Category: Photography

Exploring the Manet & Morisot Exhibit: A Rainy-Day Adventure

What do you do on a rainy afternoon when your house is not inhabitable? While remodeling is going on in our house, we have moved out, renting a house in Mount Hermon. When in town we stay in our camper although hanging out in the camper in our driveway in pouring rain isn’t inviting. So, what do we do? We head to the museum.

Today it’s the Manet & Morisot exhibit at the Legion of Honor. We paid for the audio tour which was well worth the price. I must say that I was not familiar with Morisot, so this was a real opportunity to learn about two of the most influential artists of the age of Impressionism.

The New York Times has this to say:

They were close friends who corresponded often and went to the same soirées, passionate advocates for each other’s art, and eventually siblings-in-law (when Morisot, then in her 30s and facing financial precarity after her father’s death, married Manet’s brother Eugène in an arrangement supported by both families).

As we toured the exhibit, I found myself just as interested in watching people as the artwork. I recall a time when cameras were forbidden in such exhibits, and here people are using their phones to document the work. It’s almost as if the camera-phone has become an essential tool for appreciating art. I became fascinated with the idea of trying to capture the feeling for the experience; people looking at art. Somehow just snapping photos of people looking at art seemed static, so I challenged myself to try to capture images that had a bit of an emotional impact, introducing a sense of motion.

By the end of the exhibit, I had gained respect for Morisot’s work and her view of the world, contrasted with Manet’s.

The exhibit is up through March 1, 2026. It’s well worth seeing if you have the opportunity.

Unexpected Close Encounter: Broken Wrist

On the evening of December 14th, I had an unexpected close encounter with the pavement on my driveway. My toe caught a stump. Wham! I did a face plant on the concrete. When I picked myself up, I had a bloody nose, a chipped tooth, a bloody fat lip, a sprained elbow and what felt like a sprained wrist. I am now wearing a cast for a fractured bone in my left wrist.

The radiologist interpreted the x-ray as “nondisplaced fracture of
triquetrum (cuneiform) bone, left wrist.” I’m including a photo of the offending stump and a photo of the X-ray.

The stump will have to go. It’s the remains of a coyote bush that I took out a couple of years ago, and it has been a tripping hazard ever since.

I won’t be driving for a few weeks, so probably no road trips. We are extending our stay at Mt. Hermon through January while work continues on our house in Albany. I will have plenty to do here since I brought my workstation with my complete digital archive of over 200,000 photos. I am also having fun with a speech-to-text application, Wispr Flow, since I cannot type at the moment.

Windsurfer to Paradise

It was 9:05 when I parked my car at Windsurfer Beach. Early! Way Early! I got across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge in record time. It was a 20-minute drive when I allowed for 45. As I climbed out of the car, I was hit by a chilly breeze with clouds overhead. I climbed back in the car to wait for my fellow paddlers. It wasn’t until later, when I suited up, that I realized I had left my duffel bag with my lunch and camera case at home. I wouldn’t be using my iPhone for photography today; however, I did have my Olympus TG-5 which I usually carry as a backup camera.

It wasn’t long until my fellow paddlers showed up. Nine of us were on the water at 10:30 paddling out the channel and past San Quentin. We were anticipating a very light ebb current with slack at 1:00, meaning we would be paddling against this slight current. We had a chilly northwest wind pushing us along as we headed towards Paradise Cay. Once we approached the Cay, three of our paddlers decided to turn around. The prospect of a slog into the wind on the return from Paradise was something to consider. Six of us continued on to Paradise Beach.

At noon we landed at Paradise Beach. With the wind and the fetch coming from the north, we had a little bit of a surf landing. We hiked up the short trail to the picnic tables for lunch. Having arrived without my lunch I was able to bum cookies, candies, and an energy bar off of my fellow paddlers. No shortage of sugar to keep my energy up on the return leg. With a temperature a chilly 45-degrees we didn’t dally long over lunch. We wanted to get back on the water and paddle and warm up.

It was a bit of a slog paddling into the chilly north wind with whitecaps and chop. When every stroke into the wind is an effort it’s hard to stop paddling, pick up my camera, and capture photos. Best to keep the cadence and the forward progress. Once past Paradise Cay, we veered east and found a little protection from the wind.

Shortly after 1:00, the sun started to tease us, which felt really nice. At 2:30, we were back on the beach having logged 9 miles. More photos are available in an online gallery.

Exploring Carquinez Strait: A Kayaking Experience

This week our usual Thursday paddle turned into a Saturday paddle. This afforded the opportunity for a few people who normally work on Thursday to join us. With a club membership of some 700 people (BASK: Bay Area Sea Kayakers), there’s no shortage of people looking for opportunities to paddle. Ten of us were on the water at 10:00 launching from the gravel beach at Eckley Pier on the Carquinez Strait. We were launching on a fairly high tide, high tide being 5.9 feet at 10:00. We would be riding the tail end of the flood current.

The plan was to stay close to shore to avoid any shipping traffic in the channel. Staying close to shore though, we found that an eddy was hindering our progress, so a few of us moved out of the eddy closer to the shipping channel where we found a more favorable current. We landed at the Martinez Marina at 11:20.

We broke out our lunches and as is our tradition several varieties of chocolate were shared. After lunch several of us decided to paddle into the marsh at the Radke Martinez Regional Shoreline. We paddled well up into the Alhambra Creek and under Embarcadero Street before turning around.

On the return leg I was looking forward to paddling through the pilings near Port Costa. They provide some interesting photo opportunities as well as an opportunity to practice boat control. As fate would have it though, my iPhone battery went dead so I was without a camera for the last half mile or so. I need to make a note to keep my Olympus TG-5 available, so I have a camera handy when my iPhone battery goes dead.

On our return to Eckley Pier, we noted that the tide had receded and what had been gravel on our launch was now broken bricks. This proved to be a bit treacherous for walking and carrying boats. We logged 10 miles over the course of the day.

More photos are available in an online gallery.

Emeryville to Clipper Cove

Nine of us were on the boat ramp at Emeryville Marina at 10:20 ready to launch with 10 minutes to spare for the posted 10:30 OTW (on the water). I noted that club members tend to be early, to which somebody replied, “time and tide wait for no man.” We were on the water at 10:25 with no wind and flat calm water. About an hour later we were paddling into a gentle breeze with wind ripples starting to appear on the water. Rather than set a course for our destination we pointed our boats to the north end of Treasure Island using a ferry angle to compensate for the flooding current that would carry us south towards our intended destination. The BASK trip planner showed a 1 knot current moving south during our crossing.

As we approached Treasure Island we paddled around a barge, and the flooding current was quite evident as we rounded the mooring buoy. After rounding the buoy, we turned towards our destination and make quick time for the beach at Clipper Cove.

The beach is a fine sand beach with a spectacular view to the east including a view of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge. It’s hard to imagine that in the middle of the greater Bay Area with over 7.5 million people one can find a beautiful peaceful secluded beach. After lunch we were back on the water, following the bridge for a way, again accounting for the current and eventually heading back to the marina.

Paddling along the bridge offered some dramatic photo opportunities, but the battery on my iPhone was dead at that point, so I didn’t capture any photos on the return leg. As we crossed the bay, we begin to feel the effects of wind coming from the northwest, which was starting to raise wind waves, enough to have some of our boats require additional effort to manage the quartering waves and wind.

I did capture the track of the paddle with my Garmin InReach which logged 9.1 miles. More photos are available in an online gallery.

Mendo Madness 2025

Every September our kayaking club, Bay Area Sea Kayakers (BASK), heads to Mendocino for a week. Over the course of the week there were some 70 or so club members camping at Van Damme State Park. Joann and I arrived on the afternoon of Monday, September 22. Events of the week included a number of organized paddles on the coast and on the rivers. I participated in four paddles, two river and two coastal.

September 23. Big River. The Big River empties into the ocean just south of the town of Mendocino. Nine of us were on the water at 10:00 launching from the sandy beach to the east of the highway.

This is a winding lazy river which feels the effects of the tides. Redwood trees come right down to the water, and the banks are lined with ferns and alders as well as redwoods. Paddling here is a serene and peaceful experience. Most of the group stopped for lunch at the “second culvert.” There is a dirt logging road that runs along part of the river, and the road goes over a couple of culverts that are big enough to paddle through. Rather than join the others for lunch, Joann and I opted to continue paddling up the river riding the tail end of the flood. At 11:30 we noted that the current had stopped going upstream. It was time to stop for lunch. I caught a glimpse of a river otter as we were preparing to stop. Other paddlers reported seeing a number of otters and a bear.

We found a shallow spot with a downed log, pulled our kayaks up out of the water and sat on the log while we ate lunch. As we were eating the water level was rising and our boats were threatening to float off without us. The dry log that we were sitting on was no longer dry. We hopped back in our boats and paddled back down the river. We seemed to be chasing a Great Blue Heron down the river. He would alight and fly down the river a few handed yards, only to repeat as we approached again. We were back at our launch site about 3:30 having logged 14.5 miles.

September 24. Open Coast. While the rivers are calm and serene, the coast can be quite dynamic. Some spots give you the sensation of being in a washing machine with water sloshing back and forth with the wave action. We joined a paddle led by two of our more experienced members, Tom and Ellen, launching from Van Damme Beach at 10:30. Eleven of us paddled south exploring a couple of caves and tunnels. There was plenty of dynamic water with a significant swell spicing things up. Fortunately, there are some reefs and rocks that provide protection for some of the features.

One popular feature is a pour over called Disney. A pour over is a feature where, with proper timing, you can ride a wave over a rock. I have watched many people execute this pour over on previous trips but never had the nerve to try it myself. Today it looked like something I could manage, so I went for it.

I positioned myself for the ride and was holding position while watching the waves, looking for the wave that I would ride. As a wave approached all the water in the hole I was in disappeared, and then with a whoosh a wave caught me and took me over the rock. I was quite happy that I stayed upright. Having a good bracing stroke saved me from capsizing. One of the pictures above shows Ellen riding over Disney.

September 25. Albion River. The Albion river is another lazy tidal river south of Mendocino. Nineteen of us launched from a boat ramp at the Albion River Campground. There are several houseboats on this river which gives it a sense of humanity although most of the houseboats are abandoned and deteriorating which gives them a ghostly feel.

We paddled up the river and found a dry marsh where we could haul out for lunch. After lunch we continued up the river until we were stopped by a downed tree at the 4 1/2 mile mark. Several people decided to haul their boats over the logs and continue exploring. That looked like quite an exercise, getting out of the boat, climbing up on the log and dragging a boat over. A couple of people ended up in the water, or hanging onto the log like drowned sloths. You can see a photo of Deborah hauling her boat over a log. Most of us were content to call this the end of the road and we headed back down the river.

September 27. Rock Gardening 101 and Potluck. Today I was happy to have made the list for Bill Vonnegut’s Rock Gardening 101 Class. This is all about learning how to read the water and making decisions about what features to explore given conditions and skill. I opted to leave my camera on the beach, since I wanted to be unencumbered by any equipment that might be a liability should I capsize. It was actually refreshing to concentrate on paddling without my mind always looking for photo ops.

One of the thrills was doing the elevator ride. Waves that come into a vertical surface such as a cliff lose their forward energy as they reflect off the cliff. You can actually point the bow of your boat at the cliff, holding it just inches away while the waves take you up and down. It’s an amazing experience. Conditions were such today that we did not execute any pour overs or explore any caves.

In the evening the club had a potluck dinner with more food than you can imagine. We participated in the Dutch Oven Cookoff, entering our Enchilada Casserole as an entree. After dinner, with our eyes drooping, we were off to bed before the awards were announced. We woke the next morning to discover that we had won the best entree. The award was a bottle of Silver Wood 2002 Cabernet. What an excellent wine! Cheers!

More photos are available in an online gallery.

Thursday Paddle: Marconi to Tomales Beach

Tomales Bay is one of my favorite places to paddle, so, when one of my paddling buddies announced a paddle on Tomales Bay, I jumped at the opportunity. One of the hurdles to this location is getting across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge during rush hour. Google Maps was predicting a driving time of 1:15 when we left. We were on the road at 8:05 and we arrived at Marconi Beach at 9:50. A slow trip, but needless to say we weren’t the last party to arrive, and we were on the water at 10:40.

There were 10 of us, quite a turnout for a Thursday paddle. The prediction was partly cloudy with light winds and a low tide of -0.12 feet at 10:56. Our plan was to paddle across the bay to the Point Reyes peninsula and to use the ebb current to give us a boost to Tomales Beach. The beach at Marconi is mostly gravel with a few rocks. Those with composite boats need to take care in launching.

The calm water made for some interesting photo opportunities with the reflections on the water.

We landed on Tomales Beach at noon, choosing to land on the eastern end of the beach to avoid the shallow water and mud to the west. After lunch we were back on the water. By now we were getting a slight flooding current, which again gave us an assist in paddling back to our launch site. We were back on the beach shortly after 2:00.

You can see the track of our paddle above. Over the course of the day, we logged just a hair over 8 miles. More photos are available in an online gallery.

f.64 at SFMOMA

We arrived at SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) about noon, having ridden BART. Public transit is a great option since driving into the city and parking can be a challenge. We were hungry when we arrived so the first order of business to head up to Cafe 5 where we split a salad.

Then it was off to see the exhibition Around Group f.64: Legacies and Counterhistories in Bay Area Photography. This turned out to be quite an extensive exhibit with work from 31 artists on display, including images from Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and many other photographers. The f.64 group set a new trend in photography creating images of startling clarity and beauty that rivaled art made in other mediums.

The exhibit leads you through the early pictorial style of some of the f.64 members before the group was established. It then moves to many of the images that represented the emerging style of sharpness and clarity. I decided to put my own spin on the exhibit by experimenting with a long exposure app on my iPhone called Slow Shutter with the hope of creating some intentional camera movement. I find these images more provocative than just straight photos that document the exhibit.

The exhibit goes way beyond the work of the original f.64 group. I was particularly intrigued by the work of Tarrah Krajnak. Her work Master Rituals I: Ansel Adams | 2018 to Present was quite provocative.

One of the photos in the show featured an image of a building with the Flag Makers sign on it. When we walked out of the museum, we discovered that the building next to the museum had this signage. I was compelled to see what I could do with my iPhone camera.

The show is up through July 13. If you have an interest in photography, it’s well worth seeing.

16-Day Road Trip Highlights: Scenic Stops and Adventures

On February 11 we climbed in our rig and headed off on a 16 day road trip. On February 27 we returned home after logging 2508 miles and having seen some amazing places. We tend to take our time on road trips. We don’t like to spend more than four or five hours on the road on any given day. There are so many things along the way that catch our attention. And traveling with a dog and a rig that can get us off the beaten track, we tend to avoid busy places like national parks. Suffice it to say that we found some wonderful locations to park our rig and our dog Carson had plenty of off leash time.

Our first destination was Bishop to spend a couple of days with family and to play grandparents. We took our time getting to Bishop, stopping one night at Kern River Campground just east of Bakersfield, and another night at the Alabama Hills.

Here’s a photo of our camp in the Alabama Hills. We timed our trip to avoid a storm that was predicted to play havoc with mountain travel. The storm caught up with us at the Alabama Hills dumping rain on us in the middle of the night.

Our kids like to camp, so after a couple of nights in Bishop we all packed our gear and headed to Goodale Creek Campground. Here’s a photo of us around the campfire in the morning drinking coffee. The third photo shows Joann hiking in a slot canyon at Valley of Fire State Park, one of our destinations on our trip.

From Valley of Fire, we headed to Monument Valley. Using HipCamp, one of the apps we use for locating camping, we found HummingBird Campsite, a private campground.

The highlight of Monument Valley was a tour led by Carl Phillips, a guide who specializes in taking photographers on tours. Being in the Valley at sunrise was a magical moment.

Then it was time to start making our way home. We had no planned itinerary; we were just playing it one day at a time. Taking our time, we discovered the ghost town of Stanton, explored Indian ruins, and walked in the footsteps of dinosaurs.

We did find that mid-February was a bit of a challenge. Nighttime temperatures were a bit low on the first half of the trip, in the low 20s. Many campgrounds were still closed for winter. Having captured over 1000 photos and with many stories to tell, I’ll be posting more details about the trip in separate posts.

Tomales Bay: Marconi to Inverness

Having loaded the boats on the car the day before, we were ready for an early start to make the drive to our launch site. It’s a 50-mile drive to Marconi Cove. We were on the road at 8:05, arriving at 9:30. Traffic across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge was normal for the morning rush hour. We seemed to have time to spare for a 10:30 launch, so in addition to the usual safety talk and radio check we took a few minutes to do some stretches. We launched on flat calm water under grey skies.

On the water I discovered that my skeg was jammed. I’m paddling a Dagger Stratos 14.5S. Attempts to free it were unsuccessful, so I was putting extra energy into boat control, trying to keep the boat on course. Good practice.

We paddled across the bay and followed the shore to Inverness. Our original plan was to have lunch near the wreck of the Reyes. I actually have a photo of this wreck taken when it was still an interesting photo subject. That photo is available in my art store. Now the wreck is looking rather dilapidated. You can see it over the back deck of the kayaks in one of the following photos.

It was too early for lunch when we reached the wreck, so we opted to paddle back across the bay to Millerton Point in Tomales Bay State Park. During a quick stop while scouting lunch locations Joann and Steve swapped boats, with Joann paddling the Romany. Once we landed for lunch, I was able to free the skeg. Some gravel had become jammed in the skeg well and the pull tab I had put on the skeg to assist in this process was missing.

Jellyfish were quite plentiful on the paddle, and I was tempted to stick my camera underwater (iPhone in a dive case) and snap randomly hoping I would capture them. To my surprise, I actually captured something. More photos are available in an online gallery. We were back at our launch site at 1:50 having logged 8 miles. On the drive home we stopped at the Tamale vendor at the Platform Bridge. Tamales for dinner. Yum!