Monthly Archives: February 2017

I’m Sure They’re Not Looking at Me

What does it say about having a guilty conscience that you immediately wonder whether you are the person being watched? Police helicopters come in all shapes and sizes. Some are hand me downs from the military. Others are old civil types. Some departments have the budget for modern types. It varies wildly. I was out shooting in Las Vegas when this helicopter came heading straight for me. Admittedly, he was coming from a long way off and I was really just in his path but, as I pointed the camera up at him, I couldn’t help but think that he was looking at me looking at him. Did I do anything wrong? I don’t think so. He kept going so I was probably okay.

Sutro Baths

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A once popular attraction for San Francisco residents was Sutro Baths. Located on the shore looking out into the pacific, the baths were fed by sea water and covered a large area that was enclosed by a glass and iron structure. A railway brought visitors around the cliffs from the city for their day out. Landslides eventually did away with the railway while other entertainment took visitors away and a fire eventually dealt with what was left. However, the underlying structures of the pools are still there.

The water is not recirculated as it would have been in the days of operation so some of the pools have a decidedly murky quality to them. The concrete dividers between the pools are still mostly intact so you can walk along them to check the place out. If you aren’t confident with your balance or are likely to be freaked out by having to pass someone coming the opposite way, this might not be for you. If you do lose your footing, you will be damp!

There is a tunnel under the cliffs that comes out amongst the rocks where the waves are crashing up. Halfway along the tunnel is another hole to the shore and, as the waves rush in, you feel the air pressure change briefly. It is certainly cool and damp in there. Given how derelict the place is, it is hugely popular with visitors. Cars circled the lot looking for spaces all the time we were there. The opportunity to hurt yourself was certainly available but, despite the current risk aversion of locations, this one seems remarkably open to allow you to explore and (if you are not careful) do yourself some harm! It’s like being a kid again.

Is Shooting in the Rain a Good Idea?

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It might be sometimes, but this was probably not one of them. The forecast was for wind and rain which was suggesting that SFO would be using reversed operations to normal. I thought it might be worth a shot. The rain was obviously a concern but I was hopeful, as I have been in the past, that it might make for some interesting shots. I had underestimated just how wet it was though.

The cloud base was very low. The jets landing on 19 were barely visible until they rolled out. The ones taking off were also heavily obscured. The rain was really making things difficult to see and a lot of adjustment in post is necessary to get anything. Only one jet seemed to perform well for me. The Singapore A350 must have gone in a gap in the conditions and it seemed to be the one that was cleanest when I looked at the shots. I won’t give up on things like this but I know the odds are not great.

To See This You Can Hike a Long Way or…

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Big Island is not short of waterfalls. The most well-known ones attract tourists like us who will drive to see them. However, so much of the island is not close to the roads and there are rivers and falls all through this area. Our pilot was a keen hiker and he showed us his favorite falls. Apparently this trip will be a full day hike to get you in and out again. I assume this includes some time to hang out and enjoy the falls once you get there.

If you are slightly less energetic, flying over the falls in a helicopter is a lot quicker to do and certainly doesn’t tire you out as much. The location certainly looked cool though and, from above, you get less of an immersive feeling. Judging by the river we saw on our way to the falls, there are plenty of cool sights to see on the way as well. You do need to be well prepared though. Forget cell phone coverage. You are on your own out there!

Get Those Shock Waves Showing

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The Fleet Week air show in San Francisco is wrapped up by the Blue Angels. The sneak passes made by the pair are an opportunity to try and get something interesting. Since they display over the bay and the city is known for having high relative humidity, I am always hoping to get some good vapor shots. This time out, that wasn’t to be. The air seemed to be pretty dry and there was not a lot of vapor on show. However, the fast pass from left to right takes the jet in front of the hills and Alcatraz which provides some detail to show up the distortion caused by the shock-waves. The large number of boats and associated masts meant a clean shot was tricky but I got a couple I was pleased with.

Sutro Heights

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A weekend day had us over in San Francisco having a mooch around some places we haven’t visited before. I had been reading something online about Sutro Heights and wanted to check the place out. This is an overlook up on the cliffs that had been the home of a guy called (unsurprisingly) Sutro. He had built a large house on this land and added gardens around it that included statues and artworks that were available for people to visit.

The house is long demolished but the gardens have become a city park. We stopped off to look around, enjoy the view and use the place as somewhere to have our lunch. The view down to the beach below, while rather hazy when we were there, was still rather nice. You could see plenty of people having fun down on the sands. The gardens themselves were rather relaxing. You could climb up onto the area where the house had once stood and try to imagine what it had been like. A few signs included images of how things had been laid out. Given how close we were to the Cliff House, the baths and the trails, it was a little surprising how few people were there. However, it isn’t heavily signed so maybe it is easily missed. If I hadn’t read about it, we would probably never have known either.

A Different Trimotor

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EAA undertake nationwide tours where they take a Ford Trimotor to local airfields and give people the chance to experience a ride in a plane from another era. One of their regular stops is San Carlos CA. When I saw them operating there on a previous occasion (and posted about it here), they brought an airframe that I had seen a number of times before at Oshkosh and around Illinois. This time they brought a different airframe which is slightly larger and accommodates one extra passenger.

It would have been rude not to pop along at least once to see it in action. It did appear to be slightly larger to my eye but that was not a scientific assessment. The different paint finish was the real giveaway that they had brought something different. The conditions were nice to get some shots. I was planning on catching it again when it came to another local field but the weather ended up being pretty awful so this was my only encounter.

Don’t Lose Control of Your Tug Please!

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This is a bit of an old event but I thought it was worth a post. A number of years ago we took a vacation to South Pender Island in British Columbia. We stayed in a hotel by a little harbor called Poet’s Cove and I spent a lot of time watching the comings and goings of the boats and the floatplanes. One afternoon, an old tug boat approached the harbor. It was a rugged looking old beast of a boat but it looked like it had been restored for use as a private boat. It came chugging in towards the harbor, apparently ready to moor up.

What happened next is not entirely clear to me. Whether the person in charge didn’t really know what they were doing or whether there was a technical failure of some sort I do not know. Whatever it was, the tug came in at a decent speed and didn’t show any signs of slowing down. It was heading for a rather nice little cruiser that was on the end of one of the jetties and, sure enough, they plowed right into it.

The whole thing seemed to be in slow motion because, since they are boats, things don’t happen very fast but they don’t stop fast either. The cruiser had a RIB mounted on the stern – at least it originally did – and this seemed to take a lot of the visible punishment. However, judging by the sounds that were made on impact, I am imagining that some of the cruiser on the opposite side from me sustained damage I never saw.

Eventually, the tug crew got things slightly under control and backed out of the harbor and dropped anchor a short way offshore. The people on the jetty seemed to be in shock (can’t say I blame them) and then a deputation motors out to the tug to “discuss” what had happened. I watched things for a while but, once everything seemed to be under control, I retreated to the hotel to tell Nancy all about it over a beer!

Hercules Tankers at Nellis

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Red Flag 16-4 was a bit unusual in that tanker support was not what you normally see. No KC-135s were taking part. The Israeli Air Force had brought some 707s for tanking there jets. The rest of the tankers were KC-130s. An MC-130J showed up although I don’t know whether it was part of the exercise or just there coincidentally. The Spanish Air Force brought their KC-130s to support the Hornets. Seeing a camouflaged Herc is a nice change given how most of them are monotone these days. It doesn’t hurt that, since tankers tend to recover late, they came back as the light was getting very nice.

Observing the Observatories

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Driving back to our hotel from Hilo took us across the center of Big Island. This is a pretty high drive as you pass between the two big mountains of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Mauna Kea is the home to a number of observatories. We did drive some way up the mountain to the visitor’s center. You are already at quite some altitude at this point and you could feel the lack of air when you moved too quickly. There was an option to drive all the way to the top but we had other things scheduled and didn’t make the trek up.

From the visitor center, you couldn’t actually see the observatories. However, as we drove towards the turn for the mountain, we did come to a pull off where you could see them up on the summit with the sun glinting off the domes of the larger installations. Another time I would certainly like to go all the way to the top. However, I think I shall be alone on that trip as Nancy was already feeling the effects of the altitude.