Picture(s) a Day: Jan 3

Since I was going to run errands in the area, I decided to hit up the Alviso Marina County Park in search of today’s pictures. I hadn’t been there in many years, but always had a soft spot for the quirky, house-shaped frames at the end of walkways, and the view of the nearby hills.

I took my Fuji X-Pro 3 and outfitted it with an old Lensbaby Spark I bought long ago for Nikon F-mount. The Spark is a unique 50mm, tilt-shift-ish lens that you manually focus by “squeezing” the lens towards the camera body. It’s sort of tough to use because you have to hold focus by physically holding whatever lens contortion you have in place, but that physicality adds to the interesting and artistic approach to taking photos with this lens. There is a newer version of the lens that has an easier to use focusing mechanism and can take additional optics. I may check it out later.

There’s a long loop around the salt pond in the park, but I didn’t get too far because it got grossly muddy. Like, super-stick-to-your-shoes grossly muddy. I wore my hiking boots, but I am not one to walk around in such conditions. Despite that, I got some decent shots around the area. It was very cold and windy at times, but when I’m in the zone, taking pictures, I barely notice such things.

I should hold back some of the shots I get and pull them out of my back pockets on days I’m not in the mood to get out and take a picture, but I can’t help sharing the keepers all at once, at least for now.