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I absolutely love making movies. I just wish they didn’t take so darn long to produce. The shooting alone takes a great deal of time. Then the editing, writing and recording the music, and finally piecing it all together. This movie was in the works for 6 months. I’m sure I could have finished it faster if I focused on it, but I still like to bring you some levity during the week.

Thankfully I don’t have any ‘high power studio execs’ financing my movies, no way would they have let me produce an experimental, lo-fi, super high contrast movie backed by a space-rodeo-symphony soundtrack. I love the freedom of only having to answer to my creative self. However, I wouldn’t mind the box office rewards that come along with blockbuster movies. Until I’m approached by Hollywood to direct the next Transformers, I’m going to maintain my ‘indie filmmaker’ status. We will cross the one billion dollar bridge when we come to it!

About the movie – I’m a bit like Edward Burns in the fact I make my movies on a shoestring budget. I probably differ from him in the fact that I have to…for me, there is no other budget. He made Newlyweds for $9000 in 12 days…yep, you read that right!

  • I shot it over the course of 9 days in San Francisco.
  • I used Lightroom to compile the time lapse sequences. I could have used TimeLapse Assembler for a small donation.
  • iMovie (Free w/ a MAC) to edit it.
  • I recorded the music on Garage Band (Free w/ a MAC)
  • I shot it with a used and rather inexpensive Nikon D5100 and Nikon 16-85 VR lens

Want proof that you can make a great movie for under $10k? Get Edward Burns’ ‘Newlyweds’ here.

Newlyweds

Canopy of Civilization

San Francisco City Hall

I’ve heard the inside of San Francisco’s city hall is a thing of beauty. I tried to get in but there was some sort of ‘black tie’ event going on and they frowned upon a flip-flop clad, tripod toting photographer crashing the party. Ah well, next time right?

Continue for Capture/Processing Notes…

Bridge To The Shire

The Golden Gate Bridge

If the the Shire had a bridge, I’m pretty sure this is what it would have looked like. Couldn’t you see Frodo and Sam gazing out at the bridge just waiting for Gandalf to come visit? I discovered this secret little spot while hiking up from the bay to the standard Golden Gate overlook. Every once in a while you need to get off the beaten path to find something new!

Newsletter: Yesterday I had a few email subscribers notify me that they couldn’t link to the newsletter from the email. Apparently my links don’t work well in email clients? So, if you tried to sign up yesterday and couldn’t, here is a link that will hopefully work. Thanks for the heads-up! Click here to sign up.

Continue for Capture/Processing Notes…

A Magical City

The Fairmont Hotel San Francisco View

Last week I debuted our newest travel guide, ‘The Photographer’s Guide To San Francisco‘. The hotel featured in the guide is the Fairmont. This is why we featured it. Here is the view from our room! That view never got old. You can see the Golden Gate, Alcatraz, and the Coit Tower all in one breath taking glance. If you are interested in the surroundings, check out my series City By The Bay. It features locations within walking distance from the hotel.

Photographer’s Note: A couple weeks back I mentioned that I have been using the Lenskirt to photograph through hotel windows. I used it again in this image. You can see it in action below.

Also, I have been using luminosity masks in my night images to control the blending of my anchor images and adjustments. Here is a great resource on luminosity masking. I suggest you buy the photoshop actions, they are worth it!

The Golden Gates

Continuing the celebration of our most recent travel guide, we will make our way north of San Francisco to Sausalito. In order to do so we must cross an American icon, the Golden Gate Bridge. Here we are on the San Francisco side looking north towards the Marin Headlands on the Sausalito side. I shot this image while standing on top of the concrete bunkers that were installed during WWII. I don’t believe the bunkers were ever completed because the war ended before they were finished. However, what was completed will stand the test of time. The concrete is thick!

I couldn’t decide between the two images so I decided to post both of them. I know many people like to use my photos as their daily desktop image so I figured I’d let you decide which one you liked better. Just click on the image to get a larger version you can save as your computer desktop.

p.s. I would love to hear from you about which image you liked better. So if you have an opinion and a second please leave a comment. It is always fun to hear back from you! Tomorrow, we head north across the bridge to Sausalito.