Transamerica

Photo from August 30, 2007

Part of the same photo roll as this photograph, I ended up processing it also before I noticed the error.

It’s a “tourist snapshot” of the Transamerica Pyramid. From a photographic standpoint there is nothing to write about because I took it the same way any tourist might. Even though the camera shoots RAW, the dynamic range of small camera CCDs back then were just not up to the task of recording anything useable in the shadows. All I could do is use the “pump the blues” trick that any nature photographer knows to do for outdoor photos.

…

Even though Transamerica has long since moved to the East Coast, because it was built by them and its still in their logo, it’s still called the Transamerica Building and has been a the salient fixture of the San Francisco skyline for my entire life. I read somewhere that when it was built it was considered the ugliest building in the city until the Mariott “Jukebox” was built in 1989. I guess after that the One Rincon Tower Fan were built, San Franciscans were like, “You know, the Transamerica pyramid actually looks kind of nice.”

I snapped this photo outside my favorite sandwich shop at the time, Giordano Bros, which, like Transamerica, has moved to a different location.

A lot of people don’t “get” the All-in-One sandwich because they didn’t grow up in Pittsburgh, but putting french fries and coleslaw in a sandwich seems the most natural thing to do. Before I even ate at Primati’s I used to put Snyders of Berlin BBQ potato chips in my chipped ham sandwiches when I ran out of Isaly’s BBQ sauce.

Ever wonder why it took a Pittsburgh franchise to popularize the Bob’s Big Boy sandwich as the McDonald’s Big Mac? Go eat an All-In-One and then go eat a Big Mac and your culinary mind will be blown.

I may not have the tastebuds of a foodie, but to make up for it when I eat, with a single bite into a sandwich, my mind can travel trans-america from San Francisco, to Oak Brook, to Pittsburgh, to Los Angeles and back again. And that’s why my favorite sandwich in San Francisco when I snapped this photo was Giordano Bros’s Coppa All-in-One.

Posted on February 29, 2016February 29, 2016 by tychay 0

Pork Tocino

If you live in The Richmond, you know that B*Star Bar is like eating at Burma Superstar but without the line.

My favorite brunch dish there is the Pork Tocino. Grilled jerk pork over a bed of garlic fried rice and cherry tomatoes, topped with scallions and balsamic vinegar.

Since Marie loves their Huevos Racheros, I end up ordering this dish a lot. The only times I don’t is when we bring a guest, then I suggest they get it and I order something else.

Continue reading about some WordPress plugin notes after the jump

Posted on May 14, 2015May 14, 2015 by tychay 0

Terry’s Backstreet Photography

Photos from January 24, 2015.

A weekend away from it all was also an opportunity to try to shoot again with my Leica. I haven’t been doing any photography for a long time, especially with this camera — just having it with me was a minor success, even if I left it in the bag almost the entire time.

Finally, while we were eating a quiet lunch in St. Helena, I got the courage to take the M8 out and to start shooting. It’s frustrating to realize that you have to relearn how to focus and expose manually — even more embarrassing is forgetting to take off the lens cap before pressing the shutter button! But then you remember that photography is about learning how to see, and there is a small joy in experiencing that again as a beginner.

Marie, waiting for food
Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen, St. Helena, Napa Valley, California

Leica M8, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
1/125sec, iso 160, 35mm (47mm)

Continue reading about some photos I took with my Leica M8 and iPhone 6 after the jump

Posted on March 9, 2015January 13, 2016 by tychay 1

Unsupported RAW workflow in Apple Aperture revisited

Now that Aperture 3 is out, I need to update one area of my previous article.

No, Aperture 3 doesn’t support the Olympus E-P1/E-P2/E-PL1 or Panasonic GF-1 RAWs (yet).

There is a workaround, however, for doing sorting, selecting, and metadata in Aperture 3.

Select un-viewable RAWs in Apple Aperture 3’s thumbnail view
Cmd-click to get a contextual menu and choose “Set JPEG as Master.”

Mouse over the image to see what happens after “Set JPEG as Master.”
Do work to create a select, rate images, and the like.
Catapult workflow with some adjustments. You’ll now need to be in 32-bit mode on Apple Aperture 3 to use it.

How to open Aperture 3 in 32-bit mode (always).

Trying to return to “Set RAW as Master’ and then Catapulting yields and “Editing Error” as the backdoor used by Catapult is now closed. 🙁

Therefore, you must export masters manually to the drop folder, generate RAWs, and then Catapult. If you do so, you can’t reimport the sidecar xmps, currently.

Here is some proof:

The House
North Beach, San Francisco, California

Olympus E-P2, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 50mm f1.1
1/8sec5, ISO200, 50mm (100mm)

Image processed from ACR in Aperture. Try as you might, you can’t recover clipped highlights.

(BTW, the images were uploaded with the new built in Flickr support, so we’ll see how good sync is—it appears to be uni-directional. For instance, I just found out movies aren’t supported in Flickr sync, so videos are synced back as stills.)

Mushroom rice with grilled prawns looks like it’s alive
The House, North Beach, San Francisco, California

Olympus E-P1, Cosina-Voigtländer NOKTON 35mm F1.2 Aspherical
00:15, 1280×1070, 30fps

Posted on February 10, 2010 by tychay 4

Bear Cans

I was amused to read about the bear Yellow Yellow’s ability to break into the BearVault 500.

When doing outdoor photography it is very important to know the bear-proof rules for your area. For instance, when I last hiked Tahoe, it was okay to use a bear-bag—a canvas bag that you throw up into the trees and anchor by tying to a tree. But in Yosemite and Mount Whitney, this is a big no-no as bears long ago figured out how to pull down a bear bag, you have to use a bear proof canister.

Upper Yosemite and Half Dome
Yosemite Falls Trail, Yosemite National Park, California
Nikon D70, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G, UV filter
f/11 at 1/20 second, 18mm (27mm), iso 200

Luckily, all campsites at Yosemite have food lockers to protect your stuff.

Continue reading about Bear vs Car after the jump

Posted on July 27, 2009 by tychay 0

A fish(y) story

It is because of random flukes like this:

I make C|Net’s News.Com frontpage (sort of)

Baseball cap? Check? New York Giants? Check. Geek convention? Check. This reminds me, C|Net really needs to host a Lunch 2.0… Check?

that Blake and Meagan have started calling me “rockstar.” What is ironic is that I’m not a rockstar, but I am related to one: my Uncle Francis, whom you’ve read about before. 😀

Uncle Francis Gunbei!
Yoshi’s Jazz House and Japanese Restaurant, Oakland, California

Nikon D70, 50mm f/1.8D
1/20sec @ f/1.8, iso200, 50mm (75mm)

Here is the photographic proof my brother found that my Uncle Francis has a secret night job as Shin Joong-hyun, the Korean Godfather of Rock ’n Roll:

Korea’s Godfather of Rock Makes a Comeback

As my cousin, Chris, says, now we figured out what her father has been up to since “retiring.” We just got to get him to shave his head, wear and earpiece, and look pensive. 😀 (Knowing Uncle Francis, he’d do that too, if it meant a free lunch…Hmm, maybe the idea for Lunch 2.0 was genetic.)

Speaking of another Chris (and another lunch), Chris Jones mentioned that I need to include more essays from my Uncle. So, the same week last November my brother found Uncle’s hidden secret double life as the Godfather of Korean Rock, this essay was making the rounds in our family…

(Trust me, you’re going to love it.)

[“One day in life of a retiree: a fish(y) story” after the jump.]Continue reading →

Posted on July 10, 2007 by tychay 5

The Woodwork

You tell that other boy, not to touch the woodwork