Pyramid and Fog

Pyramid and Fog   [Canon 5D]
San Francisco   August 4, 2008

I was down in the San Francisco area earlier this week for some one-on-one training and spotted this image in Chinatown while I was waiting to meet a friend. As it was nearly a monochromatic scene to begin with, I took it all the way into grayscale in Lightroom 2.

Whenever I see the Trans America pyramid building I am reminded of something that happened to me in a junior high school art class in the mid 1970s. I had recently moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Boise, Idaho and in a drawing and painting class I created a silhouette rendering of the San Francisco skyline against an orange sunset sky. The pyramid building was part of that skyline and the teacher took issue with the shape of this particular structure, saying that buildings don't look like that. I tried to explain that there was, indeed, such a building in San Francisco, but he did not believe me. In those days there was no internet to quickly look something up, so I had to bide my time until I managed to locate a photograph of the pyramid building and prove him wrong (and what a sweet moment that was!).

Upcoming Digital Black and White Class
Lepp Institute of Digital Imaging
November 3 – 7, 2008
Los Osos, California