Warren's Place

Tell me what you see in this picture:



Okay, that was just for fun. This photo was taken when we went for a walk at the shoreline of Marina Greens in San Francisco near the SF Yacht Club. Part of the man-made shoreline is composed of granite and stone remnants taken from other parts of the city to make up the landfill. You can sometimes spot fragments of tombstones if you look carefully.

That day, I took my Nikon D100 out to shoot with my newly acquired Nikkor 24mm AF lens. I noticed some interesting shapes among the granite, and I snapped this shot to test the sharpness of the 24mm prime lens. It looks pretty sharp!

Thanks for reading.

-- Warren

For you regular visitors, I will not be posting for at least the next 4 days. We're going on our annual trip to Carmel. It's the Historic Race Weekend which is filled with essential events for car fanatics from all over the world. The highlights for me are the historic races at Laguna Seca where we get to see vintage race cars of all types at speed on the track, and the Concorso Italiano which is a car show for all the great Italian Marques.

Here's a picture from last year's historic race where the featured marque was Ford.



This year's featured marque at the races is Ferrari. There will be the largest collection of Ferrari race cars ever assembled in Northern California including Formula 1 and early 60's GT racers.

For information about the races, go HERE.
For information about the Concorso Italiano, go HERE.

Thanks for reading.

Warren

Not really, but I was mildly disappointed that he wasn't shooting a Nikon.



Actually, Barry Bonds was shooting pictures of the kids running around the baseball diamond at SBC Park during family day before their game with the St. Louis Cardinals on 8/1/2004. We took our friends from Vancouver to see SBC Park and we were standing in front of the right field spectators' free viewing area. I shot the picture through a fence, and this shot was tightly cropped from the original.

Thanks for reading.

Warren

This is one of my images of the classic view of Yosemite Valley from Highway 41's Tunnel Lookout. This was taken in February, 2004.

The clouds parted just enough to light up Bridal Veil Fall. It was an interesting light pattern, sort of shaped like a valley.


Thanks for reading.

Warren

"Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes. "

- Henri Cartier-Bresson

The recent passing of Cartier-Bresson made me think about this particular photograph.

This is a picture that I made at the wedding ceremony of Kent & Glenda on July 17, 2004. It is one of my most successful images in the photojournalistic style. In my opinion, the picture is an appropriate illustration of Cartier-Bresson's "Decisive Moment". I hope you think so too.

The father gives the bride to the groom as the bride's family looks on. The happy, radiant expression on Glenda's face gives me the most joy to see, as she embarks on the next stage of her life.



Making a picture like this requires certain ingredients:

- Forethought.
- A thorough knowledge of the equipment and technique.
- Timing
- A little bit of luck.

When it all comes together, it becomes something special.

I would appreciate any thoughts or comments that you might have. Thanks to Kent and Glenda for allowing me to share this picture with everyone.

Thanks for reading.

Warren

"We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory."

- Henri Cartier-Bresson 1908-2004

How many of you are fans of the "photojournalistic" style of photography? Cartier-Bresson was one of the pioneers of photojournalism, and his work is an inspiration to legions of photographers who set out to capture "the decisive moment". His tool of choice was the Leica rangefinder camera loaded with black and white film, and he did not use a flash. He prefered to remain unobtrusive, and went so far as to put black tape on the shiny parts of his camera.

I am not terribly sad at his passing, for at age 95, Cartier-Bresson had a full and successful life that had a real impact in the world. I choose instead to reflect on his accomplishments and I will raise my camera to my eye this week and make some pictures in his honor.

For a retrospective of Cartier-Bresson's work, go to the following link:

Cartier-Bresson Restrospective

Thanks for reading.

Warren