Photographing San FranciscoJanice Wendt uses her Tamron SP 24-70mm VC lens to capture the splendor of San Francisco. |
Article by Jenn Gidman Images by Janice Wendt |
From the time she was 8 years old, photographer Janice Wendt has been photographing flowers and nature. "It's ingrained in me," she says. "My first camera came with a macro lens. You'll see an abundance of nature shots even in my travel photography to this day." |
On her most recent journey to San Francisco (not far from her home in Vallejo, California), Janice brought along her Tamron SP 24-70mm VC lens. "It didn't matter where I was taking pictures-this lens was so easy to use, and so versatile," she says. "The lens offers such wonderful bokeh, especially for those flower shots I love to take. And the F/2.8 maximum aperture and Vibration Compensation (VC) feature came in handy, especially on some of the indoor shots, like when I was in the cable car museum and exploring the ships at Hyde Street Pier." |
Before heading into the City by the Bay, Janice surveyed pictures that people had recently posted on the Internet. "I'll do a search of some of the more frequented destinations and glean a lot of great suggestions and images," she says. "I might see something interesting in a place that I've never seen before. That's how I'll plan where I'm going to photograph." |
To capture some of the more famous landmarks, Janice relies on timing and perspective. "I always make sure I get a few images during the blue hour-that time right after the sun slips below the horizon and the sky turns that deep blue color," she says. "The Golden Gate Bridge, for example, looks especially wonderful during that time, with the warm lights from the bridge set off against that deep blue." |
Angles are also key to showing well-known subjects in a new light. "One of the things that improved my photography is when I started silversmithing," Janice says. "In that art, you're working with a three-dimensional subject and have to think how it looks from all different angles as you create it. I apply that to my photography as well. Whenever I try to shoot something that's somewhat iconic, I think: How will this look if I'm down low? How will this look from up high, or if I go to the left or the right?" |
Janice was able to apply this practice while taking a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge from Baker Beach, right below the cliffs on the Presidio's western shoreline. "I wanted to make sure I had a reflection of the bridge on the water, so I wandered into the water to get just the right perspective," she says. "I wanted to be there right as the water retreated and dropped down to the sand, and also low enough so that I could really capture the reflection. I got pretty wet, all the way up to my waist-I'm still getting sand out of those pants and out of my tripod!" |
Wandering around Chinatown is one of Janice's favorite parts of visiting San Francisco. "I love going there, especially on Sundays," she says. "Sunday is Chinatown's market day, when they have all of the fresh produce out. You see so many interesting fruits and vegetables there." |
To showcase one bin of dried fruit, Janice focused on the ladle, blurring out the berries on the periphery. "I did this on purpose while I was shooting, then did even more retouching afterward to bring the focus onto the fruit in the ladle," she says. "You have to remember that you're the artist telling the story and that you need to bring the viewer to the most important part of the image. For this image, the ladle handle draws the viewer's eye into the central part of the image." |
In Golden Gate Park's Japanese Tea Garden, the oldest public tea garden in the U.S., Janice was able to take advantage of the 24-70's versatility while photographing the famous koi ponds, pagodas, and cherry blossoms. "That lens was fantastic in helping me capture the flowers I have a passion for," she says. "It took really beautiful close-ups with excellent bokeh, and I was also able to zoom out to get more of the surrounding gardens. The 24-70's nine curved aperture blades ensure I don't get flat-sided highlights." |
The 24-70's versatility also proved invaluable during Janice's day trip to Hyde Street Pier, part of San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park on the city's northern waterfront. In addition to a maritime museum and library, a fleet of historic vessels - including the three-masted Balclutha - offered plenty of photographic opportunities, both inside and out. |
"I've photographed the Balclutha before, but years ago it was just the outside shell," Janice says. "I was happy to find that this time they had staged all kinds of little vignettes inside the ship: There was a crew's kitchen, a captain's kitchen, a cargo hold filled with actual cargo. The 24-70 helped me get a wider view of the ship in the water, as well neat interior shots with teapots and cookware. Being able to shoot with that F/2.8 maximum aperture helped me manage the low light inside the cabins." |
Creating black-and-white images is another way to show the contrasts of a great city like San Francisco. "It was raining like crazy one evening and I decided to get some shots of the cable cars down near the turnaround spot," Janice explains. "I just walked around until I found the leading lines and angles I wanted." |
Janice also made a black-and-white image of the Palace of Fine Arts, an awe-inspiring structure built as part of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The building-one of 10 "palaces" built for the world's fair to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal and the city's recovery from the 1906 earthquake-is the only surviving structure on the original site. |
"It was a stormy day, and I wanted to capture the magnificence of this building," Janice says. "I took this image on a tripod using a longer exposure. If you look closely you can see a slight blur on the edges of the trees and in the fountain, set up against the rigidness of the palace itself. I exposed for the highlights and developed in post-processing for the shadows to bring out details in the clouds that I didn't even see when I was there." |