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I had planned the rise of the full moon to be over the Coit tower. It was a promising evening with no fog and a clear sky. I knew it was going to be tight in term of location. The moon would rise over the tower but I would be at the end of the pier to correctly line up the moon with the top of the tower. I had not planned to have a ship anchored on the other side of the pier. As the moon rose, the ship was blocking the shot. I did stay a little bit later and got new images of San Francisco at night to add to my collection of images. All the images presented here are available for licensing or as fine art...

We had the opportunity to go to Havana, Cuba for a week. Being French-American, we are subject to the embargo imposed by the US on Cuba. Which means that we cannot engage in any commercial relationships with Cuban nationals. However some companies have been licensed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury to provide people-to-people Cuba travel for U.S. citizens. People-to-People travel is an initiative allowing U.S. citizens and permanent residents to travel to Cuba on a limited basis to participate in cultural experiences and have direct contact with the Cuban people to learn more about them and their culture, while they learn about the American way of life. It’s not tourism, it is more rewarding as it is a real cultural exchange. In our...

Death Valley National Park is far away enough from cities that it requires a three day weekend to go visit. But that’s the point, Death Valley has some of the most amazing sky you will ever see. That’s because there is no light pollution, the air is very dry, no clouds, perfect for some night photography. Our plan was simple, leave Friday night from the Bay Area and come back Monday night, lodging was also simple: we would camp. We’ve been to Death Valley once before and specifically to the Racetrack, so we had a good idea of what to expect. This time I was interested in getting deeper into Death Valley by following some of the off road trails. In order to do that and being safe, we had two 4WD cars with high clearance and we would follow each...

It’s really hard to find images of San Francisco you have not seen before. A few months ago, I met with a helicopter pilot (a photographer himself) and he was complaining that no one thinks of using helicopters for taking pictures. First it’s expensive, second it’s dangerous (strapped on the side of helicopter), third you need a very clear day to make it worth it. Then the stars aligned and I booked a 60-min open door helicopter ride with him. The day was very clear and I’m pretty pleased with the results. After the first flight I was hooked, I love aerial images. Especially for San Francisco where the nice views are over the bay. So when last summer, the America’s cup AC45 races were in San Francisco,  I had the chance to get...

The Golden Gate Bridge is like  few monuments in the world (Eiffel tower in Paris, the statue of liberty in New York, the opera house in Sydney, the burj khalifa in Dubai), it’s an iconic symbol that almost everyone recognizes instantly. It’s also extremely photographed and making a unique image of the Golden Gate Bridge is almost impossible. I have a strong attraction for this bridge and the map below that shows the GPS point of where I took my images reflects that fact. I have shot the Golden Gate Bridge at night, at sunrise, at sunset, from a boat, from a helicopter, from a car and there are still images in my head I want to make that have not happened yet. View San Francisco Photo Spot series: The Golden Gate Bridge in a larger map The...

I’m often asked to photograph some of the robots SRI International is working with. Those robots are always one of a kind (ok sometimes there is more than one) and it’s challenging to capture a robot as an image. You see a lot of videos of robots on Youtube but rarely images. The reason I believe, is that we think of robots as something in motion, therefore our mental representation of a robot is not static. A robot is per definition something that moves, grabs, fold, paint, etc. (you get the point, it’s not motionless) while a photograph is motionless. How do you capture the concept of robot in a photograph ? The idea I have used (in the image above) is a multi shot image where you can see the robot grasping the object. The other technique that...