Let me say right up front that I am a minimalist in life, meaning I live by the “Less is More” motto, and am a photojournalist at heart. It was my major in college which fit as I began documenting my life, in pictures, at an early age.
With that in mind, I’ve heard it said that the best camera you own is the one you have with you or the one you actually use. For example, if I own a heavy full-frame camera with equally heavy lenses but do most of my shooting with my smartphone because of the weight, then, in my opinion, my best camera is the phone camera. This theory brought me to minimalism in photography. I reduced my gear down from the Canon line to the mirrorless Lumix brand. It serves me well and more often than not I take a lens attached to a camera body attached to a sling and go out shooting for the day. In my pockets, I have an extra battery and a lens cleaning cloth. No pack full of extra lenses, and all the gear that might distract me. I also have just quit bringing a tripod as it always seemed to be an exercise in futility, I NEVER used it.
You now know enough for me to get to the actual subject of this blog…photographing San Francisco with an iPhone 8.
Last summer, August 2021 to be exact, we finally made it to Northern California to see the family after a two-year Covid hiatus. The family lives in Marin County, north of the Golden Gate Bridge. One day a group of us decided to take the ferry to the City then spend the day hopping on and off cable cars. I was torn as to whether I would capture this adventure in a “real” camera or “live it” and just go with grab shots with the iPhone. I chose to live it. Here are some of my images:
This is the crew we went with: my mom, step-dad, sister-in-law, and her two kids, granddaughter, nephew, and my cousin’s kid. It was a formidable team.
We spent most of the day in Chinatown where I found some amazing murals.
My wife, Ellen, and I with our granddaughter. It was her first trip to see the family in eight years.
I love wondering unfamiliar cities and finding treasures like this parking garage entrance.
We HAD to stop by the fortune cookie factory!
We grabbed lunch inside this giant mall and did some quick shopping.
Our two youngest team members were SUCH troopers.
After lunch, we boarded the trolly and headed to Fisherman’s Wharf where we ended the day. From there we walked back to the Ferry Building and headed home. 
Our crew hanging off the trolly as we pass one going in the opposite direction. You can see the Bay in the distance.
I wasn’t preoccupied with photo gear and was able to be present and spend a glorious day with my family while still documenting the day. And it was a single-lens iPhone 8! Not even the fancy three-lens 13 (or whatever generation they are on to).
Have a great time on your next family adventure and remember, it’s okay to live it. 😉
Happy Shooting!
I wasn’t sure what this little guy was so I posted it on FaceBook and asked the birding community to identify. They were quick! It’s a vesper sparrow.
Catching them in flight is challenging. I set the camera at 400-800 ISO, in full sunlight which gives me a shutter speed between 2,000 and 6,000.
Perched birds are easier but you still have to be quick. They don’t always hang out for a photo! This is a red-winged blackbird.
Coming in for a landing!!
I’ve seen as many as four ospreys hunting the ponds of these wetlands.
This looks like a shorebird to me. It’s a killdeer. On another day I caught one with a worm in its mouth!
They are so dramatic when they sing!
The first goslings of the season!
This one was tough to capture. It didn’t hang out for long so I had to be quick. Luckily, with the length of the lens, I don’t have to get too close and the birds tend to not skitter away quite as quickly as when I tried to capture images of them with my 28-300 mm lens.
Turns out it’s also a reptile lens!
Shadows are always fun. Here is an image of three of our party walking down the wash bed shortly after finishing the initial mile and a half switchback descent. We walked on terrain like this for eight and a half more miles until we reached the campground.
There were still some flowers in bloom as we walked down.
This was a great alcove. On a much smaller scale it reminded me of Red Wall Cavern on the Colorado River.
Apparently stacking and placing rocks and pebbles in erosion holes is a thing on this hike. We ran into them frequently. At first we thought they were naturally placed there via flash flooding but this little rock cairn gave it away.
We’re getting closer!!
As we enter the outskirts of the village we run into another sign offering breakfast. Supai is kept safe by the two rock sentinels seen here in the background.
Cottonwood trees abound down here. They provide much needed shade for the hot summer months. To the left is their helicopter landing field.
Cottonwood tree knots are amazing. Such character!
We passed this church, complete with the dog sleeping out front, on our way through the village to the campground.
This is the sketchy bridge we had to cross to get to our campsite. Luckily no one fell in. If they had, though, the water is a pleasant 69 degrees year round.
Evenings were chilly but the days warmed up nicely and allowed us to wear shorts, sandals and sleeveless tops. In October we only had about 3-3.5 hours of sunlight in camp. Brrr. No wonder there weren’t as many people in camp as compared to when we’ve been there in April.
I was digging the shadows on the snow as well.
This is a chairlift shot of the San Francisco Peaks in all of their frozen glory.
One of the fortunes of living in Flagstaff is having access to this kind of beauty immediately following a snowstorm.
The ice tipped trees didn’t seem real.
Akacia helping her friend get up on the jacuzzi lid we found floating on the beach.
Sailing on the lake. The jacuzzi lid provided for hours of entertainment.
One of my favorite shots from that weekend. In fact it graces the cover of Akacia’s 2016 photo album she got for her 12th birthday in April. I love the simple blue background, the slight line of rock at the bottom, the angle and of course their interaction and expressions.
It then occurred to me to take advantage of the angle and have them jump! We did this several times and this was the best we got. I had to set the camera on burst mode, a high shutter speed to stop the action and yell when it was time to jump. I started shooting, yelled jump and looked to see what I got. 
This is our friend’s dog, Gracie. She is keeping an eye on the girls in their kayaks in the distance. We camped across from Antelope Marina near Page, AZ. You can see the houseboats at the top of the frame. I like how this picture has depth and tells a story.
This is my granddaughter. It’s a great shot of her in the foreground and her friend blurred in the background. I purposely opened up my f/stop to get a shallower depth of field to accentuate Akacia’s face.
Great portrait with a little action. Her right hand is just slightly blurred to add a little movement to the image.
Trying to decide if they want to go all in or not. The moral of the story? Don’t let water scare you. Bring your gear, just protect it. I like the ammo can for canoeing because it is REALLY easy to get into. It will sink though so don’t capsize the boat. If you prefer something that floats Pelican cases are outstanding, I just find them harder to open. I’ve also travelled with my photo bag inside a dry bag but then it’s REALLY difficult to get into for paddling shots but great once you’re there.
This mornings breakfast is a funny story. Ellen needs egg whites only. The egg dishes were coming out fried, one at a time, so we asked that the next one be cooked with no yolk. The look of befuddlement on the poor man’s face was…cute. He disappeared, only to reappear a short while later beaming with pride. The kitchen crew had come up with this as a solution: cook the egg and dig out the yolk. We wound up showing them how to strain the yolk out with egg shells and they were SO excited to learn this new cooking skill. It was awesome.
Here is where the food magic happened. This is the stove behind the stick wall in the kitchen hut.
Here’s Grandpa and Grandson. Grandpa is here visiting from another island with his wife. As it turns out the Guna women have maintained the use of traditional clothing and the men have not.
As we were visited a cayuco sailboat was passing in distance.
Once I asked to take pictures they warmed up to us. They wanted pictures of the grand babies, the two of them, we ended up doing a whole family shoot. It was sweet. I have their address to send prints.
Gramps sent his three year old grandson to the family hut to get rain sticks. Ellen had to make the tough decision of which one to get and use in her yoga teaching.
On this day we travelled to an island that had several islands near it It also seemed to be a popular location for sailboats. We snorkeled near a long reef that acted as a sea wall. There were waves exploding on it that you could see from the island. There was a large sand bar with a volleyball net on it and some amazing snorkeling where we just got into the current and let it take us along while we looked at all the sea life.
While we were out playing the guys were out spear fishing for lunch which was fish, rice and salad. The island was inhabited by a single family that ran a little store that sold…cold beer. It’s amazing how good one of those tastes on a hot day after much exercise. Lunch was amazing, watching them scale and filet the fish was like watching an artist at work.
After lunch we boarded our water taxi and went out to the area they were spear fishing, right behind the reef wall with the exploding waves. We saw lion fish, lobster, a sting ray and one guy saw a shark, My batteries died by then so I didn’t get images of the guys spear fishing. They were hunting for dinner. We followed two of them around though and appreciated the energy and expertise they possess in providing us with daily meals.
Here are our guys taking a rest on some hammocks while we finish lunch and take one more stroll around the island and a last dip in the sea.
