Background: The weekend of 4th of July rolled around, and the idea of Lake Tahoe didn't appeal to me.  Not that its a bad place to visit, with water clarity so high the bottom is visible, but its where everyone in the Bay Area goes for a weekend getaway.  Solution: Shasta Lake, the lake formed by Shasta Dam restraining the Sacramento River, about a four hour drive north of San Francisco.  Under each photo, I write my personal reflections...  
  
Shasta Lake Dock
1.) The Dock: A sign of human activity, floating on the lake's surface, but not penetrating its mysterious depths. Those floating orange balls look like tiny points in space. Really, our knowledge of the earth only scratches the surface...

 
Disclaimer: I am not a professional photographer, just a traveler who appreciates a good shot.  I don’t shoot with fancy equipment, just digital cameras or phones that fit inside my pocket.  
Picture
I know professional, elite-level photographers often spend plenty of time, sometimes several hours, exploring one subject and experimenting with various compositions.  They may photograph the scene from several angles, playing around with juxtaposition of different elements.  I think my disclaimer above affirms that I don't do this, but I do like to put some thought into my pictures, at least beyond a mindless point-and-shoot.  In this post, I talk about some photos I took around San Francisco's iconic Ferry Building, and my thought process behind the composition and juxtaposition of surrounding elements.  


 
Disclaimer: I am not a professional photographer, just a traveler who appreciates a good shot.  I don’t shoot with fancy equipment, just digital cameras or phones that fit inside my pocket. 

Have you ever stood before something – natural or man-made wonder – and been so enthralled that you had no idea where to start photographing?  There are intricate details you want to capture, but you can’t miss out on the big picture.  In these situations, I usually try to go general-to-specific, photographing the scene from afar and then approaching it to get the intimate details.  I imagine most people intuitively do this already, so don’t expect this post to be mind-blowing, but I think it helps to have a set methodology.  That last point might be the engineer in me talking.