Whenever I leave San Francisco, I take a redeye home. That gives me time before the flight to head over to Point Lobos for a California sunset. I'll take luck where I can get it, and I've been fortunate in this area. There's a lot of scenery around here, so it's not that hard to get good photos. Even if it's foggy, there's a lot of cool stuff to see. I love taking pictures in the fog. In Florida, we only get it briefly a couple of times a year. As I write this, I'm putting San Francisco fog photos on my list. Speaking of lists, I'm not actually a list person. Maybe I should be, it might be useful. I do make a list when I'm told to go get groceries. That's so I don't screw up and forget something critical, like goat milk. But when I go to the store on my own, I don't use a list. If I screw up then and forget something, nobody ever knows. Life is easy under the radar.
In the solarium is this cool hot tub. I took this on the last night when everyone was in their rooms packing. Even when the ship is completely booked, it's large enough to find quiet spots if you know where to look. The solarium with its cushy lounge chairs and the Vintages wine bar are my favorite spots. For this shot, I used a 12mm wide-angle lens and mounted the camera on the ground with a Platypod (https://platypod.com/). The Platypod is like a tripod for low perspectives. This is a long-exposure that would have been difficult to shoot any other way. With the Platypod it was a breeze.
On one side of Lost Lagoon is Stanly Park and on the other is the big city of Vancouver. You can walk from woods to towers in about ten minutes. The name "Lost Lagoon" comes from a poem written by Pauline Johnson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Lagoon#Naming_and_history) and laments how she lost the use of the lagoon for canoeing when the tide was out. I looked up that bit of trivia, so now we all know the origins of the name. The lagoon is now a lake cut off from the bay, so presumably, you can canoe without worrying about the tides. Usually I might try to frame a shot like this using the rule of thirds, but in this case, the reflections produce a beautiful symmetry. In my mind its a kind of urban dreamscape.
