Back in the 60s and 70s, there used to be immense dumps located close to the San Francisco Bay in what were then thought of as (commercially) useless wetlands. Mountains of waste were accumulated until it became evident that our capacity to dump outstripped the capacity to store. Eventually, the dumps were abandoned and the dump places are presently being returned to the public for use as open space. If you were unaware of the previous dumping activity, you might think that these areas are just natural formations. Huge natural looking mountains blocking the view of the bay. Just don't light a match as there is an abundance of methane gas in this area. I exaggerate as to any real danger, but methane gas is a natural byproduct of this un-natural landscape. In the future, these areas may be mined for raw materials as the world shrinks and common raw materials become rare.
These photos are from an area next to the bay wetlands and due East of Redwood City. I didn't take topography photos to show you what a GREAT park they made out of this dump, choosing to focus instead on "the small things."
I should explain that even though I have had my SLR camera for two years now, I am still exploring it's many features. I'm the kind of person that learns incrementally so I attacked my camera features incrementally, the last one being the "ISO" settings. This is probably one of the first ones I should have mastered because it is very powerful. For starters, check out the helicopter photo, even the tail stabilizer blade is frozen. This is amazing to me and opens up new avenues of picture taking under low light and rapid movement conditions.
 Frozen in time and space. I wonder if the pilot aged while this picture was taken? |
 Tweety Bird, dipped in ink. |
 It is difficult to distinguish the real birds from their reflections. It makes it look really crowded, doesn't it? |
 The handicapped parking/snoozing
zone
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 The basic decorative ROCK
|
 An example of a high speed
(1600) ISO setting
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 A shark caught on the beach after
the tide went out. Don't worry, he will recover as soon as the
tide comes back in.
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 A tiny abstract but nothing more
then a feather.
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 I can't resist shooting the Egret. |
 Just a cropped close-up of the
same picture
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A juvenile Red Tailed hawk, looking for it's next squirrel. Photographically, the result of using a high speed (1600) ISO setting.
 This was a particularly fun
adventure. A birthday party in SFO for a lady who shares a house
with two room mates, both who are artists. This photo and the
next is an example of Joy-Lily silk painting. Vist her web site
for additional offerings.
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 Her detail is exquisite. I
had to show a close-up crop to give everybody an idea of how talented
she is.
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 If you're thinking this looks like the PCB out of Jim's lap top, you would be thinking right. My Toshiba Satellite A75-S211 was the fastest, smoking hot lap top that I could afford at the time. Unfortunately, the forced air cooling passages get clogged really easily, requiring complete dismantling to clear. If you have a Toshiba and it is shutting down due to overheating, you might want to do this for your lap top as well. Go to Irisvista.com for dismantling instructions. |
 Brake pads from my 94 Honda
Civic. The used set is on the top and the replacement set is on
the bottom. Kudos to Honda for making it really easy to replace
both the rotors and disc pads. It cost me less then $50 for parts
and about three hours of my time. That saved me $150 from having
even the cheapest shop do it. One shop wanted $300 per
wheel. YIKES! (The brakes work fine now.)
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All of the pictures in this series were shot with my digital SLR Canon
EOS 20D camera and
one of two lens: a panoramic zoom lens;
EFS 17-85mm 1:4-5.6 IS USM and my reach out and touch somebody zoom
telephoto lens the; EF 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 IS USM. (The EOS 20D
camera
has a 1.6 lens multiplication factor so the 300mm lens really looks
like a 480mm lens, zoom wise.)
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Disclaimer:
No animals or humans were hurt in the taking of any
of these photos. |
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