Last weekend I woke up before dawn (5:30am!!??) to meet up with my friend Marshall down by AT&T Park to go explore and take pictures around Mission Bay. We both love very urban industrial locations and found a goldmine out there. We even got locked inside an old tour bus graveyard and had to climb the fence to get out. It was an adventure! Here are a few pics from that morning. Click here to view the rest.
During my temporary hiatus from residing in Sonoma County, I have been occupying a 2nd floor apartment with three roommates on Fillmore Street in San Francisco. The house we live in is a beautiful Victorian that was built in the 1890s. The exterior is currently undergoing a full scale restoration, and I have been tracking the progress capturing detailed before and during photos (and hopefully soon after!) You can check them out in the Architecture section of our client area. Here are a few of them!
Before: I love the red-orange paint. There are so many colors splashed around you notice when you really look hard. Many people often walk by the house to admire it. My roommates and I have even seen blogs with photos of people standing in front of the house saying it’s their favorite in the city.
After: The detail in the woodwork is really incredible. You can see it really well in a lot of the other pictures in the gallery. Climbing on the scaffolding is pretty freaky! Totally worth it though.
A couple weeks ago Sebastopol had their Gravenstien Apple Festival at Ragle Ranch Park. As we approached we noticed that a lot of people were parking on the streets and walking, I thought that they were too cheap to pay for parking. Then when we entered the park I noticed that there was no fee for parking! How cool is that!
The Festival was a nice size, great activities and things for the little ones to do too. When we entered there was an Apple Sauce eating contest that was just starting. I wondered how they were going to pull this off since they said “no hands”. Luckily they realized what they were saying and allowed the contestants to use one hand to hold the Apple Sauce jar.
A little later in the day they had the Pie eating contest - this was a traditional pie eating contest with NO HANDS! Most contestants were children but they recruited a couple adults to compete also. Everyone was really enjoying eating their pies.
Right after the pie eating contest they started setting up for a Caramel apple eating contest. Finally, something you could really sink your teeth into. One little fellow couldn’t even wait for the start and was nibbling the caramel and apple ahead of time. Click here to see more photos from the festival.
On Sunday I spent the afternoon at Angel Island. I was planning on grabbing the 9:30am ferry… but a late night before made me think twice about that! Quick stop at Safeway for a sandwhich and snacks and then to Pier 41 where I jumped on the ferry and met up with my roommates and their friends. It was pretty chilly at first, but warmed up after I left for a walk towards the old East Garrison buildings with fellow photography enthusiast and friend, Marshall. It was so cool! Walking through those buildings, like the old hospital you could explore inside, I couldn’t help but picture shooting an engagement session here. If anybody is having a San Francisco wedding, or getting married anywhere in the Bay Area for that matter, you should really keep this in mind. It’s a beautiful place. A few shots are below. Click here to see the rest!
Back in May I took a hike with my friend Joe out at Lands End. It was foggy and a bit drizzly but that didn’t stop me from bringing my camera. Only snapped a few shots, but I like how they came out. Sepia-like treatment seemed to fit the foggy mood. I love it out there, I need to go back.
PPRE (Professional Photographers of the Redwood Empire) has awarded Ron Crain a Merit award as well as The Print of the Month award during last night’s Print Competition, held in Santa Rosa. “Wind Swept Stare” shown below was one of two submitted images for the month of July. Many thanks to the PPRE judges.
Well the day has finally come… we’ve launched!!! So very exciting. We are all looking forward to doing business with you now that we’re ready to go. For those of you who have been waiting and watching along with us, thank you so much for your support and patience. Now let’s get back to work!
This has got to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. This guy actually uses jumper cables to electrify flowers pressed right up against the film submerged in a silicone bath. Then he “paints” the film with a fiber optic cable to give it a white glow. What’s cool is since he’s not using a lens it eliminates any chromatic aberrations one would normally get when using a camera - no distortions, every color in focus! Check it out: Photography through Electrocution.
I took advantage of the beautiful day in the city yesterday and walked all the way to North Beach to check out the North Beach Festival. It was fun! Along the 3 mile journey there I encountered the World Naked Bikeride and talked to some interesting folks there. Some were there just because it’s fun being naked, but others were there for a “cause”. I lost track of what one guy was there for because I soon realized he was a crazy conspiracy theorist… and let me tell you folks, there is nothing worse than talking to a conspiracy theorist while their bits are dangling somewhere below you. Anyway… the rest of the day was lovely. Talked to some local artists and photographers, one of which told me about how hard it’s been this year doing booths at festivals because nobody’s really getting a good return on them anymore. Please, support your local artists!!! I also ended up meeting up with one of my roommates and on our way home we got involved in a spontaneous game of sidewalk volleyball! Finished off the evening by going to my friend Jake’s 12th story apartment and getting some killer shots of the view during the golden hour. Check out some of the photos I took.
Greetings, Arken Audience! I’ve been plugging away at this website for DAYS (well, months really, but quite intensely lately), and today’s project was getting the new shopping cart all customized and ready to rock and roll. I’m proud to announce that we’ve decided to use SmugMug, which so far I’m really liking the user interface of. If anybody has any feedback on it, we’d be happy to hear it! I think I’ve done a pretty good job of adding a nice custom skin to it. Very excited about the progress being made… can’t wait for launch! Click here to check out the client login / shopping cart.
