Working with Wonderful Light in an Infrastructure-Intense Environment
San Francisco Bay is famous for its beautiful light; the combination of soft sun with rolling Pacific fog and layers of pollution make for a rich textured golden glow in evening and mellow bright conditions during the height of the day.
Following my Northern California theme presented over the last few posts to Tracking the Light, I’m offering a few views of San Francisco Bay exposed in August 2009.
On August 10, 2009, a loaded Pacific containership catches the glint of the morning sun as it passes San Francisco on its way to the Port of Oakland. Where historically San Francisco served as a primary port, today very little heavy shipping happens in the City itself; most port activities are focused in the East Bay around Oakland. Oakland container traffic represents an important business for both Union Pacific and BNSF. Until 1957, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (seen here in silhouette) carried Key System interurban electric trains, and originally also hosted SP’s red electrics as well.An Amtrak Capitols train passes CP North King Street near Jack London Square in Oakland, California on August 25, 2009. The Port of Oakland makes for a fascinating industrial backdrop. Notice the approaches to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. At the time of this photo, new approaches were under construction to replace the 1930s-era steel-lattice cantilever structure.On August 24, 2009, the rarely photographed Oakland Terminal Railway navigates former electric line trackage beneath the maze of Interstate highways in Oakland.
These images were exposed on Fujichrome slide film with a Canon EOS 3 and 100-400mm lens.
