Bay Bridge from Pier 24

justex07 March 20, 2013

On Monday I joined a great friend, and photographer, Breezy Lucia for a trip to Pier 24 Photography. I don’t think I’d seen Breezy since I moved from Columbia years ago. We first met while we were in school together at the University of Missouri studying Fine Art Photography under the tutelage of Joe Johnson. There was no professor that affected me in such a positive way as Joe. Until his courses I did not look at photography as anything but a hobby. I shot photos, over-processed them and found myself more worried about having the best equipment than making the best art.

When I moved to San Francisco Joe told me that I had to go to Pier 24 Photography.

Pier 24 Photography is an exhibition space devoted to photography, which hosts rotating exhibitions and houses The Pilara Foundation Collection. Visitors experience an environment in which to view and quietly contemplate photography. By collaborating with photographers, educators, collectors and curators, we are able to share diverse ideas with the public. Through our partnerships with local institutions, we also work to advance the creation, scholarship and understanding of the photographic medium.

Somehow I managed to spend three years in San Francisco never making it to this free and incredible photography museum. If you’re in San Francisco, this is the first art museum you should think about visiting. Not only is it the largest photography museum in America, it is free, it only allows 20 people in at a time so it’s never crowded and the work they curate is out of this world stunning.

A wall of Richard Avedon portraits at Pier 24 Photography. This was the featured artist with prints from all across his career on display with many of his most iconic images available for viewing, some as larger-than-life prints.
A wall of Richard Avedon portraits at Pier 24 Photography. This was the featured artist with prints from all across his career on display with many of his most iconic images available for viewing, some as larger-than-life prints.

Joe told Breezy to force me to go with her to the museum. She made our appointment and we headed to Pier 24 for a two hour tour of the most impressive photography I’ve seen in person.

These are some of the larger Richard Avedon prints.
These are some of the larger Richard Avedon prints.

After the time at the museum Breezy and I took a few minutes to take pictures just outside of Pier 24. I took this photo which is actually a stitching of five photos into a single, almost square, image. I almost only ever have a 50mm lens on my Nikon D700, fitting the scene of this bridge into a single image would have been otherwise impossible.

I’m happy with how it came out. One of the benefits of shooting with a 50mm into a panorama is that it gives you so many more pixels to play with. This photo is 50 megapixels instead of 12. That’s a ton of pixels, and makes it clock in at just under 1 gigabyte, which is one massive file considering it’s just one photo.