Lyons Imaging
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Labels: Hasty Heart, lighthouse, Lyons Imaging, maritime photography, sailing, San Francisco Bay, Swan 61, yachting

The past week has afforded me the opportunity to shoot several talented kitesurfers playing in the wind near the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm just posting a few favorite shots. It's a very dynamic sport that lends itself to lots of free-styling. Some of them can really catch some air. Looks like good fun!

Labels: kiteboarding, kitesurfing, kiting, Lyons Imaging, photography, San Francisco Bay, watersports

Adobe Lightroom has proven to be a great tool for managing a large library of images (presently nearly 250,000 of them) and it's a versatile editing tool as well. Normally I use it conservatively--adjusting just enough to make a subject look as bright and bold as it did in reality. But there's room to play, too. This image of the J-120 yacht "Mr. Magoo" racing on San Francisco Bay has been taken to an extreme. I've boosted the recovery all the way to 100%, bringing down every bit of detail available in the brightest areas. Fill light, too, goes to 100%, opening up the shadows. Contrast, clarity, and vibrance are all taken to their highest extremes. Normally blackpoint, too, goes to 100, but in this image, it worked better at 55. At that point, the image is wildly gaudy, until the saturation is taken down to around -80 to counteract all of the rest. Does it look natural? Not at all! But hey... it's just for fun.

Though mostly cold and foggy, the Memorial Day weekend in San Francisco got off to an enthusiastic start, with numerous racing yachts coming out for the annual Spinnaker Cup Regatta--a race from San Francisco Bay, running 88 miles South down the Coast to Monterey.

There wasn't a lot of wind, but the sun was shining and the racing fleet turned out with good numbers (as usual) for the first weekend of 2009 Corinthian YC Midwinter racing. Just like last year, this time around featured periods of no wind (allowing everyone to bunch up) followed by periods of light wind (allowing everyone to play bumper-boats around the marks). Good times!

Two years of shooting maritime events on San Francisco Bay has never before created such a rush of attention to my website--to see Tom Perkins' 289 foot modern square-rigged Maltese Falcon get slammed by a 40' sloop.

Sunday wrapped up San Francisco's highest-profile sailing event--Rolex Big Boat Series. Four days of great racing for lots of great local raceboats, and a strong showing of visitors too. And as always, some especially big boats.