Billowing cumulus clouds build up on a spring afternoon following a storm. It is rare to see such depth to the sky in the San Francisco Bay area because clouds either are thick and rainy, or there are no clouds at all. As the sun set, the lift created by the warming ground eased and the clouds evaporated into blue sky.
The sun sets behind a lone oak tree in Lafayette, California. Lone Oak #1 is a long exposure version of this image.
I've been waiting for this view to have this quality of light for several years. Finally I managed to get here just as a nice hole opened up in the clouds to let the entire face of Mt. Diablo be lit from a near 90 degree angle, showing off all of the oak filled undulations. Direct light from behind the camera would hide the topology of the mountain.
American baseball great Yogi Berra once said (when giving directions to his house), "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." So when I saw this view, I did! I did not touch the saturation slider. Minimal post-processing.
The Lafayette Reservoir, about 15 miles east of San Francisco is a great place to take a hike. Trails go all the way around the lake and into the hills behind. A long exposure allowed a more impressionistic view than an exposure at a normal exposure time could produce. This is how it felt to be here on this beautiful morning. First in series.
The Berkeley Marina is a beautiful place to start and end the day. The sun rises and sets over the water. Here, I walked around, arranging the boats into a pleasing pattern to complement the clouds as the first light of day advanced.
Image #1 of the Berkeley Pier. This wide angle view extends from Angel Island on the right to the Presidio on the left. Alcatraz island is straight ahead. (From WikiPedia:) This pier as constructed extended three and a half miles into the San Francisco Bay from the end of University Avenue, but is today approximately two and a half miles (4.10 km) in length; however, only the first 3000 ft (0.9 km) are maintained and open to the public. It was constructed in 1926 to provide a deep water landing for an auto ferry to the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco.
A mid-winter storm provided some much needed rain and some much needed atmosphere too! After looking at the satellite movies and radar images, I decided to go up to Mt. Diablo in hopes of the clouds clearing up just before sunset. Fortunately for me, they did. Even a few minutes before I made this image, the light was rather dull but I could see a hole in the clouds developing. I parked the car out of sight on the road below and ran up and down the hill until I was high enough above the fog bank to see the light over the top of it. Then I ran around looking for the best composition that showed the rolling shapes and contours of the landscape. I'm glad that nobody saw me because they would probably think I was crazy because I kept running around frantically trying to find the best spot in case the sky opened up at the last moment!