Photochrome Camera Club

This 2.5 acre garden is located at 1552 Bancroft Road, Walnut Creek 94598. The focus is on water conserving plants with it’s 2,000 cactus, succulents, trees and shrubs from around the world. Admission is $10 for adult and $7 for seniors. Parking is at the office entrance at 1500 Bancroft Road. Tripods are allowed as long as they are set up on paths.

Here are a few tips on photographing plants: Try to find some unique perspective to make the composition more interesting then just a catalog photo. How about including wasps, bees or any king of crawling critters. Try different depths of field by shooting at several aperture settings. Use a diffuser to eliminate harsh sunlight. Fill a frame with a single flower, leaf or plant for more detail as opposed to including too much background that may be distracting. In other words, try different techniques that may capture the beauty of these plants.

Gary Larsen

Located at 50 Phelan Avenue, City College of San Francisco has several structures with good photographic possibilities. The new Multi-Use Building has many features as well as the old Science Building, statues and murals such as the “Song of the Spirit” by Precita Eyes on the front of the Student Union Building. Just stroll around the grounds and you will find many good photographic compositions. Arriving early enables the use of side light to produce accentuated shadows with dramatic effects. So lets get there sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 am. Parking is on the street or in the parking lot for a $3.00 fee.

The preserve is situated on one of the last undisturbed marshlands in the Bay Area and is considered an excellent bird watching area not only for local birds, but also migratory species of the Pacific Flyway. Needless to say this is a chance to photograph some amazing feathered friends. In addition, vast landscapes are everywhere waiting to be photographed.

Directions: Coordinates for your navigation system= 2775   Embarcadero Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94303-3344. Its 34 miles south and will take about 40 minute to get there. On US-101 South at Palo Alto, exit 402 for Embarcadero Rd/Oregon Expy. Keep left at the fork, follow signs for Embarcadero Rd East and merge onto Embarcadero Rd. Turn left to stay on Embarcadero Rd. Continue to the Duck Pond on the left. Just past the pond is a turn out to the ranger station parking lot.

Bring your zoom or telephoto lens, tripod, snack and water. The earlier you get there, the more birds you will see.

Gary

Let’s arrive at 10:00am when it opens.

Directions:

For GPS information enter 707 W Hornet Ave. Pier 3, Alameda CA 94501.

From San Francisco and the Bay Bridge: Cross the Bay Bridge towards Oakland and follow the signs for I-880 South/San Jose/Alameda. Take the Broadway/Alameda exit and turn right at the bottom of the ramp onto 5th Street. Continue straight on 5th Street, remaining on street level. At the Broadway intersection, veer to your left to enter the Webster Street Tube (the Alameda entrance to the tunnel is under the freeway).

Admission: Adults $14   Seniors (65+) $12.

This National Historic Landmark has four decks to explore and photograph. Some decks are docent-led only. So manage your time carefully if you intend to see it all. The ship will be commemorating it’s 69th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid with flight operation simulations. This should be interesting to photograph.We are asked to not bring food. However, there is a concession stand and vending machines on board.

Gary

It’s finally time to visit the Tea Garden and see what images we can create. Located at Tea Garden Drive and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in the Golden Gate Park, it offers plenty of subjects to compose interesting photos for our viewing. The Drum Bridge, Pagoda or Chain of Ponds always make great images from any point of view. Lets start photographing at 9:00 AM when it opens. Hopefully we can get plenty of shots before the crowds arrive in their tour buses. There is a small entrance fee of $5 for adults and $3 for seniors. Parking may be found at Stow Lake, or in the underground parking garage at the music concourse.
Lets have coffee at the de Young Museum around 11:15 AM. There is no entrance fee for visiting the cafe.
See you there.

Gary Larsen

Participants - Back row left to right: Bob Nelson, Willis Zhoe, Charlie Wambeke , Idalia Larsen , Gary Larsen, Harold Cook, Susan Higgins, Joseph Higgins. , Garrett Griffin, Stephen Lee, Chris Kibre. Front row: Pam Nelson, Jim Elliot, Alan Heald, Christa Kaufmann, HH, George Gibbs and Burr Preston.

The old logo at many antique stores that reads “we buy junk but sell antiques” applies in spades to the Urban Ore Store in Berkeley.  A large contingent of Photochromers showed up there on a warm Saturday in early February for a morning of dumpster diving in the biggest dumpster in the Bay Area.  It was not junk or antiques the members sought but images of the same.

Three acres, some outside and some under a roof, make up the Urban Ore establishment.  Like ore, used paraphernalia of all sorts is mined there whether for a house, yard, closet, roof or what have you.  Used doors, toilets, sinks, tubs and every other conceivable domestic appliance are stocked in huge numbers and varieties in the outside yard.  I would hazard a guess that one could find a replacement for anything that needs replacing.  If they don’t have it, you don’t need it.  Jewelry, clothes, toys along with more exotic artifacts lie half hidden inside the building.  These items are but a few of the infinite numbers of flotsam and jetsam stuffed all around the property.

For two hours members photographically mined images they hadn’t seen or thought about in years and indeed several things they had never seen. They even recorded some things they hoped they would never see again.

After a fleeting but pleasant couple of hours, the members adjourned to a nearby café for cake, coffee and a rehash of their journey through an extraordinary junk yard cum antique shop cum building supply house for nearly anything anyone could ever dream of needing and many things they really would never need but were fascinated enough by to at least stop and take a picture.  It proved a dumpster diving photographer’s paradise.