Hop on a plane and fly to San Francisco with your wife for four days or stay home? Yup off we went. We headed off to San Francisco so Robyn could partake in a two day boudoir workshop with Denise Songbird of Stripped Down Retreat. For me it was 2 days off, and fun exploring and photographing San Francisco.
Our first stop was to Ben's (Robyn's cousin) restaurant, Brewster's Beer Garden in Petaluma. What stood out to me the most was the attention to detail to make the visit an experience. So family-friendly, lots of places to hang and enjoy drinks and food. With BBQ and locally sourced edibles. Click on images to expand.
Saturday and Sunday Robyn went off to her workshop. So Saturday I explored and tested out my rental Profoto B1 strobe, a well educated and functioning piece of photography equipment. I say educated because in its TTL mode it takes care of so many things for a photographer. Allowing me to concentrate on framing posing and creativity. I ventured around scouting for locations for a Sunday shoot with a tribal belly dance troupe, Little Egypt Bellydance.
Robyn has been doing tribal belly dance style for two years and one of her instructors, Jill Parker lives in San Francisco. Jill helped coordinate three dancers for me. After my scouting for locations we chose Clarion Ally Aka-graffiti alley - Mission district. An alleyway running east to west and adorned with bulk amounts of graffiti. Sunday I met up with Joanna, Sarah and Nicole and we went to town, posing, changing locations and moving together to create our photos.
The entire time we were there we had our ears filled with live music. Which in the end became the closing dance photo.
I have to say I was so happy with the Profoto B1 and how it responded to all my requests and especially how long the battery just kept up with flash after flash.
Joanna, Sarah and Nicole were so accommodating and comfortable with me, a total stranger in an energetic and exciting city.
Monday was a relax and adventure day with Ben and Shannon. Road trip around San Francisco, lunch at Scott's and Gin & Tonic at First & Last Chance.
The evening and closing to our trip was a backyard taco and friends party in the hills of Oakland. Thank you Jason & Laura.
It's great to be back here in Buffalo. Everyone we talked to about being from Buffalo had nothing but great things to say about our home. The city of good neighbors and they know this on the West Coast.
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