Trolley rides and more

I have been in the San Francisco bay area for 9 years and I have not taken the trolley ride! Blasphemy cried the wife, who has recently taken some kind of resolution on correcting my past misteps!

So off we went on a family outing (with the cousin family) to SFO this morning, and took the trolley ride from Fisherman's Wharf to Union Square and back.

The entire day was spent in Union square, watching artwork on display, watching passers by, having the occasional shiver, buying contrabrand Compact Flash cards for throwaway prices, chasing kids through crowds and waiting in one loooooooong line to get back in that trolley! "Thank god for cars. No wonder we never do this!" was the unanimous verdict of the adults in the group. The kids as usual, disagreed.

Here is the trip in pictures !

This picture was taken while we waited in the fog for the trolley ride to begin.

When the trolley starts from Beach street, it almost feels like a roller coaster ride with Alcatraz zooming away from you!

No wonder, the kids loved the ride and thought this could be a routine form of transportation.

There was a woman following our trolley in her car! I cannot imagine driving on these steep roads, that too with a cell phone in one hand. High time the city of San Francisco put a notice as you enter which says "Do not try driving like this at home. All drivers are professions in a closed course" or something to that effect!

The art work on display.

Here is the chasing kids part! Of course you get to see only one kid out of four. I am sure Balaji will post photos of his two.

Now why do you see only baby's photos recently ? Well, Jr. is a big girl now and she went in to the cosmetic stores to check out stuff. I can only take pictures of the kid that hangs out with me. No, I take that back. I do not take pictures of the little one because she is stuck with me. She is a delight and challenge to photograph! Always on the move and always testing the camera's ability to adjust focus in the last nanosecond...

Did I mention the long wait for the return trolley ? Well, here is the line (circle describes it better) around the terminal. Have you seen a railway track that ends like this? This is the first time I saw this system. The little trolley comes and stands at the end, the dudes pull a lever and the tram rotates 180 degrees! It is then pushed back to the return line. The way they had engineered this was very very interesting.

Not to waste time while waiting, I captured a few shots of the tall buildings on either side.

The gray facades were a little on the gloomy side, but the sharp lines were eye catching.

The rows of balconys and..

the rows of fire escapes reminded me of Philadelphia. I used to live in a building with fire escape ladders, a long time ago...

Finally after many a photograph, we got into our return trolley..

The street pigeons were violent! Started wondering if this had anything to do with the local environment at Union Square.

One interesting and irritating item on the tour was this "join Jesus or burn in Hell" slogan shouting guy at Union square. He somehow managed to get a real loud speaker and was screaming about the "born again Christian" movement and went on and on about burning in hell, gays, lesbians, morality, etc. etc. to the point that he was downright offensive. I know we have freedom of speech but we have the right to denounce other religions, sexual preference with a loud speaker in a public place? Now that was a surprise!

A bunch of gay and lesbian folk (who are not that hard to find in SFO) gave him the finger, went up close and video taped him. A lesbian couple even kissed below his make shift podium (overturned bucket) and took pictures. Pretty soon the Jesus dude's supporters who were holding other "born again" placards came and stood near him and the onlookers (aka innocent bystanders) started worrying that it might evolve into a brawl. The heat was still on as we departed Union Square! We could have had lunch at the "Gaylord" restaurant in Ghirardeli square to exaggerate the irony, but decided that ice cream and hot chocolate was enough before driving back home!

Do not know what other places I have failed to visit over the years. I am sure I will find out soon, and so will you!

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Fireworks

A great camera.. but a photographer not well acquainted with the greatness..

Need to play with the camera some more I guess!

Here are a few shots from tonights fireworks. I thought if I used the manual mode and went all the way to F25 or F32! and kept the exposure at anywhere from 2 to 4 seconds (with the ISO still at 100), there should be crisp lines tracing every little dot of light streaking across the sky.

I believe the results are exactly that! But this looks too artificial! Next time, I go down to F8 or F11 and do the same thing. Well, there is always New year fireworks.

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Naughty Naughty Naughty

Pictures of the little one at her mischievous best during an afternoon spent at the local park!

I had just gotten out of a serious headache that afternoon. So I parked my "you know what" at the edge of the slide area and started taking pictures.

Jr., a happy go lucky kid who is always smiling, sat down on the bench for a second between her running around. For a fleeting moment I saw a serious side to her that I have never seen before. Do not know what made her so thoughtful for a few seconds. She was off and running again in no time.

Wishing all Americans a happy 4th of July! Let us hope this year brings better things for the US of A. Oil independence, an end to the war, better politics, and everything else the majority of Americans are said to want in opinion polls but somehow never happen!

Surprisingly, Jr. is being taught in school that 4th of July is America's Birthday(not Independence day!). Maybe they are trying to rewrite the history books and remove the "I" word. Maybe they dont want people to think that Independence implies a dependence at some point prior to the Independence?

Jr. came home and declared that it is America's birthday and we celebrate it with fireworks and no school for tomorrow. I did not want to explain the concept of Independence or dependence to Jr. after a long and tiring day. That can wait for some time later.

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Focus Pocus

Like Narayanan Sir pointed out, the picture of the baby was out of focus.

Sometimes the camera has a mind of its own, thanks to the advanced technology!

If you look into my viewfinder you find 9 focus points in the shape of a diamond. Obviously, when I have the little one in a big chair and the chair is a few feet in front of a wall, the camera decides that it got a hit on 4 points out of 9 on the chair, 4 on the wall and 1 on the kid! So, it focused on the chair. The fact that baby is a fast mover, does not help.

Now that I have read the manual, I can actually make sure that the point that lights up in red is the center point! and the results are much better.

The zoom rocks! Picked this little one at almost 90 feet!

Poonam wanted the little one parceled to her. Tonight I plan to post some photos when baby is doing combo #1. Poonam will beg for a return shipping label after seeing those photos..

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First pic

Have been busy at work lately. Also the girls are behaving at their worst when I get home! There has not been a lot of time for photography, considering the new camera and lena have been with me for 3 days already.

The indoor pictures (have not taken a lot of them) look great. Here is a picture of the little one, with absolutely no alteration.

The beauty of this camera is that it captures the scene, almost as you see it. Exactly same colors, light hues.

Promising you many more pictures to come..

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