Uploads from Alexis Birkill Photography

Juniper Point

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 12:11:13 -0800

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

Trying to be in the right place at the right time to get the best of the available light has to be one of the most frustrating, but most rewarding challenges for a landscape photographer, and this shot was one of those times when everything came together!

I'd been watching the weather through the day, as the forecast suggested it might start to clear in the evening, and about an hour before sunset there were some small clear patches on the western horizon, so I jumped in the car and headed out to see what I could get. It's been a while since I've been to one of my favourite locations, Juniper Point in Lighthouse Park, and as that has a good view of the setting sun at this time of year, I figured I'd take the opportunity to revisit it and see what I could get.

As I arrived at the park and started walking to Juniper Point, things didn't look very good -- indeed, it was so dark and overcast I was almost reaching for my flashlight to see the path clearly under the shadow of the trees! The breaks in the cloud that had seemed so prevalent when I'd left home appeared to have completely disappeared. I reached the point, with the Juniper tree hanging right on the edge of the rock, pretty sure that I'd had a nice walk but wasn't going to be getting much use out of the camera! I set it up, just in case, and then sat down to watch the clouds.

As sunset drew nearer and nearer, it seemed less and less likely I'd get anything. But just when I was giving up all hope, a small rift in the clouds started to form near the horizon. By now it was so close to sunset I couldn't tell if the sun had passed the gap in the clouds or not. I crossed my fingers, and suddenly a shaft of golden light started to glow through the gap in the clouds, growing brighter and more colourful every second!

I leapt up and raced over to the camera, hurrying to frame and focus the shot, as I knew that the light wouldn't last very long. And indeed, it must have been only a couple of minutes later when the light started to fade and lose colour, and in five minutes it was back to a grey, cold, overcast evening. If I hadn't been in the right place and the right time, I wouldn't have had chance to get anything.

Canon 16-35mm @ 16mm, f/11, ISO 100, 1/2 second exposure, using a three-stop graduated neutral density filter and circular polariser.

Iona Beach Sunset

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 12:13:29 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

Very few people could have missed the absolutely incredible sunset in Vancouver on Friday night, one of the very best I've seen since I moved here almost four years ago!

The late afternoon clouds promised that there might be an interesting sunset, but more often than not the promising conditions fade away as the sun approaches the horizon. On Friday night, as it got later, it got cloudier, and I was less and less convinced there would be a good sunset. Despite that, after a quick check of the position of the sun when it set and study of the map, I headed to Iona Beach, near the airport, to see what I could get.

To get a clear view of the sunset, I had to walk almost to the end of Iona Beach, which against a surprisingly strong headwind took almost half an hour. I set up and watched as the sun got lower and lower, suddenly breaking through just before it set, and was pretty pleased with what I was getting. Once the sun had set, I was tempted to set off back to the car, but that's always risky, so I waited my usual ten minutes to see if we'd get any post-sunset glow.

At first, things looked fairly disappointing, but as it approached ten minutes after sunset, the sky began to light up with amazing pinks, reds and oranges. And then it kept getting better. And better! This shot was taken an amazing 25 minutes after sunset, at the peak of the colour, which by this time made the beach look like an alien landscape, with the incredible colours reflecting off the sand, my clothes, and my camera bag!

It was a mad rush to grab as many shots as I could, while battling with trying to keep the tripod steady in the wet sand, and cleaning the lens every 30 seconds due to the spray from the strong headwind. But as the colours got stronger and stronger, I had to let out a whoop of disbelief -- fortunately, I was the only person on the beach!

Photographed at ISO 100, f/11, with a 10 second exposure, using a 3-stop graduated ND filter and circular polariser, during a sunset that I'll remember for the rest of my life!

Canada Day 2015!

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 11:18:41 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

Happy Canada Day!

Here's a panoramic photo of the amazing Canada Day fireworks display outside Canada Place in downtown Vancouver. This was probably the best Canada Day fireworks display I've seen since I moved out here!

To get the shot I wanted I had to do the opposite of everyone else downtown, and head out of Vancouver and across the bridge to Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver, where I could get a view straight across the water. Of course, this is a great viewing location for anyone in North Vancouver, and with the amazing weather continuing, the entire waterfront was packed with people! Fortunately, I managed to arrive early enough to get a front-row seat!

The downside of the hot weather, from a photographic point of view, was the heat haze which was causing a lot of distortion, with the city lights twinkling across the water. Fortunately once the sun had set the air settled a little.

I was hoping to be able to see the Shangri-La behind the fireworks, but this year's display was so bright and colourful it's all but blocked out!

Emery Barnes Park

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:02:34 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

After an unacceptably long delay since my last post, I'm finally back with a shot of Emery Barnes Park in Yaletown, Vancouver! This is a beautiful, compact park in the heart of downtown, and is a great place to spend a couple of hours sitting in the sunshine and watching the world go by. On the right edge is Seymour Street, with Davie Street running across the photo.

Even though it is beautiful in the sunshine, when I saw it lit up at night, I just knew I had to take a blue hour photo of it, with the Yaletown buildings sparkling behind it!

I feel like I've barely had time to stop and think this year, it's just been so busy! I have been taking photographs, although not as many as I'd like, but just haven't found chance to upload any. Many thanks to all my followers for their patience, and welcome to the many new followers since my last post! Fortunately things are starting to get back to normal for me, so I'm hoping to be able to resume posting more frequently. I'll also have my work cut out to get material together for next year's calendar!

This shot was a four photo panorama with the camera oriented vertically, taken with my 24mm f/1.4 lens, stopped down to around f/8. I had to really hang the camera out over the balcony, using my bag as a counterweight to stop it going over the edge, to be able to look right up the street.

St Mark's Summit

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 10:09:08 -0800

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

I'm back in British Columbia after spending a couple of months in the UK, and I can't get over how incredibly beautiful it is here! Although I'd never forgotten, it really does re-emphasise how incredible it is here after being away for a while. The mountains, the water, the city, wow!

Here's a shot I took looking west from St Mark's Summit in September, which is the first major viewpoint along the Howe Sound Crest Trail which runs all the way from Cypress Provincial Park to Porteau Cove. Although St Mark's Summit only takes a few hours to do as a round trip, it's still a bit of a climb with a bag full of camera equipment and a heavy tripod, with lots of tree roots waiting to trip you up. However, when you get to the top, the view is spectacular!

The north tip of Bowen Island can be seen on the left, with Bowyer Island in front of it and Keats Island behind it. Roughly in the middle is Gambier Island, with Anvil Island on the right. In the background is the Sunshine Coast, and just visible on the horizon is part of Vancouver Island.

As this was my first trip to this viewpoint, I didn't want to risk making the hike back in the dark, so I wasn't able to wait for sunset. I tend to avoid HDR where possible, but in this situation it was essential to be able to capture the wide range of brightness due to shooting into the sun. To get the width of this vista I took four sequences of bracketed images and stitched them together. While I'd love to have been able to shoot this at sunset, I really wanted to share this shot as it sums up my feelings on returning to this amazing part of the world!

Larson Creek

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 11:19:57 -0800

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

Friday night's snowfall on the mountains near Vancouver has been melting for most of the weekend, so when I was passing Larson Creek in West Vancouver, the water was bubbling along down the hill at quite a rate!

I was heading to the coast to photograph the sunset, but I had to stop and take a quick shot of the creek, as the golden rays of the setting sun were lighting up the trees with a wonderful warm light.

Fortunately the creek was shallow enough that the water didn't come over my shoes, as it was extremely cold! I used a combination of a circular polariser, bringing out more reflection in the wet rocks, and a 3-stop neutral density filter, allowing me to take a 30 second exposure and show the motion of the water.

The Return of the Aurora Borealis

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Mon, 17 Nov 2014 11:31:26 -0800

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

2014 has been a pretty bad year for those wishing to see the northern lights from more southern latitudes, particularly on the west coast. There have been a number of promising storms forecast, but they have mostly either been weaker than forecast, or peaked when it is still light.

Accordingly, while I had a number of sightings (and took a number of photographs) of the aurora last year, this year the best I've managed to capture has been a faint green glow on the horizon. However, on Saturday things took a promising turn, when a storm that was forecast to be quite minor was appearing to be unexpectedly strong.

I kept an eye on the forecast throughout the evening, and saw that the east coast was getting a good display. To my surprise, as it got later and the aurora started to appear in the west, the forecast was still strong, so I grabbed my gear and headed out along the Sea to Sky highway, which links Vancouver and Whistler, to a spot about half an hour's drive from Vancouver.

Even when all the signs are pointing to a good display, it's very rare that the northern lights are constantly dancing this far south. It's much more common to have a faint green glow most of the time, and for occasional spikes of activity that last for a minute or two that light up the sky, so although I couldn't see anything when I got there, I knew that I'd have to give it a reasonable amount of time.

A perfectly clear night made for good viewing conditions but cold weather, with a temperature of -4, which starts off not being too bad, but after you've been standing in one spot for three hours starts to get rather chilly! I set up my camera to start taking exposures and waited to see if anything would happen!

After I'd been there for about an hour and a half, at around 12:30am, suddenly the sky started to dance with light. It was fainter than many of the displays I've seen around Vancouver, but more colourful as well, with some beautiful red pillars that nicely contrasted the green glow, which also grew significantly stronger. For about half an hour from 12:30am to 1:00am, I got to see my first good display of the aurora this year, before it once again faded back to a level that even the camera could barely pick up.

This is a composite shot of about 8 frames taken between 12:30am and 1:00am, capturing the best of the pillars of light and the colour. Each of these shots was taken at ISO 3200, 24mm, f/4, for 30 seconds. To get more detail in the foreground on this dark and moonless night, I took a longer exposure of 5 minutes.

Granville Island Public Market

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 11:11:04 -0800

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

The Granville Island Public Market in Vancouver. Granville Island, actually a peninsula, was originally an industrial area, but is now a popular tourist and shopping destination on False Creek in Vancouver, just across the Granville Street Bridge from downtown. The market building contains many permanent and temporary retailers selling a wide variety of food and craft items.

For this photo I set up on the Granville Street Bridge, which crosses over the centre of the island, giving me a vantage point looking down on the market building, looking north-west. The large sign on the top of the public market building is visible in the centre of the shot, with the Burrard Bridge in the background. False Creek runs under the bridge and separates the island from the buildings of downtown Vancouver, visible on the right. One of several marinas on False Creek can be seen on the far left. The last glow of orange from the sunset still lights up the western horizon, although the city lights have long since come on.

A windy day combined with a lot of bus traffic on the bridge made for tricky shooting conditions, with me having to wait for both a gap in the traffic and a lull in the wind to avoid vibrations being transmitted to the camera. To keep the shutter speed low, I used an aperture of f/5.6 and set the ISO to 1600.

For those interested, I've just finished my 2015 calendar, check out my Facebook page for more details! www.facebook.com/AlexisBirkillPhotography

Sunset over Point Atkinson Lighthouse

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 10:43:37 -0800

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

The golden-orange setting sun passes behind a thin bank of cloud as the Point Atkinson Lighthouse flashes its warning signal out from Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver.

I've been hoping to get this shot for most of the month, but the weather has been firmly against me, with the only days where we've had a clear sunset coinciding with an alignment from parts of the coastline which are unable to be reached without a boat.

This was my last chance for the year, as the next most northerly viewpoint (required as the sun sets further and further south as we approach the winter solstice) no longer has a clear view of the lighthouse, so I jumped at the chance when the weather looked promising, and headed to a very peaceful section of beach in West Vancouver.

Unfortunately a bank of cloud came in from the west just at the last minute, and prevented me from capturing the sun right down by the lighthouse, but given the poor conditions for most of the month, I was very happy to get this shot -- at least until Spring when the next chance comes along!

A single exposure at 600mm, ISO 100, f/11, 1/640th. I tried to predict when the lighthouse would flash and hit the shutter at just the right moment, but kept missing it, so took the easy way out and set the camera to high-speed burst mode and just kept taking photos until I got one with it lit!

Milky Way over Mount Baker

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 10:49:07 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

I haven't done as much night sky photography as I'd have liked in the last few months, partly as clear skies seem to have been coinciding with a full moon. Hopefully I'll have both the chance and the weather to get out again soon, but in the meantime, here's one from the archives that I haven't previously got around to processing.

This was taken in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington last September. This is one of my favourite places to photograph the night sky, as it's relatively far from light pollution and has some amazing scenery. This photo, taken near the Artist Point trailhead, shows the Milky Way behind Mount Baker itself.

The conditions on this night were not quite as good as I'd been hoping for, which is probably why I've put off processing this shot for a while. The skies were a little bit hazy, which hid some of the detail, and also emphasised the light pollution from Seattle, a couple of hours drive to the south, which has caused the orange band on the horizon. However, There was some great colour in the Milky Way which the camera was able to capture really well.

CRAB Park at Portside, Blue Hour

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 10:30:12 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

October in Vancouver has been a month of rain, making for difficult photo opportunities, even with the autumnal colours which are now starting to go past their peak. Sunday was a rare exception, a day without rain, and mostly sunny, and I was eager to get out and take some photos.

For this shot, I headed to CRAB Park at Portside, which opened in 1987 and was named after the committee that created it, 'Create a Real Available Beach'. This park is in the area of the city known as Downtown Eastside, or DTES, commonly (although incorrectly) referred to as Canada's poorest postal code, and which has issues with crime and drug use. The park, however, is beautifully maintained and very pleasant.

It commands a view towards the dock areas of the city, out of shot to the right, and an unusual view of downtown as seen from the east. On the left of the photo is the Harbour Centre, with the Vancouver Lookout viewing platform on top. The Vancouver Sun tower is in the centre of the photo, with the air traffic control tower visible on top, which coordinates activity at the seaplane and helicopter terminals. This is the highest air traffic control tower in the world. On the right are the five sails of the Canada Place building. In the foreground is the floating helicopter dock, and behind it the terminal for the Seabus ferry.

Won't You Join Me?

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Thu, 09 Oct 2014 10:11:28 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

After watching the sun set from the pier in North Vancouver, dusk falls, and across the water the downtown city lights shimmer and sparkle. Sit down and admire the view with me for a few minutes.

Altamont Beach

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Mon, 06 Oct 2014 09:25:25 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

For the past few days I've been chasing a shot that I can picture in my mind over in West Vancouver, and have been continually defeated by a combination of inconveniently-moored boats and inconveniently-positioned clouds.

Sadly, this isn't that shot. Tonight I headed to Altamont Beach in West Vancouver to try again, and while the conditions weren't perfect, unfortunately they were good enough for me to see that the shot I'm imagining is going to be tricky at best to achieve, and may not be possible. I've not given up, but it's probably time to regroup and think again!

However, that didn't stop me grabbing the chance to capture a post-sunset beach photo. A bank of thick cloud blocked out the sun until just before it set, but some thinner high cloud picked up the colours about five minutes after it set, and reflected beautifully on the water, so I resigned myself to once again driving home in wet shoes, and waded in to find an interesting composition. I particularly liked this big, dimpled rock, so picked a low, wide-angle viewpoint to capture it. A three-stop graduated ND filter controlled the brightness in the sky.

Sailboat Sunset

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Wed, 24 Sep 2014 11:18:03 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

This is a quick photo I took last Monday evening by the Siwash Rock in Stanley Park, Vancouver.

I was out teaching a mini-workshop to a friend on how to take sunset seascapes, so most of my attention was helping him with composition and technical aspects of that, but I had my camera resting on my bag with the Tamron 150-600mm lens on just in case. Just as the sun started to set behind the hills on Vancouver Island, this sailboat came by, and I took the opportunity to fire off a quick sequence of shots (hand-held, very unusual for me!)

Lions Gateway

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Thu, 18 Sep 2014 09:59:13 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

The west coast had a disappointment last weekend when a strong aurora forecast gave those on the east coast a great display, but faded away to nothing just as darkness arrived over here.

However, there have been other opportunities for night sky photography. This is a shot that I've been meaning to try out for a while, to see how strongly I can pick up star trails in a city location with the right techniques and conditions, and I finally got around to a couple of weeks ago.

While there's lots of possible places to try this out, this location, on the far side of Stanley Park looking north towards the Lions Gate Bridge, has always struck me as being one that could work well. With a northerly view, it's possible to capture Polaris in the photograph, which is almost perfectly aligned with the north celestial pole. This means that this star appears to stay stationary, while the others appear to rotate around it.

I knew I needed two things to make this shot work, exceptionally clear skies, and a rising moon. Any cloud or even haze in the sky would pick up the bright city lights (downtown Vancouver is only about 3km behind me from here), making it very difficult to capture all but the brightest stars. The rising moon, which would be behind me, would help light up the trees in Stanley Park and prevent them from being completely in silhouette. Finally I got the right conditions and went out to give it a go.

The one thing I hadn't considered was the tide, as I wanted to shoot this from very low down to get the reflections of the bridge in the water. The location was also trickier than I'd hoped, as I also wanted to get both of the bridge towers in, preventing me from going further to the left as the trees would start to block one. The tide was low, but not as low as I would have liked, leaving me a very thin piece of dry(ish) land to set up on. As the tide was coming in, I knew I'd only have about an hour and a half of shooting before the water level got too high again, so I didn't hang around!

For this photo, I used stacking to capture many shot exposures of the stars which can be combined in software, rather than one long exposure of the stars. I took 146 consecutive photos, each at 16mm, ISO 1000, f/4, for 20 seconds. This captured as many stars as possible without starting to overexpose the sky. These were then stacked in StarStax to form the trails. A couple of shots at a lower exposure captured the detail in the bridge towers, which were a little overexposed, and these were blending in using luminosity masking to create this final shot.

Sky on Fire

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 09:49:02 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

This has been an incredible week for sunsets! After last Tuesday's amazing sunset, which was one of the best of the year, tonight's sunset may well be one of the best sunsets I've ever seen in Vancouver.

Conditions were looking promising throughout the day, with some thin, wispy clouds that promised to catch the colour from the setting sun, but as the golden hour approached, a thick layer of haze and cloud started to move in from the direction of Vancouver Island. Arriving at my chosen location, Acadia Beach near UBC, the sun was all but invisible, showing just as a very slight blob of brightness through the clouds.

The one bit of hope was the tiniest gap that looked clear right on the horizon. On very rare occasions, this allows the last rays of the sun to peek through and light up the clouds from below. This often happens five or ten minutes after the apparent sunset, due to the curvature of the Earth. However, it is very, very rare that it happens at all -- I always try and go out whenever these conditions look possible, but I probably make 20 failed trips for every successful one.

Tonight was definitely one of the successful trips, although for a long time it didn't look as though it would be. The gap on the horizon glowed a faint orange as the sun passed it, and then faded back into grey, and I was almost about to pack up my kit, but decided to give it another five minutes. Slowly but surely, the clouds began to glow brighter and brighter colours, until the sky and water was a kaleidoscope of reds, oranges and pinks. I'm very aware that anyone who didn't see this sunset will look at this picture and assume I turned the saturation up to 11 in post-processing, but I can assure you that this only begins to capture the incredible colours of this sunset. At one point I looked behind me at the trees at the edge of the beach, and they appeared to be lit up by sodium lights, they were glowing such a bright orange.

The amazing display lasted until almost 25 minutes after sunset -- this shot was taken at the peak of the colours, a remarkable 17 minutes after the sun had set. It really was an unforgettable display. I used a circular polariser and a graduated ND filter to control the brightness of the sky, and an aperture of f/11 to get the depth of field required for the nearby rocks. I was standing in about a foot of water for this shot, but that hardly seemed to matter!

The End of Summer

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 09:25:07 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

With the long weekend marking the end of summer in Vancouver, Tuesday saw a day of solid, continuous rain, and much cooler temperatures. However, as I watched the rain streaking down the window a little before sunset, I saw that a gap in the clouds was opening up in the distance, just where the sun would set. Conditions like this can often disappoint, but I always try and go out in them because on occasion, they can produce the most stunning sunsets.

Unfortunately nobody had told the clouds overhead that a good sunset might be in prospect, and the rain continued to fall as I headed to English Bay, which I knew would have an unobstructed view of the sunset. For foreground interest I chose Bernar Venet's sculpture, '217.5 Arc X 13', made out of raw steel and with rusty orange tones that I hoped would complement the sunset.

The problem with wide-angle lenses and graduated neutral-density filters, both of which I love to use, is that they are both very susceptible to collecting rain, with even a single drop becoming a nasty splodge on the final photo. I therefore had a rather frustrating time setting up tripod, camera, lens and filters, all while being unable to put anything down on the wet, clingy sand, and with one hand holding an umbrella! I'm sure the few brave walkers and cyclists on the seawall were wondering what the crazy photographer was doing!

Fortunately the gap in the clouds stayed until sunset, and as the sun got closer and closer to the horizon, the sky lit up with colours as the rain clouds became lit from underneath by the last rays of the setting sun, in what has to be one of the best sunsets so far this year in Vancouver.

The Bay Bridges

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Mon, 25 Aug 2014 11:27:37 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

During my trip to California earlier this year, on the way back to the hotel after shooting in Oakland and travelling across the Bay Bridge, I made a snap decision to try a shot I've wanted to take before, even though it was getting late and blue hour was long over. This meant once again heading onto the section of Yerba Buena island owned by the US Coastguard, ignoring quite a few signs, and hoping that I'd go unnoticed!

This view, looking east towards Oakland and Berkeley, is accessed via a single-track road that circumnavigates the coastguard station, which is on the very peak of the hill. Parking the car in the only available location, under some trees a few hundred metres further along, and walking back, the spinning radar antenna towering above me in the pitch dark gave the place a definite sense of foreboding! As I would have to shoot from the road, hoping that nobody came along while I was doing so, I knew I wouldn't be staying for long!

There is a small section where the road runs right along the edge of a cliff, right above the tunnel that the bridge passes through. A chain-link fence at the edge of the road, far too high to see over with my tripod, proved an additional challenge, but after a minute or two of searching I discovered that a handy lens-shaped hole had been cut in the fence. Although it wasn't quite big enough for my lens, it did allow me to get a mostly-unobstructed view down onto the bridge.

This photo shows the eastern span of the Bay Bridge. This section of the bridge is undergoing replacement due to the original bridge being prone to earthquake damage, as seen in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake when a section of the original double-deck bridge partially collapsed, with one fatality. With the high probability of a larger earthquake striking the area at some point in the future, the replacement bridge project began construction in 2002, and was scheduled to be completed in 2007, but only opened to traffic last year after numerous delays. The bridge is designed to withstand an 8.5 magnitude earthquake, the largest expected in the next 1,500 years.

The new bridge (lit up) is the widest bridge in the world, carrying five lanes of traffic in each direction, with room for emergency vehicles on both sides. Unlike the old bridge, for most of the distance it is a single-deck bridge, but as it approaches the tunnel through Yerba Buena island, and the double-deck bridge on the other side, the two lanes split, with the westbound lane on top of the eastbound lane. On the right hand side, the old bridge can be seen, partially disassembled and in darkness.

Despite being well after blue hour, the heavy haze in the air picked up the light from Oakland and Berkeley and gave a strong orange glow above the cities in the distance. The bright LED lighting illuminating the new tower, which is 525 feet high, can also be seen lighting up the air above it. In the distance between the two towers of the old bridge, you can just make out the Sather Tower at the University of California, Berkeley, the third tallest clock tower in the world.

Marin County Sunset

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 11:02:06 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

One of my San Francisco photo excursions was to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in the Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge.

I was planning on shooting the city at dusk, and wanted to try a viewpoint that I hadn't used before, so I decided to hike up the Coastal Trail to Slacker Hill, a viewpoint overlooking the bridge and the city, in time for the blue hour.

However, as I hiked up the steep trail, the haze in the valley below started to catch and reflect the light of the setting sun, and I had to stop and photograph the sunset. Pushing a short way off the trail into the bushes, and keeping a careful eye out for rattlesnakes, I set up to take this shot as the sun inched towards the horizon.

It was amazing to be standing on the side of a completely deserted hill, looking out over such a beautiful landscape, while just 3 miles behind me was the busy city of San Francisco. I did continue my hike up to the top of Slacker Hill to photograph the city at the blue hour, but was very pleased that I was in the right place to photograph this much more peaceful scene at sunset.

This photo consists of two exposures taken at 27mm, ISO 100, f/16, with shutter speeds of 1/13th of a second and 1/50th of a second, manually blended together using luminosity masking.

The Moon over Mount Baker

nobody@flickr.com (Alexis Birkill Photography) — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 09:28:02 -0700

Alexis Birkill Photography posted a photo:

I could claim to have planned this shot weeks in advance, but that's not the case! A friend of mine sent me a message on Facebook earlier asking for moonrise times and rough position for her location, a little to the south of Vancouver, and then casually asked if it would line up with Mount Baker.

My first thought was 'yeah, right!' -- while it would obviously line up with Mount Baker from somewhere, the chances of it lining up close to home seemed pretty optimistic, but it was but the work of a moment to check, and discover that while it didn't, it was surprisingly close!

The next few minutes put my trigonometry to the test, as I worked out the distance to Mount Baker from the Vancouver area (about 95km), the height of the mountain (3,286 metres), and from that, how far it would be above the horizon (almost exactly 2 degrees). I knew the diameter of the moon was roughly 0.5 degrees.

I was then able to plug that into The Photographers Ephemeris and figure out the path where the moon would line up with Mount Baker when it was 2.25 degrees above the horizon, and discovered that the Boundary Bay Dyke Trail would provide me access to the exact spot I needed!

As the afternoon drew on, the haze increased more and more. My friend decided the conditions didn't look promising enough, but I knew that I'd regret more not going and finding out it was good, than I would if I went and got nothing. Plus, how else was I going to validate my calculations?!

Arriving about 15 minutes before the calculated time, and surrounded by a swarm of flying creatures ranging in size from midges to dragonflies, I was pleased that I could at least see Mount Baker, although I could certainly have wished for less haze. Setting up my camera and tripod on some very boggy ground, I wondered if the moon would be visible through the haze, or if it would need to get higher to be seen. You can imagine my delight as, right on time, the moon began to rise behind the mountain! Taken right as the sun set, the last rays were still lighting up the top of the mountain, giving it a pink glow.

This is a single exposure, taken at ISO 100, f/11, for 0.2 seconds, using my 300mm lens and 1.4x teleconverter for a total focal length of 420mm.