Sausalito, January 1, 2024

Happy New Year: When the forecast predicted a sunny New Year's Day, I decided to visit Sausalito with the hope of finding some evidence of raucous revelry from the night before. The morning air was cleansed by the recent rains, and the sunlight brought its warmth to both the body and my subjects, providing a "golden hour" tint to the sunlit photos. 

Photos made in Open Shade were a different matter. The coldness of the skylight made everything seem a bit pale, almost lifeless, in direct contrast to some of the artwork displayed in the shop windows. For a moment, I thought I was looking into a portal to a colorful street in Chicago.

I have difficulty accepting Sausalito as a real city. Perhaps it was in the 1940s when it was a shipbuilding hub, creating tankers and Liberty Ships for the war. The town would re-invent itself as an artist colony, and finally into a tourist destination. With these changes, old buildings get repurposed, as this one-time produce store transformed itself into an art gallery. 

In San Francisco, we call these Parklets, enclosures made by combining several parking spaces which are used to create an outdoor dining space. When needed, portable propane heaters provide comfort for diners in the evening hours. In silhouette, the heater's function is not so obvious.

The sun is not far from the horizon, and this directional light tends to hide a great deal of detail in the shadows it creates. Here it emphasizes the strength of the safety barrier created to keep inebriated patrons of the nearby bar safe and dry.

I should have not been surprised by the numbers of bicyclists and 'boarders taking advantage of the streets made quiet by the early morning hours. Swarms would ride down Bridgeway, the main tourist thoroughfare, vibrating from enthusiastic chatter, and in a moment, gone.

This boat trailer was in the Sausalito Yacht Club parking lot, ready to be taken to who knows where. Hopefully the three boats will be part of some great adventure that will entertain, and inspire, three crews of sailors in some nearby estuary. 

The next few days will be spent re-conditioning the capacitors in my dozens of speedlights, re-setting the calendars on all of my digital cameras, and finishing the backups of the thousands of photos I made in 2023. I also need to take stock of my equipment and my "kit", making sure that anything I might need during the photographic year will be close at hand.

Post Script: The camera was a Fuji X100 T. I normally use it with its dedicated wide angle adapter, giving me the effective full-framed focal length of 28mm.