on july 2nd, 1999, b, john clark, and i boarded the jeremiah o'brian and sailed under the golden gate bridge to meet the 1999 parade of tall ships which were coming to san francisco for the first time in decades. originally, a race was scheduled but lack of funding caused the various tall ship societies to cancel it. nevertheless the ships sailed into san francisco bay on that friday morning and transformed the area into a time warp.

i shot more than 25 rolls during the tall ship visit to san francisco, but the following images were damaged extensively by the developer and only through some amazing photoshop magic was i able to recover them. you will note quite a bit of grain; although the originals were shot on fuji astia and velvia (know for extremely fine grain) the photoshop trickery caused an unusual amount of pixillation and so the images are not as striking as i had hoped. not to mention that the light was absolutely horrible throughout the most interesting parts of the trip.

these photos were shot with my canon elan iie, the canon 28-135mm IS lens, plus a rented 300mm f/4 l type lens which i often used with a 2x extender for an effective 600mm focal length. of course this required the use of a tripod so i used my trusty bogen.

this is a shot of the o'brian docked at fisherman's wharf the week before our trip. we actually borded the obrian in southeast sf at pier 90.

the crew of the o'brian consisted of u.s. veterans, many of whom server on liberty ships like the o'brian or worked in the docks during world war ii.

there was a buffet, a band which provided 40's music, and many many kegs of beer to help along the festive atmosphere.

we set ourselves up early in strategic locations lugging our equipment up tight ladders and always looking for interesting places to take photos from.

as we passed under the golden gate bridge, occasionally escorted by helicopters such as the pictured coast guard chopper, the tall ships appeared on the horizon.