Pet Pride Day 2013

These photos are a bit overdue - they've been languishing on my hard drives since October of last year, and I still love some of the costumes, so I thought I'd share them with you.

Pet Pride day is an annual San Francisco event that takes place in Golden Gate Park usually close to Halloween. People are encouraged to bring along all kinds of pets and to costume them as creatively as they can. As you can see, there are a lot of very patient dogs in this city!

Of course, not only dogs can get dressed up . . . .

And some other pets made appearances.

I just loved the chinchillas - they were so soft!

And of course I've always been a big fan of rats.

This animal was not up for adoption, sadly . . .

Legally Blonde! I loved this costume.

The cutest cowboy there . . .

Film Friday - A Very Damp Day and a Roll of Velvia

David had recently acquired a new (old) Hasselblad, and so we set up a playdate for the Hasselblad to meet the Bronica. Unbeknownst to us, we scheduled it on what was to be the wettest day of 2014, but since we didn't want to be wusses, we wandered around the Tenderloin in the rain, taking photographs very slowly.

And it was a lot of fun. We had water running down our faces, I protected my camera in my jacket, people looked at us like we were crazy, and we had a couple of good conversations with folks on the street.

I can't say that I'm absolutely in love with any of these photographs, but it was my first roll of Velvia, and at least the exposures all appear to be pretty decent. (There are 11 photos here instead of the 12 there should be because my camera fired once by accident. I hate when that happens!)

Yeah, it was really rainy. Here's David with his Hasselblad.

Some red. Velvia does do red nicely, I've got to say.

Oh, these pigeons! I really wanted this shot. I even made David scare the pigeons so they would all fly away at once. But shooting a 50 ISO film on a dark rainy day makes for some pretty slow shutter speeds. So it's not in focus. Dang!

This guy was pretty awesome.

And then I went home and got warm and dry, which felt amazingly wonderful.

*Interested in a film or digital portrait session? Please contact me for details!*

*Want to see more film? Check out all the Film Friday posts.*

Angelica and Joe - Union Square Anytime Session

I met up with Angelica and Joe a few days before Christmas in Union Square. (Yes, this blog post is a tad overdue - don't hate. Better late than never.) In retrospect, when arranging the meeting time and place, perhaps I should have remembered that every single person in the Bay Area is required by law to come to Union Square a few days before Christmas, but unfortunately it slipped my mind. And so even though we were waiting on opposite sides of the street for a good ten minutes, we didn't see each other because of the mass of humanity swirling between us.

Fortunately, we finally found each other, and a few quiet pockets of downtown San Francisco to photograph in, and I got to really appreciate how truly great Angelica and Joe are. For one thing, they seem just perfectly suited for each other. They've also got this secret smile that they share back and forth.

I really believe that beautiful photographs can be made pretty much any place, any time, if you're willing to think it through a little. But there's something about downtown San Francisco that I truly love, a special quality of light that just gets me.

Joe is such a sweetheart!

I just love ginkgo trees. They're almost the only fall color we get here in the land that is eternally between seasons.

Thanks Angelica and Joe for a great session! It was a pleasure getting to meet you.

*Interested in a portrait or engagement session? Please contact me for details!*