San Francisco and Golden Gate Bridge

I had an opportunity to visit the Sausalito vista point at the Golden Gate Bridge couple of days ago. More than anything, I was hoping to capture an image of a giant COSCO container ship as it enters the bay beneath the bridge. No such luck. Below are couple of landscapes taken under harsh early afternoon sun. San Francisco has 170k+ Chinese Americans, and percentage-wise, they comprise 21% of the make-up, the highest of all U.S. cities with significant Chinese population.

The island on the left with some structure on it is Alcatraz, where it once served as a prison. It is now a tourist attraction. One of my favorite movies shot there is “The Rock” featuring Sean Connery, Nicholas Cage, and Ed Harris. A disenchanted U.S. general and his marines tried to launch rockets armed with VX-gas from Alcatraz to terrorize San Francisco.

The bridge in the above picture is actually the Bay Bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland. Golden Gate would be to the far right side of the picture.

The iconic building with a triangular top is of course the Transamerica Pyramid. (Click for the larger view to see it more clearly.) In the recent Tom Cruise movie, “Mission Impossible, Ghost Protocol,” a nuclear terrorist tried to blow up San Francisco, but right before it detonated, it was diffused by Ethan Hunt. The neutralized rocket clipped the Transamerica building and then fell into the bay.

Below is the Golden Gate Bridge. Many sailboats dot the Sausalito side (behind where I stood while takng this picture). There is a lot of soot in the bay, and for that reason, the water is actually quite murky. But I timed the shot for when a wave crashes into the rocks and slow down the shutter on my camera to give it a much more silky feel to the water, hence taking away the unpleasant murkiness.