Golden Gate Bridge

We went to San Francisco last weekend and took a boat tour of the bay. I took three pictures like this; Lynda liked this one the best. I'll post the others later.

West Sac Christmas

We used to live in West Sacramento. There are some pretty ghetto areas there, so it has a bad reputation. A friend of ours still lives there so we wrapped his present "West Sac style".

New Year’s Eve in Downtown Sacramento

We spent New Year’s Eve in Downtown Sacramento for Sacramento’s first ball drop. I took this photo from the balcony of our hotel room at the Hyatt. I love the way the lights interact with the fog; it gave the city a very “Gotham” look.

Scenic Fence Version 2

In a previous post I posted this same photo, pretty much strait out of the camera. In this version I leveled the horizon and used Adobe Lightroom to digitally "develop" the photo. It's similar to what happens when you shoot film and have prints made, except it's done on a computer. Here's a version with the two photos side by side.

We took the scenic route from Santa Cruz to Sacramento and captured this lovely view on Stage Road between Pescadero and San Gregorio.

Skyline Blvd

Skyline Blvd overlooking the San Francisco Bay Area. The vineyard in the foreground is Thomas Fogarty.

Death Among Friends

On the south shore of Lake Tahoe I came across this dead tree surrounded by live trees. It felt as if the live trees stood by their friend on his deathbed, and now mourn the passing of their friend.

CalSTRS' New HQ

I took this picture of the new CalSTRS building back in March but didn’t get around to doing anything with it till now. The picture was taken from the bank of the Sacramento River in Old Sacramento.

Scenic Fence

We took the scenic route from Santa Cruz to Sacramento and captured this lovely view on Stage Road between Pescadero and San Gregorio.

From the Ashes

While we were on a nature walk at Taylor Creek we took a small detour down a forest service road. We came upon the charred remains of some trees in a clearing. As I was contemplating the best angle for the shot Lynda said “Ooh, get a picture of that!”

New Reflections

The U.S. Bank Tower at 621 Capitol Mall reflected in the glass of the building at 555 Capitol Mall, Sacramento, CA.

Moon Construction

The Moon over West Sacramento, CA. The photo was shot from the east bank of the Sacramento River in Sacramento, CA

Setting The Sun

Even construction equipment can be beautiful with the right background.

Designed by architect Ed Kado, the Bank of the West Tower is being built by Tskakopoulos Investments. When completed it will be a 25-story structural steel frame high-rise in downtown Sacramento with a 10-level, 800 stall parking garage. The building consists of a 3-story grand entrance lobby, ground floor retail, office space, and a 2-level penthouse restaurant and meeting facility. Represents one of the tallest office towers in Sacramento's Capitol Mall.

Location: 500 Capitol Mall, Sacramento, CA

Christmas at the Capitol

The California State Capitol building with the Christmas tree and menorah. This shot is a perfect example of why I need a tripod.

Capture the Clouds, Part 2

The building that dominates the left side of the picture is the U.S. Bank Tower, a 25-story office tower developer David Taylor is building at 621 Capitol Mall Sacramento, CA. The new and the old Sacramento are visible on this image. I like how the new building reflects the old.

Department of …

I've been wondering what this place is and why they are so cryptic about the name of the department. If they wanted to be discrete they should get rid of the “Department of”. It peaked my curiosity enough to Google it. The distortion in the reflection of the white truck is also interesting.

Don't be stupid

A few weeks ago we went to Ozzfest in Mountain View, CA. I’ve been going to Ozzy concerts since the ‘80s. Ozzy was great. Zakk Wylde was awesome. It was definitely worth the $20 parking. Smuggle your own beverages in since the beer is $8 for Bud, Coors, and Miller.

Since it was on a Thursday we decided to make a long weekend out of it and went to Lake Tahoe. When I was younger my friends and I would party on Mt. Baldy, Cucamonga Peak, and other places in the mountains in Southern CA. It sucked when some idiot would start a forest fire and ruin our party spots.

On June 24 2007 someone left a camp fire unattended (the official wording for didn’t put it out) and started the biggest recorded forest fire in the Lake Tahoe basin. I’m sure a lot of people who are just like I was back in the day are bummed that their party spot was ruined. They’ll find another; we did. The real tragedy was the 254 homes that were destroyed. Not to mention the people whose homes survived but their neighbors’ didn’t.

Don’t be an ass. Put the fire out when you leave.

Fannette Island

Fannette is part of Emerald Bay State (California) Park and the only island in Lake Tahoe. The structure that looks like a castle is the “Tea House” built by Mrs. Lora Josephine Knight. To learn more about it visit the Emerald Bay State Park home page.

Chaw’se

I caught this guy coming out of a mortar hole in grinding rock at Indian Grinding Rock SHP on my way to South Lake Tahoe. If you’re ever in the area it’s a nice place to visit. Here’s a description from an article, “The Rock and The People” on their website:

Chaw’se is the Miwok word for grinding rock – a slab of stone on which the Miwok people ground acorns and other seeds into meal, slowly forming the cup shaped depressions in the stone that can still be seen today. Along with the mortar holes, the main grinding rock within the park also features a number of decorative carvings: circles, spoked wheels, animal and human tracks, wavy lines, etc. Some of these carvings are thought to as much as two or even three thousand years old and are now becoming difficult to see. This association of rock art and bedrock mortar pits is unique in California. Except for one other small site, Chaw’se has the only known occurrence of mortars intentionally decorated with petroglyphs.

Solitude

A man fishing on Red Lake in the Sierras.

The Kennedy Gold Mine

This photo was taken at a rest stop on Highway 49 between Martell and Jackson. It’s the Kennedy Mine head frame. The Kennedy Mine is one of the deepest (5912 feet) mines in the world. For more information visit KennedyGoldMine.com.

Gold Tree

We drove the scenic route to Lake Tahoe last weekend and took some pictures along the way. I’ll post some of them here. This is a tree we saw at the side of the road near Jackson, CA.

Capture the Clouds

Capture the Clouds
Originally uploaded by liozzi

This is a nice addition to Sacramento's skyline. I love how the building has more clouds than the visible sky.

Smokey Water

The American River less than 100 yards downstream of a railroad bridge fire in Sacramento, CA.

Alcatraz

Alcatraz Island as seen from Fisherman’s Warf

Fire in the Sky

Southport Sunset

I saw a beautiful sunset this evening and had to take some pictures.