San Francisco

Cellpic Sunday — Bicycles

Fandango8 Comments

Note: As I have done too often lately, I didn’t change the title of this post from last week’s post. When I respond to a recurring prompt, I use Jetpack’s “Duplicate” feature, remove all of the blocks from the prior week’s post, and then write the new post. But sometimes I forget to change the title. Shit like that happens when you get to be my age. Last week’s title to my Cellpic Suunday post made no sense related to this week’s photo. So having just now noticed it, I changed the title if this weeks Cellpic Sunday from “Protests” to Bicycles,” which is what the photo this week shows. I hope I havent confused anyone too badly.

John Steiner, the blogger behind Journeys With Johnbo, has this prompt he calls Cellpic Sunday in which he asks us to post a photo that was taken with a cellphone, tablet, or another mobile device. He invites us to participate in this cellphone photo prompt by creating our own CellPic Sunday post and linking it back to his.

Every October, in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park there is a three-day-long music festival known as Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. The festival features an eclectic lineup of country, soul, folk, folk-rock, and, of course, lots of banjo playing. Artists perform nonstop across six outdoor stages spanning the length of a three-day spirited weekend of fun.

I took this photo below on October 4, 2015 using my iPhone 6. At the time, we used to live three blocks north of Golden Gate Park and could easily walk to everything the park had to offer, including music festivals like Hardly Strictky Bluegrass. But not everyone could walk to the park and car parking was very limited. So a lot of San Franciscans rode their bikes.

The photo shows how the park provided hundreds of bike parking racks and, as you can see from the photo, bikes are parked there literally as far as the eye can see.

One-To-Three Photo Processing Challenge — May, 2024

Fandango21 Comments

For this monthly prompt from Kate at XingfuMama, the idea is to pick a photo we want to play with and process it using three different methods.

Just FYI, all processed photos in this post were made using apps available for the iPhone at Apple’s App Store. Also, all images, including the original, were resized (shrunk) to make them quicker to load (and to take up less space in my WordPress media folder).

The photo I’m featuring this month is from July 2015 and it was taken using my iPhone 6 at a mini-park a few blocks from where we lived when we still lived in San Francisco. We used to periodically take our dog to this mini-park when we didn’t have enough time to take her to Golden Gate Park, which was only a three-block walk from our house.

What I liked about this photo is the tree that seemed to grow to the right, then suddenly did a bit of a U-turn and started growing in the other direction. So I thought I’d play with it using different image processing apps.

Original photo

Image processed using the Aquarella app

Image processed using the Prisma app

Image processed using the Ribbet app

Which image do you like best?

Cellpic Sunday — Pyramid

Fandango9 Comments

John Steiner, the blogger behind Journeys With Johnbo, has this prompt he calls Cellpic Sunday in which he asks us to post a photo that was taken with a cellphone, tablet, or another mobile device. He invites us to participate in this cellphone photo prompt by creating our own CellPic Sunday post and linking it back to his.

The photo below was taken on June 7, 2016 using my iPhone 6. My wife and I were joining our daughter, whose office at the time was in San Francisco’s Financial District, adjacent to the iconic Transamerica Pyramid, which is center stage in the photo below.

The Transamerica Pyramid is a pyramid-shaped 48-story skyscraper that is the second tallest building in the San Francisco skyline. A popular tourist site, the building stands at 853 feet (260 m). On its completion in 1972, it was the tallest building in San Francisco and the eighth-tallest building in the world. However, in 2018, the recently constructed Salesforce Tower surpassed the Pyramid’s height by around 200 feet.

While Transamerica Corporation still uses the image of the building as the company’s logo, it no longer owns or occupies the Pyramid, having moved its U.S. headquarters to Baltimore, Maryland. In 2020, the Transamerica Pyramid was sold to a New York City investor and the building is now undergoing a renovations.

One-To-Three Photo Processing Challenge — March, 2024

Fandango23 Comments

I’m running late again for this monthly prompt from Kate at XingfuMama. I usually post my photos on the 1st or 2nd of the month, but it’s already the 4th. Anyway, the idea is to pick a photo we want to play with and process it using three different methods.

Just FYI, all processed photos in this post were made using apps available for the iPhone at Apple’s App Store. Also, all images, including the original, were resized (shrunk) to make them quicker to load (and to take up less space in my WordPress media folder).

The photo I’m featuring this month is one I took back in 2011 at the Chinatown Gate in San Francisco at Bush Street and Grant Avenue.

Original Photo

Processed using the Prisma app

Processed using the Waterbrush app

Processed using the BeCasso app

Which image do you like best?

Cellpic Sunday — Cupid’s Span

Fandango8 Comments

John Steiner, the blogger behind Journeys With Johnbo, has this prompt he calls Cellpic Sunday in which he asks us to post a photo that was taken with a cellphone, tablet, or another mobile device. He invites us to participate in this cellphone photo prompt by creating our own CellPic Sunday post and linking it back to his.

The photo below was taken on my iPhone 5 back in January of 2013 along the Embarcadero in San Francisco. It’s the city’s east-facing waterfront that attracts a lot of tourists, with its finger piers, shops, restaurants, and views of San Francisco Bay.

In the background is the iconic clock tower of the Ferry Building and in the foreground on the left is a sculpture known as Cupid’s Span. It was commissioned by the founders of The Gap, Donald and Doris F. Fisher, depicts a partial bow and piece of an arrow.

The sculpture was designed by married artists Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, and was completed in 2002. Cupid’s Span has its roots from the mythological tale of Eros, the god of love, who shot his arrow into the earth, bringing fertility and life.

The designers hoped that by partially burying the arrowhead and the central part of the bow, the sculpture could take on a new life, brimming with symbolism and hidden meanings, as symbol of love and unity, a timeless representation of the city’s soul.