Skip Kuebel Photography

A San Francisco cable car climbs California street to the top of Nob Hill by the Mark Hopkins hotel on the left. I liked the sunlight coming in from the top right corner and used that to focus the attention on the cable car by blowing that out some and adding a bit of glow. I used On1 Software Filters for this one. I also like how it's sharp at the cable car and then fades toward the upper corner. I also added a vignette called the Big Softy to darken the bottom edges. You can see this shot on my Flickr page at:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/97777205@N03/19951019005/ Skip Kuebel, Photographer skiptown@comcast.net

I hiked out to Muir Beach one afternoon and saw this great view of the trees on the hill, the rocks in the foreground and the ocean slashing up on the beach. So, I worked my way around the rocks and was doing the photographer thing, you know, getting the best angle for the shot, focus etc. Little did I know that on the other side of these rocks is a nude beach. Felt a little creepy, with the camera and all, so I didn't stay long! LOL. I added in the sun and sky in post-processing and using NIK filters to bring in the orange/reds from the sunset into the rocks and ocean. Is it cheating to do this? What you think? See more at: https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0092009/photos/97777205@N03/19807160652/ Skip Kuebel, Photographer skiptown@comcast.net

The Tower Bridge in Old Town Sacramento  I went on one of my photo walks in Old Town Sacramento on a very foggy day. I wasn't sure if the photos would come out nice and it was tricky because if you went beyond a certain distance things would start to disappear. I was pleasantly surprised that the fog made some quite moody pictures. All in all a pretty good day, and also a nice crab lunch! The Delta King riverboat moored in Old Town Sacramento on the Sacramento River. The working end of the paddle wheel boat the Delta King on the Sacramento River now a hotel. A Pony Express statue stands outside across the street from the Wells Fargo office in Old Town Sacramento. Skip Kuebel, Photographer skiptown@comcast.net

Old Glory with the Candy Land treatment There is a photographer, I follow online named Matt Crump. He would isolate the backgrounds and make interesting crops and then add in pastel colored (candy colored) backgrounds. I found this very interesting and thought I would try my hand at this. So here is Skip in Candy Land! I think it works very well with signage. I hope to get out and shoot more of this style later. Visit my Flickr site for more. Abe in Candy Land Skip Kuebel, Photographer skiptown@comcast.net

I wait my turn while a young photographer takes his picture of the second most famous bridge (after the Golden Gate Bridge) in the state just after sunrise. There were a surprising number of tourists and photographers there and at first I was annoyed because I wanted a shot of the bridge with no one there, but when he kneeled down to get his shot I thought this made a very cool photo. Sometimes the best plan is no plan at all. So after he moved on, I took the shot below, turns out I like the top one better. After trying to get the bridge and the ocean in the shot at the same time, I realized that wasn't going to happen, so I scampered across Highway 1 and walked down a dirt access road and kept looking back until I was able to frame up this shot. While waiting to cross back over the highway to my car, this motorcycle came into view and I thought it would be nice to get a shot of it going across the bridge with the winding Highway 1 off in the distance. Someone to

My photo of the Santa Cruz Lighthouse and Mark Abbot Surfer Museum at the point in Santa Cruz was just pick-up to be included in the Visitor Guide "Let's Cruz" which is their 20th Anniversary issue which will appear on page 12-13 (below) as well as on their online presence reaching around 1 million views. I was in last year's issue, but with a smaller photo. You can see more Santa Cruz photos on my Flickr page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/97777205@N03/sets/72157645351346039/ Skip Kuebel, Photographer skiptown@comcast.net

The San Francisco Embarcadero with all the interesting buildings that create the city skyline. I like to walk around the city and take photos of the people and points of interest. Then bring it back home and process it to make it into art. This time, I added in the storm clouds to make the scene more dramatic and also to practice my outline and masking skills. You can see more of this shoot on my Flickr site:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/97777205@N03/sets/72157646904166206/ Skip Kuebel, Photographer skiptown@comcast.net

This photo of the ruins of the Sutra Baths was used in an upcoming travel video for the popular website BuzzFeed. I also did a video of the baths showing a cool transition from a sepia tone photo showing what they looked like originally and then fades to the ruins we see today and then fades into full color. You can watch the video below. Skip Kuebel, Photographer skiptown@comcast.net