikon D300
• Lens: Nikon 12-24 f/4.6
• Setting: Aperture Mode
• Focal Length: 20.0mm
• ISO: 200
• Exposure: 1/13 second
• Aperture:  f/5.6
• Gear:  Tripod
• Post Process: Adobe CS5, Color Efex Pro, Photo Tools 2.6

San Francisco, CA – Stow Lake – HDR

NIKON D300, Nikon 18-200 VR, HDR in Photomatix

This photo is from Stow Lake in the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.  In my earlier post I stated it was my first visit to the park.  I wanted to see the Japanese Tea Garden and also get this picture of the Roman Bridge.  Golden Gate Park is extremely large!  A park built for everyone.  There is a flower conservatory, golf clubhouse, soccer fields, horse stables, the Japanese Tea Garden, skate area, raquetball courts, botanical garden, tennis, picnic areas – basically everything!  A great spot for the people living in the city to have their own oasis close to home.

Stow lake is a cute little lake that is basically moat like.  In the middle of the lake is a small hill.  There are paths on the inside and outside of the lake for people to either walk or run.  On either side of the lake is a bridge to the hill in the middle.  One bridge is this Roman Bridge. It is so beautiful to walk by and see the reflection of the bridge in the water.   The lake is home to many birds, ducks and turtles.  I even walked only a few feet away from 3 mothers and their little ducklings.  There were about 12 of these little ones.  Wonderful to witness.   I set this shot up with my tripod, cable release and 5 exposures.  The HDR process brought out the nice color of the bridge. If you have time to relax, Golden Gate Park is the place to go in San Fran!

San Francisco, CA – Japanese Tea Garden – HDR

NIKON D300, Nikon 18-200 VR, HDR in Photomatix

This is a colorful  HDR from the Japanese Tea Garden at the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.   It was my first visit here and I had marked to visit 2 places.  The Tea Garden and Stow Lake.  I paid $5 for admission to the Garden.  Some highlights of the garden (thanks to google) –  Three spectacular gates built by Japanese craftsmen trained in the art of traditional carpentry. Constructed from Japanese Hinoki Cypress, the gates were built entirely without the use of nails – The Tea House is open daily. Relax and enjoy and meditative cup of tea overlooking the peaceful waters of the garden – The Drum Bridge is one of the garden’s most notable icons – The Classical Zen Garden designed by Nagao Sakurai, Lantern of Peace, given by the Japanese government in 1953 as a gesture of reconciliation – The Buddhist Pagoda, or “Treasure Tower” replaced Hagiwara’s Shinto Shrine – The Bronze Buddha, presented in 1949 by S.&G. Gump & Company – The landscaped Mt. Fuji Hedge was dedicated in 1979 in honor of Makoto Hagiwara, who was born near Mt. Fuji

It was beautiful.  As I was walking through the garden, I felt as though I was not in San Francisco.   It is very picturesque.  This photo was my favorite area.  I walked around looking for the best angle and set up my tripod and cable release for 5 exposures.  The trees and bushes were perfect for great detail.  If you took this hand held, I think you would lose some quality.  I post processed in Photomatix.  I took some other standard shots of the ponds with flowers and koy fish.  You can have fun here for an hour taking lots of shots. 

I had to move on to Stow Lake.  I will ost the Roman Bridge picture from there tomorrow and I will give you more details on Golden Gate Park!   Hope you have time today to have some tea and relax!  On a side note..I added Talke Photography to Twitter today!   Link is on the right.