Worldwide Photo Walk

Saturday morning brought forth a perfect blue sky and equally pleasant temperatures for the second annual Worldwide Photo Walk sponsored by Scott Kelby Training and Adobe. About 40 other photographers and I joined walk leader Tom Hogarty and members of the Lightroom, Photoshop, Bridge and Camera Raw teams for one of the four Photowalks scheduled this year in San Francisco! We couldn’t have asked for better conditions.

We met in the morning at the Adobe offices in downtown San Francisco and spent the next two hours exploring the local environs with cameras in hand. I always enjoy working side-by-side with other photographers, as everyone brings a unique vision and style towards capturing the subject at hand.  And here on the outskirts of this SOMA neighborhood, the predominant subject was architecture and the urban environment.

With the sun bright and the shadows driven towards an inky black, the day was tailor-made for HDR experimentation. My first sequence of the day was this colorful block of apartments directly behind the Adobe offices. Framing the sun just out of sight behind the building gave the sky a hint of drama. This image is comprised of seven bracketed shots one-stop apart. The HDR was processed with Photomatix and finessed into its final form in Lightroom and Photoshop.

The panorama was shot on the back side of the building, and is comprised of two HDR images manually stitched together in Photoshop. You can see a few clouds starting to creep in on the left side of the image. As the day wore on the sky became much more dramatic, something we don’t often see here in San Francisco.

This final image was shot in the maintenance yard of the wheeled trolley fleet. This old London double-decker bus sat alone in the corner of the yard magnificent in its slowly deteriorating state. The colors really were this garish, although the HDR treatment has boosted their vibrancy somewhat. I think it enhances the cartoonish character and the tight framing of the subject.

It was a nice break to fade into the background and not be the center of attention while out with a large group, although I don’t think I’ll ever be able to completely separate myself from my role as instructor. You can see more images from the other walk participants on the dedicated homepage for the group. SF Adobe Photowalk.