photography by wasim.

Tag: san francisco

800 Miles. 36 Hours. 17 Frames. Find New Roads From Portland To San Francisco By Camaro.

So last week was a bizarre week. I got a call last Saturday to see if I wanted to accompany a pair of journalists from Time Magazine’s The Drive website as their videographer in a new 2016 Camaro on a road trip from Portland to San Francisco for their Find New Roads campaign. The thing is, we had 36 hours to cover 800 miles.

Now, on the one hand, this was insanely exciting as an experience. Not to mention, that Camaro handles quite well in all the conditions we had it in, including at least 200 miles of nausea inducing twists and turns and curves. This is great fun for those in the front seats, especially the driver, but for me in the back seat…eh…I’ve never felt like puking from a car drive before this one.

And it happened 3 times.

However, I attribute that to the driver, not the car. He was certainly testing the limits of that beast, and the lack of ‘oh shit’ handles had my ‘oh shits’ unleashed more times than even I felt comfortable with, but judging by the fact that I’m still alive, he knew what he was doing, that’s for sure.

Now, on the other hand, as a photographer, this was pure and utter torture. We drove through the Redwood National and State Parks (NPS), the Avenue of Giants, Oregon’s insanely gorgeous countryside, the Pacific Coast Highway from Eureka and Humboldt and Mendocino through Fort Bragg, all the way down the coast to San Francisco. It was all insanely gorgeous country, arguably some of the most incredible in the world. But it was literally like being in heaven and then being kidnapped back to purgatory in a blur – a serious tease that would give any of Portland’s legendary strip clubs a run for their money – from golden fall colored vineyards to smoky Oregonian mountains to fall-colored tree-canopied one lane country roads and movie quality s-curves and riverside valleys laden with giant redwoods and legendary pines, to northern California’s pristine lost coast.

Just about ALL of this has been on my bucket list for a long long long long long time, so I was happy that I’d finally get to do it, HOWEVER, we only got to stop maybe 4 or 5 times, mostly for pee breaks, for a total of about 30-45 minutes through all this, so never got to set up for a single shot. Not one.

At all.

In the most beautiful spots of Oregon and California.

I, along with my cameras, were whimpering loudly and considerably.

Anyhow, save for some GoPro footage, the video portions were all shot on Samsung NX1 and Samsung NX500 ‬, both of which handled wonderfully under all the circumstances.

Click here for the article on TheDrive.com for the driver’s version of events.

And here’s a video of my version of what happened:

<br />

As far as stills, figured roll with the punches (and the hairpin twists and turns) and went with the mobile phone for the mobile pictures. Here is my 36 hour trip, from Portland to San Francisco, by Samsung Galaxy Note 5 and edited in Snapseed. It starts with my flight leaving Los Angeles to Portland, and ends with return flight back to Los Angeles from San Francisco.

For more of my shenanigans:
instagram: @wasimofnazareth
ello: @wasimofnazareth
google+: +WasimMuklashy

If you enjoy these posts, please feel free to subscribe to my mailing list at top right of this page, and I’ll deliver each post to you as I publish them, and if you support the kind of work I’m doing and the things I’m sharing, please consider ‘subscribing to me’ on Patreon.com. Yup, subscribing to me. You can even set the price. Literally, $1 per month if you want. No joke, your little helps me a LOT!

November 16, 2015
A Spontaneous Excursion Up Pacific Coast Highway – Part 2: Big Sur

So after the kayak melee in Morro Bay, it was time for Stephen Chiang, the photographer I was assisting, and I to drive up north to San Francisco for the job the next morning. Put two photographers in a car, give them the choice between A. a straight and direct, but boring route, and B. a windy, curvy, 2-hours-longer scenic route through Big Sur, and, well, you can guess which one they’re going to choose 11 times out of 10. So up the curvy Pacific Coast Highway we went, absolutely one of the most beautiful and scenic drives in the country. As we made our way through Cayucos, then Cambria, we stopped for lunch before PCH opened up along the Pacific Ocean for good from the lowlands of San Simeon (best known for Hearst Castle), all the way up the jagged picture-perfect sparsely populated Central California coastline to and through the majesty that is Big Sur. We pulled over and admired for a while, excited at the fact that just 24 hours from now, we’ll be back here to spend the rest of the week making the tough decisions of frolicking around the grand vistas overlooking the Pacific, or splashing around in this, the largest of the world’s 5 oceans.

But first, we had the task of finding dinner and a place to rest our heads for the night in San Francisco for the job in the morning, so we crossed over the famous Bixby bridge, rolled past Monterey and Carmel, made a pit stop in San Jose for my first experience with Yakitori at Gaku Yakitori in San Jose (I ate sea urchin!!! Anthony Bourdain would be proud!). There we used Airbnb.com, found ourselves a place to stay for the night, so after dinner, rolled into San Francisco around midnight. We woke up the next morning to fresh coffee from our host, who just so happened to be the photo editor for Via Magazine, an edition of the Automobile Club publications covering the western states, so, well, naturally, we all immediately clicked. (BTW kind Airbnb host, if you’re reading this, I have a feeling you’ll be hearing from us…)

The work day went suspiciously smoothly. It was a corporate headshot job, and we were in by 10am, out by 3pm. We didn’t even bother to stay in the city, opting to immediately get out, back along the coast, stopped in Pacifica at a roadside fresh produce stand for some snacks and supplies, and proceeded on down to Big Sur, where we were to meet my cousin, my aunt, and the family for dinner at Andrew Molera State Beach campground, our home for the next few days.

Luck would so have it (yes, all luck, no planning or rushing to break down the equipment and get out of the city by a certain hour of course), that we made it back to the infamous Bixby Bridge in time to find a few vantage points to get some solid sunset shots. What are the chances?

We pulled along the side of the road at Rocky Point Restaurant, managed to get a few good shots and angles, not a difficult task in a location like this, but something still told us that we should continue on. So we did, and about a mile further down the PCH, we found a small turnout to park alongside what seemed to be a candidate for a perfect overlook. We took a trail along the bluff (extremely careful to avoid the poison oak that seemed to be in full bloom), which ended at the edge of an abandoned property that we didn’t realize until we were already on it. The boarded up house and remains of an old firepit gave it away. But when we turned around, there was no way we were backing off right away.

This.

View.

Was.

Perfect.

We spent the next 15 to 20 minutes capturing the last rays of sunlight over the Pacific and shining onto the coastline hugging the Bixby Bridge, turned towards each other with a knowing “that’s why we do this” smile, and walked back to the car.

Hungry.

We finally pulled up to Andrew Molera State Park, hiked through a 1/2 mile tree canopy into our campsite where the rest of the family was waiting, burgers already grilling, beers already poppin,’ and hence began our stay in Big Sur.

Check out the gallery of images from that day and evening below, taken on Samsung NX3000 and NX30 mirrorless cameras.

Click here for the next part, Part 3: More Big Sur

And if you missed it, here’s Part 1: Morro Bay

And for more of my madness, including additional images and edits from this very trip:
Instagram: @wasimofnazareth
Google+: www.Google.com/+WasimMuklashy
Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WasimOfNazareth
Ello: www.Ello.co/WasimOfNazareth

September 7, 2014
The Power Of Serendipity – A Lesson Learned

simply stunning. Wasim Muklashy Photography

It might be a little bizarre that I was booked to shoot three professional NFL football players from the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland Raiders, yet my two favorite shots of the job had absolutely nothing to do with the job itself.

So as I’ve already written about in a previous post, I was hired by WhoHasItApp to shoot celebrities and the clothing in their closets for a new e-commerce app (it’s actually a pretty brilliant idea, click WhoHasItApp.com and check it yourself). Anyhow, on that trip, I was scheduled to shoot Kyle Williams of the San Francisco 49ers, and Rod Streater and Terrelle Pryor of the Oakland Raiders, and those went extremely well. But something happened that was completely impromptu and unexpected. We were all set up and waiting for our subject to show up so we can get the portrait shots, but it just so happened that it was getting to be that time of day where the light was absolutely perfect – golden hour as the sun was setting over the bay while we overlooked it from the east side of Oakland Harbor. It was killing me that our subject wasn’t there while this light was getting insanely flawless.

I was literally pacing.

Once we realized he wasn’t going to be there in time, I just had to get someone, anyone, it didn’t matter, in front of that lens and smothered with that soft pastel light, so I jumped inside, asked if anyone at all can just come stand in the light, and after a bit of persuasion, was able to convince one of the women that was there, to come out and be my model for just a few minutes.

As soon as she stepped onto the deck, I knew immediately this was going to work. Her beautiful smooth skin was bathed in gorgeous golden hour sunlight that was partially diffused by a low lying haze – when people call it the ‘magic hour,’ this is exactly why. These ended up being two of my favorite shots from the entire weekend, and these weren’t even part of the gig.

The lesson learned in this one? Follow my intuition and not be bashful if a certain situation presents itself – especially if the gut is tugging at you to make a move. Those are the times you know you’ll regret not doing so. I had no idea her name, and I’m sure she didn’t mine either, but for those 5 minutes, it just didn’t matter. Best of all, I walked away with two portrait shots of a stunning woman that i couldn’t be happier with.

simply beautiful. Wasim Muklashy Photography.

November 8, 2013
The Undeniable Importance of ‘Me Time.’

So yesterday I posted about my whirlwind experiences shooting a few well-known personalities and their closets. Today I’m posting about me.

Through the whole experience shooting Kyle Williams and Rod Streater in San Francisco, I also knew it was going to be an exercise in something I’ve been focusing on making a priority over the past few years…whether it’s for a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days – meditation, a hike, stopping for a few deep breaths, whatever – making it a point to always find time for myself. I’ve so often times in the past lost vision of why I was doing what I was doing…the passion…and it’s been nothing sort of soul-murder, leading to derailment of my original vision and purpose and intended paths, some that have lasted for years. For this reason, it’s become a priority to always make sure to do something to try to keep that vision at the forefront. (more…)

October 16, 2013
What Do Gretchen Rossi, Stacey Dash, Rod Streater, Terrelle Pryor, & Kyle Williams Have in Common? Me snooping around in their closets. Huh? Uh Yeah…

Ok, here’s another short break from the National Park series…it’s been a bizarre unexpected whirlwind of a past couple of weeks so just have to get it out of my system. It started with a referral and a test shoot, and all of a sudden, I find myself in the homes of Kyle Williams of the San Francisco 49ers, Rod Streater and Terrelle Pryor of the Oakland Raiders, Stacey Dash, and Gretchen Rossi shooting portraits of them and everything in their closets. Huh? Uh…yeah…so it’s the pretty brilliant brainchild of one Jennifer Colli. She came up with the idea and put it into motion and, well, hot damn took off with it. (more…)

October 15, 2013