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“We’re crazy about this city.  First time we came here, we walked the streets all day, all over town and nobody hassled us… Los Angeles?  That’s just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger for the trip to San Francisco.” – John Lennon

I left my heart in San Francisco . . . there truly is something about this city that draws one back to it over and over again.  It is a beautiful city – one I love to visit but care not to live in.  That’s because I’m just not a city girl.  I’m a country girl at heart – but love the lights and the history of this golden city.  I know it fairly well as I lived in the Bay Area for many years.  On this particular day, hubby and I were out and about looking to shoot the sunset.  We drove up in to the Oakland Hills, but were un-inspired.  The sun was still above the horizon when we decided to dash the 1/2 hour to Treasure Island.  It was well worth the effort.  I think it must be one of the best vantage points for photographing the lights of San Francisco.  We were a bit late for the good sunset shots . . . but this one I liked with the lights so crisp.  That’s my shadow as I was attempting to get in to the shot.  I had to clamber over some rather large boulders on the water’s edge . . . and finally just gave up and accepted this as my 365 shot.  

317-365

317-365

“The night before I left Las Vegas I walked out in the desert to look at the moon.  There was a jeweled city on the horizon, spires rising in the night, but the jewels were diadems of electric and the spires were the neon of signs ten stories high.”  ~Norman Mailer

We drove back to the Valley of Fire this afternoon to catch the sunset.  We then drove back through the northern edge of Lake Mead and found this amazing spot where the lights from Vegas were just stunning.  We set up the tripod and I attempted to do star trails, but didn’t really succeed.  Not dark enough.  However, I did capture the stars, the moon, and light trails from all the airplanes in the sky over the city.  We were here for over an hour and a half . . . mesmerized.  Only a few cars passed by on the road while we were there.  This shot is my attempt at doing sync flash – something MTM taught us when we shot on the Strip a few nights ago.  Not sure I was 100% successful as it seems the background is out of focus.  The first shot is the original with just a bit of LR4 editing.  

D800e, 70-200mm VRII lens @ 70mm, 2 sec @ f6.3, 800ISO, and SB800 flash mounted on camera set at zero.  

312-365

312-365

I ended up not really liking that the background was out of focus, so took it in to LR4 and reworked it . . . adding in the starry moonlit sky from another photo I took just a bit earlier in the evening.  I think I like the reworked version best.

This is my edited/reworked version.

312-365 reworked

312-365 reworked

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