Shots From A Few Outings...

Been a while since I last posted.
Went on a couple of day trips over the past couple of months.
Although I did not like it as much as the Oakland Zoo,
I visited the San Francisco Zoo and got a few photos.

Nothing like a colorful Mandrill butt to liven up a photography outing.

I hung out at the Silver Back Gorilla exhibit for a while.
I was yawning trying to get the big guy to yawn for me and show some teeth.
Apparently, he got a little annoyed with my antics and gave me the finger.

But I persisted and finally got the toothy yawn I was looking for.

These next shots are from a day I spent shooting around San Francisco and Marin with an old friend.

A couple of weeks later, the same old friend and I took a day over on the peninsula and the coast.
We hit a lot of locations that day.
The first couple of shots were taken out along the San Mateo Bridge.

Next we hit some tide pools at a scenic spot overlooking the Pacific along Hwy. 1.
My polarizing filter really came in handy for these shots of the anemones under the water.

I like the way this one looks like it has a face.

The next few of shots are from the Water Temple at Crystal Springs.

Next we drove down to Santa Cruz to see the Monarch Butterflies at Natural Bridges Beach.
There were definitely more butterflies this year and I got a couple of great shots.

After that we drove back up Hwy. 1
There is this cool beach that we stumbled across the last time we were out this way.
First you have to cross these railroad tracks to get to the beach.

Down on the beach itself, there is a cool hole in the cliffs
that allows for a great view of the surf and the Pacific on the other side.

There are also some beautiful and colorful rock formations.

And some great shots from the top of the cliffs overlooking the beach.

Our last stop was just off Hwy. 1 so that we could get some after sunset shots of Pigeon Point Light House.
Just before we got to the location we were going to shoot from,
we ran across this tractor in a field just as the sun was about to set.

Then we finally hit our vantage point south of the light house.
The sun had been down for anywhere from around fifteen to forty-five minutes for these shots,
so I used a real slow shutter speed to gather what light was left.

On this shot, I took my mag light and lit the rocks in the surf from where I was standing up on the cliff.

These last few photos were taken out at the Hayward Shoreline.
On November thirteenth, it was a little breezy
so I didn't get the reflective qualities of the water that I would have liked,
but it was a beautiful sunset nonetheless.

And then on November fourteenth lo and behold it was as calm as could be
so I had pretty much a mirror to shoot with as far as the bay was concerned,
and boy did that add to the photos!
Here is a shot taken from pretty much the same spot as the previous photo.

and a couple more from that evening.

Well, until my next couple of photo adventures, so long.

Oakland Zoo & Safari West...

Took a couple of trips this year to the Oakland Zoo and to Safari West which is located up in Santa Rosa.
The first set of photos were taken at the Oakland Zoo.
I haven't been to too many zoos in my life,
but Oakland seems to have a pretty nice layout for the animals.

I also saw this leaf lying on the pavement near the otter pen and thought it worthy of a photo.

These next photos were taken up in Santa Rosa at Safari West.
Pretty cool place to visit, but not quite what I was expecting.
I was thinking it would be like a Safari Park you see in photos of from Africa.
You know, Lions and Tigers and Monkeys running around and climbing on the vehicles, etc.,
but this was a bit more mundane.
The couple of cats they do have are in smaller enclosures as are the Rhinoceros.
I guess with the open vehicle format they use,
the Big Cats and Elephants and whatnot would just be too dangerous for the patrons,
so they have a lot of the more sedate animals.
Zebras, Wildebeests, Giraffes, Ostriches, Gazelles, etc.
The prey animals from the Savannah.
Not quite as exciting, but still fun to photograph.

These last couple of shots are some abstracts of a few of the animals.
The first shot is Porcupine Quills.

Next are the feathers on a Buzzard.

And last but not least,
as I was trying to adjust the exposure on a shot of a giraffe,
I noticed that there was a reflection of our jeep in it's eye,
so I blew out the exposure on the giraffe to get the image in the eye,
which I think turned out rather cool.

Well that's all for now folks.

Waterfalls & Whatnot...

All the rains this year had the waterfalls around the bay area flowing.
Did a couple of day trips over to Marin
and one down to Morgan Hill to try and get some shots of a few of them.
The first couple of photos are of Carson Falls in Marin.

On that same trip, we also hit Cascade Falls

and found this cool colorful fungi on the hike out.

Next it was a trip down to Morgan Hill and into Uvas Canyon.
Pretty cool little park.
The three waterfalls we found here were all within a couple of mile round trip hike from the parking lot.
We first encountered a small spillway that was rather picturesque
but we were hoping this wasn't what they were calling the waterfalls.

We then found the first set of real falls that was called Black Rock Falls

Next stop was a two tiered number called Upper Falls.

The last set was called Basin Falls.

These were all pretty and worth the drive down.
On the hike back to the car, we found this little snake.
Loved the way it wound up it's tail to make itself look like a rattler so we wouldn't mess with it.
Beautiful coloration.

These last couple of photos are of another trip to Marin.
Loma Alta Falls.

And just a shot I took of the roadway on the back side of Mt. Tamalpias as we were driving around.

Well, that's it for this post.