Over the last few years I’ve made it a special point to plan special weekend birthday getaway vacations. The San Francisco bay area offers convenient access to a number of great getaway locales. I’ve been keeping a list of spots and with Jennie’s help I’ve been slowly working my way through them. A few years ago we did a bed & breakfast up in Sonoma County in the quiet town of Monte Rio. It was a quiet and quaint getaway featuring an amazing scenic coastal drive, a memorably awful Mexican birthday dinner and a lazy summer afternoon canoeing down the Russian River.

Partly inspired by a heavy marketing blitz by the Monterey Bay Aquarium along my daily commute route, this year we decided to head south. In contrast to the previous year, we would embrace our tourist selves. We booked an expensive hotel on Cannery Row and bought tickets for a day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

As seems to usually be the case, the adventure began with a leisurely trip along the coast. We planned for a late lunch in the little town of Pescadero at a place Jennie knew of called Duarte’s Tavern. As it turns out, this little restaurant had been featured on an episode of one of my secret obsessions, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Their specialties include artichoke and green chile soups, cioppino, and berry pies.

Jennie picked a 50/50 mix of the two soups and I had the fish sandwich. The half and half soup is not on the menu, but if you’re in the know you can ask for it. Of course, we couldn’t leave without sharing the mixed berry pie. Duarte’s is famous for is their pies. The most famous is their Olallieberry pie. Many of their fresh fruit and produce ingredients come from a large garden behind the restaurant. The seafood is also locally sourced from daily catches in the nearby Half Moon Bay. All of the food was delicious and provided a perfect start to our weekend.

Our next stop on our journey was the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. Adjacent to the lighthouse is a hostel. The lighthouse is no longer active and parts of it are fenced off due to deteriorating conditions. However, visitors are still allowed access to the base and some of the surrounding areas. Despite the fences, it’s a wonderfully scenic stop along the way and an interesting piece of history.

Our day of leisurely coastal driving came to a close as we found our way to our hotel in Monterey at the far end of the Cannery Row. We checked into the Plaza Hotel and then checked out the main strip of the Cannery Row in search of a spot for drinks and dinner. After surveying the options, we eventually found ourselves at Bullwacker’s for dinner. The mediocre pub food met our tourist expectations and we retired for the evening happy with our adventure so far, looking forward to what the next day had in store.

We spent the following morning at the aquarium. It was packed with visitors of all ages and as the day progressed the crowds continued to grow. Fortunately, we had purchased our tickets in advance and were able to breeze through the will call line. Later in the afternoon, the ticket line stretched down the block outside the building.

The exhibits we saw included wide variety of jellyfish, seahorses, penguins, and all sorts of actual fish. Tuna, hammerhead sharks, schools of sardines, flounder and many more. Aside from the great big tanks there were also touching tanks where visitors had an opportunity to feel various ocean life including things like kelp and even rays. The aquarium promotes the science of ocean life as much as it simply puts it on display with many interactive educational displays.

Later in the afternoon after a lunch break at the Cannery Row Brewing Company as the aquarium crowds thickened, we decided we had seen most of what the aquarium had to offer and set off to explore some of the surrounding area. Headed off on foot away from the row, we visited a nearby wharf full of more touristy shops and restaurants. Along the way we discovered a pier where local fishermen hung out. At the end, an outcropping of rocks hosted hundreds of sea lions, gulls, and cormorants.

In an attempt to recover from last year’s Mexican debacle Jennie picked out a fancy restaurant for my birthday dinner. We ended up at the C, the Continental Hotel’s restaurant on Cannery Row. I had the surf & turf - grilled Angus New York steak and Diver Sea scallops with Yukon Gold potato gratin, grilled asparagus, and a Madeira sauce while Jennie had the grilled asparagus and mac-n-cheese. Along with the main course we also enjoyed a nice bottle of red wine and the house made bread served with a spread of whipped butter, lemon juice and goat cheese. It ended up being a great dinner and end to a wonderful day out as tourists.

We ended the weekend driving around the area a bit looking for sea otters and stopping at some of the road side areas to enjoy the scenery. Not coming up with any otter sightings and our appetites growing, we eventually gave up the creature hunt and instead turned our attention to tracking down lunch. Hidden away in the city of Monterey was another well rated establishment Jennie had read about, Lopez Restaurante Y Cantina. On an early Sunday afternoon we nearly had the place entirely to ourselves. Once sufficiently stuffed with chips, salsa, and other wonderful Mexican fare we continued on our journey back home.

All told, it was another great birthday getaway I’m sure won’t be forgotten any time soon. It was definitely a stark contrast playing tourist compared to the prior year’s quiet private retreat. I certainly look forward to whatever adventure the next one holds.

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Thanksgiving 2009 from Josh Farr on Vimeo.

Also - the Flickr Set from the trip.

The target audience of Smugmug seems to be professional photographers. This comes out most in the degree of customization offered by the service. Of the most of technical of these is their support for CNAME DNS configuration. This means that you can buy your own domain name and point it directly at your Smugmug account. They also give you the ability to completely change how your account’s pages look by editing various sections of raw HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

If you’re a professional photographer looking for a simple way to offer a branded online presence, Smugmug has you covered. Employing both DNS redirection and full template customization, photographers can end up with a fully customized photography website without their clients ever even directly realizing that Smugmug is the platform under the hood.

Another difference with Smugmug is the ability to set mark up prices. While both sites offer web to print photo services, only Smugmug offers the ability to mark up the price of images and control which images sizes are available. If you only want to offer low resolution thumbnails available for free and charge for the high-res versions, then this is easily doable too. This is great news for professionals looking to turn a profit on their hard work.

In contrast to the flexibility of customizing how your Smugmug pages look, when you’re using Flickr, you know it. Every page on Flickr looks like a page on Flickr. In order to do any of this with Flickr, you need to already have your own website and call into their own API. This allows you to access your photos and include them in your pre-existing website. Smugmug does also offer its own API in case you want to integrate your Smugmug assets into an existing website.

So what is the final verdict? Both sites have a lot of features in common. Each also has its own pros and cons worth considering. For me, the biggest decision point is this - most of the people I know use Flickr (aside from the few using Google’s Picasa). Flickr is also more of a social site with its various groups, pools, and other community-focused features. Meanwhile, Smugmug does offer a wider range of features geared towards the professional photographer aiming to make money off of their craft. If that were my living, I would probably choose Smugmug over Flickr. At least for the moment, I’m more interested in sharing with my friends and exploring my hobby than on selling my work. So for now I’m sticking with Flickr - at least until my year is up.

On a final note, what was it like to migrate photos from one service to the other? Unfortunately, there’s no simple way to transfer from one silo to the other. I didn’t feel like writing any code to do this job either. Luckily, the core of my workflow is Adobe Lightroom and a wonderful developer has written export plugins for both Flickr and Smugmug. It’s still a chore since you have to upload everything again, but many of your metadata settings will still be applied. The plugins are also the best way to get any future content into either service. They’re donationware, which means you’re requested to make at least a small donation to the developer. However, the savings in having a publishing tool integrated into your workflow is well worth the price.

Looking back over the month in review, I find the results to be somewhat mixed. By the end, I was starting to see my images in B&W and trying to compose the shots with that in mind. Some pictures certainly lend themselves towards that treatment. A low quality or high ISO image with lots of digital color noise can often be manipulated with much better results when color is removed. However, trying to pull a result out of other images sometimes just comes out severely lacking without any of the original color context.

If anything, maybe I’m now a bit more confident with tossing colors completely to the wind and open to making use of the Black & White format when I think it might work in the future. This exercise has given me some practice in understanding when those instances might be. In the end it comes back to the heart of what the 365 project stands for - the rigors of constant practice in order to learn and grow and continuing challenging artistic creativity.

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Oatman, Arizona (population ~128) represents an early 20th century gold mining town turned tourist destination nestled in the Black Mountains. The wild burros descended from the gold prospectors’ original pack animals are one of the primary attractions. The main stretch of town is dedicated primarily to a number of historic buildings housing kitschy stores selling various knick-knacks, t-shirts, and other touristy souvenirs. Bags of carrots are also available for purchase for feeding to the “wild” burros.

The road beyond town is a precarious and winding path that cuts its way through the Black Mountains. There are a number of opportunities to pull off and enjoy the marvelous views of the terrain below. The route eventually leads back to the more well traveled interstate. Across the remainder of Arizona are several small towns which have in some small way managed to continue to exist without being entirely bypassed by the introduction of the modern highway system. Seligman, AZ, the inspiration for the Pixar movie Cars, is a flash back to the 1950’s with it’s themed shops and diners. Have lunch and look around before continuing on down the road to Holbrook, AZ where you can spend the night in the historic Wigwam Motel.

When the unending stretch of pavement known as I-40 was laid down, it bypassed many of the less direct paths of the old road. There are still a few remnants of the original that can be found out if you’re willing to get off the beaten path a bit. One such section is located in New Mexico on the edge of the Painted Desert. It takes following an apparent dead end service road which turns into a simple dirt road a while before arriving back on some of the roughest 30’s era pavement of the true mother route that still exists in this part of the country. Leading several miles away from the interstate into the desert, one starts to get a true feeling of isolation and a sense of what it must have once felt like to travel across this expansive southwestern desert stretch.

The road eventually leads to a series of sights - the last crumbling remnants of the Painted Desert Trading Post on one side of the road and for the truly adventurous, petroglyphs carved high up in the rock walls of an adjacent mesa. Not much further down the road is the Dead Wash where the rusted out husks of cars lay against the side of a dry river bed, swallowed up by flash floods some unknown decades ago.

Traveling these historic routes, a common theme finally begins to emerge. The modernization of the national highway infrastructure slowly bypasses simple service stations, communities and eventually, seemingly entire civilizations. No longer a part of the beaten path, entire towns wither and die off. The structures that were once built to support the livelihoods of their occupants and driven by the commerce of westward movement are left abandoned. Lost in time and slowly ravaged by nature, they’ll eventually crumble back into the dirt on which they were built. For the moment they still stand - halfway between here and eternity - giving a glimpse back to days gone by. These might have been simpler eras full of hope. Now they serve as a haunting reminder of the price of progress for those willing to seek out their message.

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I kept a short journal of the first few days of my vacation in Mexico near the small fishing village of Teacapan. This is how it starts…

It was a 4AM wake up call and I had a 6AM flight from SFO to Phoenix. It’s been raining. At the airport, the self serve kiosks weren’t working. Still trying to print my boarding pass at 5:10AM, I wonder if I’m really going to make it. The system is fixed, I’ve cleared security and finally made it to the gate by 5:30AM. All of this hurrying has led up to the next period of waiting.

An alarm bell starts ringing for a few minutes and a fellow passenger wonders if they found Jack Bauer in the luggage compartment. At last I’m stuck in a window seat just behind the wing. Despite the rain’s best efforts, the plane leaves the ground on time. From a cruising altitude of 39,000 feet there’s a beautiful sunrise. The scenery below consists of lots of mountainous terrain blanketed in snow until the last stretch to Phoenix. It’s only an hour and twenty minutes in the air and then we’re back on the ground.

There’s no terminal switch and just a quick walk to the next departing gate. It’s time for breakfast. I have my choice between a Pizza Hut and an adjoining deli. I choke down part of a ham/egg/cheese croissant from an airport deli and wait out the half hour layover. I’m surrounded by passengers subsisting on pizza & burgers at 9AM. There are lots of army folk in their digital cammo. A flight to Newark seems to be delayed until spring on account of winter weather.

My flight to Mazatlan is delayed from boarding due to customs clearance from the prior inbound flight and maintenance crews on board plane. None of the news sounds promising. Boarding is prematurely begun and then quickly halted for another 20 minutes so maintenance can finish their work. Everyone is finally boarded. Aisle seat. First time ever.

The next week during the Christmas of 2008 was spent enjoying the beach and surrounding towns of Mexico - from both the ground and the air.

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A few weeks later and across town at the Hemlock Tavern, Schaffer the Darklord put on his own show. At the back end of a long, narrow room at the back of an otherwise average bar, a small group of fans gathered to listen to a curious flavor of live nerdcore rap performances. In this intimate setting, the New York-based Schaffer covered a range of topics including clones, social networking and zombies.

This image was merged from two shots taken from a street corner on Buena Vista East. It was my first attempt with using Photoshop’s Photomerge command. That it worked out for a panorama was a happy accident. They weren’t intended as such and one half was shot using a slightly longer shutter speed. It only seemed obvious that the two shots be combined after downloading and viewing the images later.

This image was combined from 8 shots taken from Corona Heights Park. This time I shot with the intent of stitching the source photos together. However, I’m still shooting handheld without any tripod assistance.

Slightly closer to the summit, this 26k pixel wide photo was merged from an excessive sequence of 33 shots. Precariously perched on a steep slope and buffeted by gusty winds I quickly scanned across roughly 180 degrees of the horizon, snapping a quick sequence for this composition. Even with the large number of uneven handheld shots, Photoshop managed to create a decent stitch. The original combined .psb file weighed in at approximately 2.2gb (normal Photoshop files use the .psd format. However, once images reach ridiculous sizes, they must use this format instead. SB is for Super Big.)

There was also ample occasion for pushing my post processing knowledge as well as continuing to develop my skills behind the lens. Humdrum household images can be turned into eye catching artistic works with a few adjustments in the digital darkroom. As I learn more about the various develop settings in Lightroom, I find myself making a wider range of specific adjustments to my raw images and relying less on the built-in presets.

I also continue to look for additional ways to challenge and develop my shooting skills. One such approach has been to spend more time with different lenses. My 24-70mm glass is my daily workhorse. It provides the 50mm sweet spot with a good range of zoom flexibility on either side. As such, it’s easy to always think of composing shots in that focal range. Spending a few days with just a telephoto lens is a great way to force yourself to rethink your shots and look for compositions you might not have otherwise considered.

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As the final minutes before the start of the event came, so did the crowd. Hundreds of participants armed with pillows swarmed onto the plaza, packing it full. Pillow styles varied from freshly purchased department store pillows still in their plastic, traditional well-worn pillows that had seen their fair share of love and scorn, small heart-shaped and themed accent pillows, and even a few couch cushions thrown into the mix. Those who weren’t armed with pillows represented another segment - the embedded pillow war journalists packing their camera gear. Officials representing the event included Violet Blue for PNN (Pillow News Network) along with a handful of faux UN representatives performing Pillow Inspections and urging the stop of the great Pillow Conflict. Their words went unheeded, amounting to little more than the fluff that was soon to fly as the onslaught of pillow violence quickly ensued.

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The highlight of the parade is the 200 foot Golden Dragon also known as Gum Lung. It takes a team of over 100 to operate this illuminated monster as it winds its way along the parade route.

This year we transition from the Year of the Rat to the Year of the Earth Ox. The Ox is a symbol of prosperity through hard work.

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The new year presented a perfect opportunity to begin a special photo-a-day project. I decided it would be a great tool to help me continue to develop and push my photography skills in a number of ways. The rules are very simple - shoot at least one photo every day and post it to my gallery. That’s pretty much it. It’s not even necessary that the photo is posted on the same day as it is taken. The only requirement is that there is a picture is shot every single day. It might not get processed and uploaded until several days later. Sometimes life can get in the way of having the access to a computer with an internet connection, time, energy, or any number of other factors that would prevent a photo from being posted on the same day as it is taken.

The requirement to take a shot forces me to take worthwhile photos when I see them even when I might not feel like it, am in a rush or whatever other excuse I might have because I know I need a picture for that day. On the other hand, there are days when I’m completely uninspired or whatever picture I end up taking just isn’t that good and doesn’t leave me much to work with. It also gives me an opportunity to explore different visual styles and post processing techniques since the images aren’t tied to a larger collection that reflects a tighter, more cohesive theme.

Often times the photos are quick shots taken throughout the day rather than seriously dedicated studies. If I see something interesting going to work, going out to lunch, or going home in the evening I’m more inclined to take a quick shot before continuing on my way. As the number of images increase, a picture of my day to day life begins to emerge. Also, finding something unique to photograph in my daily surroundings that I haven’t already shot yet becomes more challenging every day. And challenging myself is one of the big reasons I decided to take on this project. 31 down and 334 to go.

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The Great American Music Hall

Thursday, January 22nd, 2009

Established in 1907, The Great American Music Hall is San Francisco’s oldest nightclub. It is located on O’Farrell Street in the Tenderloin district. Getting to the venue is a simple matter - just take any Market Street bus to Van Ness and then any Van Ness bus to O’Farrell Street. It is a short walk further and just down the street from the also famous Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theatre. Almost immediately upon stepping inside the club you begin to notice the ornate woodwork of the columns and balconies along the edge of the main floor.

Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band was the first of the two co-headlining acts of the evening to take the stage. The big damn band consists of a trio hailing from Indiana - the reverend on guitar and harmonica, his wife on the washboard and brother on drums. The act is full of energy and engages the audience between songs.

The reverend serves up a rowdy mix of blues evocative of 1930’s depression era for the modern day. The songs cover a variety of subjects such as “Your Cousin’s On Cops”, “Wal-Mart Killed The Country Store”, “DT’s Or The Devil”, and “Mama’s Fried Potatoes”. Audience participation is encouraged with instruction given during the breaks to provide the appropriate training of the crowd provided backing vocals or clapping percussion for the upcoming song.

After a fiery finish to the big damn band’s act, it’s time for a short break while the stage is set for the next act. This also a great time to make the circle and hit the restroom, merch tables, bar for a fresh drink, and look around a bit more. For most shows, the stairs are open and additional seating is available upstairs in the balconies. However, with only a small crowd the upstairs area remained closed. Also for most shows at this venue, dinner tickets can be purchased as an alternative to the basic show tickets. For an additional fee you can get a seat at one of the tables surrounding the main floor and get a dinner choice served from the limited nightly menu.

The house lights dim and Vermillion Lies open their act. An environmentally conscious act, these sisters from Oakland travel in a bio-diesel powered tour van. Adorned with flair fashioned from bills and encouraging crowd donations on account of their birthdays they delivered a range of clever folk ballads, silly circus marches, and sultry southern tunes. Instrumentally, the sisters rely on a host of makeshift instruments recovered from the local dump. The instruments range from an old barbecue grill, typewriter, toy piano, kazoo depending on the particular song. Between songs, a trunk is opened to produce the instrument for the upcoming song. This becomes a game between the sisters and the audience. The crowd is prompted to ask the question “What’s In The Box?” each time before the box is opened to reveal the next new item.

The evening is wrapped up with an encore including a crowd pleasing sing along about global warming and a stirring ballad conceived in New Orleans.

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The zoo is divided into different areas including the African Savanna where you can see the Giraffes, Zebras, Ostriches and a variety other species. The Bear Grottos are home to the Grizzly, and Polar Bears while the Family Farm offers an all ages petting zoo including sheep, goats, and miniature donkeys. As well as having the opportunity to feed animals directly, several other daily feedings by the zoo staff can be watched at designated times around the zoo. A favorite of both the crowd and the gulls is the afternoon feeding of the Magellanic penguins at the Penguin Island.

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With unseasonably warm weather for mid-January reaching the mid 60’s, we set out on Saturday morning. Armed with a bit of internet research and a couple of GPS coordinates dialed into the trusty iPhone’s google maps, our goalof finding the secret sidewalk and Niles Brick Factory remains out near Fremont, CA had begun. As we drove south down 238 through Hayward, we spotted the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery and Mausoleum. It was a quick detour that we just couldn’t resist and had to stop in for a few photos.

After exploring the cemetery grounds and mausoleum interior, we continued on our way. Past Union City, we took Niles Canyon Road through the canyon, looking for easy access to our destination. Finding the primary access road fenced off and posted with many stern warnings to deter any form of trespassing or loitering, we continued on towards our secondary destination in hopes of finding alternate access points.

At the eastern end of the canyon is the Sunol Water Temple. The temple was designed by Willis Polk and built by the Spring Valley Water Company in 1910. It marks the convergence point of three subterranean water sources that were the primary source of potable water for San Francisco prior to the construction of the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct. Unfortunately, it is only open to the public during the weekdays.

With no other convenient options available, we returned back to the western end of the canyon and parked in the Vallejo Mill Historical Park. From there we carefully followed a path running parallel to Alameda Creek until we found the access road again. About a mile from the park where we left the car we came to an old stone wall and a group of palm trees rumored to be property markers for the Joaquin Marietta Ranch. Through these trees we finally caught our first glimpses of the brick factory chimneys.

Alternately known as Niles Brick Factory, Mission Cay Tile Works, California Pressed Brick Company, and Mission Pottery, the exact history of the brick factory is unclear. Some reports date its initial construction to the 1849-1851 time period. However, clay deposits aren’t reported to have been discovered in Niles Canyon until as late as 1907. Further reports cite ceramic engineer John S. Smith as the designer and builder of this factory sometime during his employment with the California Pressed Brick Company between 1905 and 1910. The factory produced bricks up until its closure around 1913. Some time after this it was purchased by California Pottery Company. Sewer pipes were manufactured at this site until its eventual final closure and demolition sometime in the late 1990’s.

Along a ridge on the hillside just beyond the factory we finally discovered the secret sidewalk. Although it resembles a sidewalk running through the countryside, it is actually the remains of a square concrete aqueduct built by the Spring Valley Water Company during the first decade of the 20th century.