Mandy and Tony Sneak Peek

"We can come over earlier in the afternoon," they said.

"Oh no," I replied. "The light will be better at 6:30. So I'll still see you then."

Come 6:30, San Francisco was doing its thing. Cold, foggy, windy . . . you name it. But Mandy and Tony were excellent sports , they braved the cold and the wind. And they followed my ridiculous instructions, like, 'go stand behind the fence!'

And the light was pretty great, to be fair.

More of Mandy and Tony's session coming next week on the blog!

Saturday Morning

A view of Alcatraz from the Marina. I used the black and white software Silver Efex Pro 2 in my processing. Anyone care to guess how?

Tunnel

Can you believe there's still snow in Lake Tahoe this time of year? It's crazy! But kind of photogenic . . .

On a totally unrelated topic, this is probably the only chess game I would get really excited to play . . . but it's a little out of my price range. Maybe next year . . .

The Doorway

Oscar

I was lucky enough to get to spend a weekend with Oscar recently. Look at that nose! Isn't he adorable?

One tip for photographing animals: get down. Like, really down. I was lying on my stomach to take this shot, and I don't think it would have worked any other way. If I could have gotten any lower, I would have.

Weeds

Or wildflowers. Depends on your perspective, right? If you're sitting in the hot sun, trowel in hand, trying to eradicate that stubborn dandelion, you're probably in the former camp. If you're going for a hike on a long weekend, breathing in the pure mountain air, you might be thinking along the lines of the latter.

I think sometimes we forget that it's all perspective. Just because we can give something a name doesn't mean it's the right one. And names don't make things so. I can tell you that when I came upon these, I breathed "wildflowers," lay down in the dirt, and took a few pictures. With nary a trowel to be seen on the premises.