San Francisco Bay Area Photography

Owned and operated by NCGA (Northern California Golf Association), Poppy Ridge is a popular course for a number of NCGA related qualifiers. I played there for the second time in my short golf life on June 16th.

As beautiful as the course may appear to be, it’s a monster of a course. The tolerance level for any inaccuracy is so low that nothing but a perfectly executed shot has any chance of seeing a par for the hole.

Here is the 9th hole on Merlot - a par 5 with a severely elevated tee shot:

And the 9th hold of Chardonnay - another par 5 with hazard to the right and water to the left of the hole:

(click photo for larger view)

Another shot of China Camp State Park in San Rafael.  This one was taken with Nikon F4s on a Velvia 100 slide film - took me a while to get it processed and scanned.  Color saturations and high contrast is mainly due to the film itself.

I was looking for website with more information on this place. . .it’s funny, the best one I could find is Yelp:

China Camp State Park Reviews

This is a shot of Emeryville taken from Berkeley Marina shortly after sunset.  Thanks to telephoto lens, downtown Oakland is seen on the last layer.  I chose cooler white balance to intensify the blues.  The shutter was left open for 8 seconds.

(click photo for larger view)

Spring time in Northern California. From Baker Beach, San Francisco, I saw a bed of ice plants leading to Golden Gate Bridge. I was itching to use my film camera, Nikon F4s loaded with Fuji Velvia 100 slide film, hence the over saturation and contrast.

(click photo for larger view)

This is from our recent visit to Napa Valley. So many times, we have driven by this place and commented how pretty the winery looked but never bothered to make a stop at the winery. Though, we have never tried their sparkling wine, I do have a fond memory of Taittinger Champagne. We did not try their sparkling wines as we ran out of time but managed to take a few snapshots.

(click photo for larger view)