It was a warm afternoon when I was laying out on the deck of my suite at the Hilton. I was staring out at the Golden Gate Bridge and plotting various points on The Photographer’s Ephemeris to figure out where I wanted to photograph the bridge from during sunset. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go to Marshall’s Beach, Kirby Cove, Hawk Hill, Slacker Hill, or Battery Spencer. I only had two nights in San Francisco and one night was already designated for shooting the sunset from Treasure Island. I really do envy those that can visit any of these locations whenever they want. I officially decided that Marshall’s beach it would be. I could capture the Golden Gate Bridge, which was what I really wanted, and infuse that with my traditional seascape photography. Everything I read indicated that it was such a fantastic location to shoot from, so I headed out by foot to make my way to Marshall’s Beach.
There was only one problem though. Despite how the weather report told me there would be no fog, I kid you not the Golden Gate Bridge was completely engulfed in it by the time I got there. If I didn’t already know where I was, I’d have sworn to you that there was no such bridge around. Marshall’s Beach ended up being a total bust due to the fog. Thankfully I had backup locations plotted out. After an interesting adventure in failing to figure out how to take the bus across the Golden Gate Bridge, I finally arrived at Slacker Hill by cab. To add to my losing streak, the fog was too low to shoot from Slacker Hill and Hawk Hill both. The bridge simply could not be seen, so I set off on foot once again to find another spot. By the time I was done exploring Kirby Cove, the fog had started to disappear, at which point I made my way up to Battery Spencer to freeze my butt off in the cold wind with no jacket.
It all paid off nicely. By the time I got to the top of Battery Spencer, the fog was pretty much gone and the sky was starting to look amazing. Feeling quite relieved, I fired off a series of shots and captured the beautiful panorama I had flown all the way up to San Francisco for.
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