What Causes the San Francisco Fog

Here I am. Day 2, San Francisco. Thinking about walking along the rocks at Land's End in San Francisco. Also thinking about what causes the fog there. Well, here's the scoop.

1. Earth turns on axis.
2. The force produced by the turning is called the Coriolis force or effect.
3. On the west coasts of the planet the turning of the earth causes the currents of the top of the ocean to move out to sea.
4. The cold water from down below (cold water almost always lies below warm water) comes up near the shore.
5. The heat from the land rises and mixes with the cool air from the sea.
6. As the air moves around near the sea, it gets cooler both on the coast and at sea along the coast.
7. The water that was in the heated air condenses in the cooler air because hot air holds more moisture than cool air.
8. When air can't hold it's moisture, fog forms, the fog being tiny droplets of condensed water that the hot air had had in it.

Fog adds mystery to photographs as well as dimension.

A Slice of Paradise in SF?

Now here's a postcard perfect shot that I took today at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in the city of San Francisco.

Irony is, though, if you stood on that beach for an entire day, you most likely wouldn't survive.

The reasons:

1. Rising tide coming in would take you out to sea.
2. Temperture of the water is probably in the 60s or less, a body numbing, if not killing, experience if you were submerged in it for more than a few minutes.
3. Riptides--you can't see 'em, but they're there, and if you got swept up by a wave, the rest of the work to put you to your demise would be done by a swift undersea current.

Russian Wedding

St. Petersberg, Russia's a great place to have a wedding. When I was there I photographed one where the bride and groom were on horseback. When I got home, I ran it through a few Photoshop filters.

Snacking Horse

Why don't you come up and have a snack with me sometime, Wilbert

A Dying Breed

Name That Star

Hey bloggers, who is this woman? I thought maybe Kate Hepburn. At any rate, whoever it is, she was photographed in Palm Springs decades ago, probably the 1940s.

Photoshop Hint: I used Photoshop's CS 2 sharpen filter (Sharpen>Smart Sharpen) to clear up the blurred original, which was a picture of a picture.

Pasadena Drawing Contest

Last weekend there was a drawing-on-the-sidewalk contest in the city of the Rose parade, Pasadena, California.

Here's my pick for a winner.

North Vietnam Symbol

Last time I went to Hanoi, I saw this hanging over a street. What is it and what is it a symbol of?

Summer Lemonade

Serving lemonade from inside a lemon.

Photography for Sale

This sign is only one of a few left in the area. Palm Desert is about 10 miles from here.

Okay, then, so I'm an artist. This is what I do. Strange isn't it? I take pictures of neon signs then saturate the colors in Photoshop. Then I make very detailed prints of them and sell at stores in Southern California.

I have about 5000 images of signs from all around the world.

If you want you can email me at matthewbam@aol.com to buy one. They come framed (in silver metal frames, acid free mats, also). The picture (printed out at 10.75" X 14.75"), with frame, is a little less than 16X20 inches. The price of print and frame is $195, including shipping anywhere in the U.S.

Summer Bliss

Groovin' Design at Greyhound

Greyhound got it right when they obtained these mid-century red, white and blue bucket gems. The chairs are made of fiberglass, a good sign that their originals from the 60s. People around Palm Springs would die to have these in their mid-century modern homes.

This photo was taken at the Billings, Montana Greyhound station. Groovy!

Piano-Shaped Sign

This sign's shaped like a piano.

It's in Butte, Montana.

Ellen Theater Closes in Bozeman, Montana

In my mad dash across Montana, snapping every mid-century modern sign that I can find (I've literally found some in the bushes); I find that the Ellen Theater has closed. This 1919 constructed grand movie palace hit hard times and its future is questionable.

If I'm wrong about the questionable future, please comment and inform as to what's going on.

At any rate, believe it or not, I caught the moving-day scene.

Missoula to Butte a la Greyhound

Picture yourself on the back of a Greyhound bus--in a seat in front of the toilet with water leaking--drip by drip--on you from above.

"The back of your seat is all wet, dude," the guy next two you says," a husky man, fully bearded, face looking as honest as Abe's.

You look back, finding that, yes, indeed, the back of the seat is all wet. You look ahead of you and find that all of the seats are taken, then you look at the last row of seats bucked up against the rear of the bus. Those are taken--all three of them--by a fully extended passenger, sleeping.

Welcoming you an hour or so before the beginning of the bus ride was a gregarous 22 year-old Canadian who has a pension of about $800 dollars a month, making him not able to afford a flight.

You hear his whole life story over the two hours you are on the bus--his values, his dreams, his expectations, and his mishaps. Oh, yes, and he loves his mother, respects her even.

Next to him--across the aisle--is an Iraq war vet who's had both his knees packed with shrapnel in an accident that took place at one of those checkpoints you hear about on the news all the time.

He's got no cartilage left inside his knees. He knows the pain of war, but refuses to wear it on his face.

The vet also tells you and the other passanger--all three of you who are now participating in a conversation--that he makes and sells weapons for a living.

You think, "you get what you get." But then you think maybe this is not the case, maybe "you get more than you bargained for." Maybe not that either.

You get, more assuredly, life in the raw, a juxtapositioning of America's down-and-out, an America that still yearns for the good life, an America that's perhaps let some people down.

When you leave the driving to them, your riding is rough.

Minimalism

Minimalism

Butte, Montana

Estelle

Here's a pic of Estelle. Not many girls are named that these days, but that was her name. She was my mother.

This is a scanned pic that really needs a better scan, a drum scan maybe. Scanning one negative using a drum scan can cost up to 100 bucks.

Not cheap.

John Wayne's Belated Birthday Party

Happy birthday, John Wayne.

This is an illustration of you for your birthday. If it weren't for me, this image would have been lost forever. You see, it was painted onto the old Debbie Reynolds Hotel.

I photographed it before the hotel was torn down in 1999.

Again happy birthday!

John Wayne was born on May 26,1907. He would have been 100 years old.

OC Lifestyles

OC landscape



Old-time diner in Orange (Orange is a city in Orange County.)



Walking over a bridge on Balboa Island



Rowing off of Balboa Island (Balboa Island is near Newport Beach.)



Flowers in the OC (Orange County)