Subtle Magic of San Francisco.

San Francisco remains a beautiful city, no matter what you read in the papers — or more likely, on social media. It is blessed by a unique location and geography that allows you to experience 58 F (14 C) in one half of the city and 72 F (22 C) in another. Our regional weather pattern gives us the joy of fog, pretty much all year round. So much so that we have a name for our fog — Karl the Fog. 

This weekend, Karl the Fog was out in complete resplendence. He enveloped everything from Lands End to Marin Headlands, blowing in from the cold Pacific. Before you could hear your own thoughts, you could hear foghorns. 

I left home wearing a T-shirt but carrying a sweater to go get coffee with a friend in the “Sunset” neighborhood, where I needed the sweater. On our way back, we decided to drive through the Presidio and finish our coffees looking at the Golden Gate Bridge. However, the fog was so magical that I had to take out my phone and start capturing the natural beauty in front of my eyes. 

When I returned home in the early evening, the fog had reached my end of the city. It was rolling through, thick and fast, enveloping the many high rises that now dot the city’s skyline. And no building dominates San Francisco skies like the Salesforce Tower — all 61 stories of it. It is covered in glass, and when the sunsets in the west, it lights up like nothing else. (The tower, for me, also is a great subject on dark, gloomy days.) 

But yesterday, the Salesforce Tower looked magical. The rolling fog refracted the light falling on the tower and then refracted the reflected light. It was quite a magical moment, giving the building a surreal appearance. It looked surreal, almost like an angel with wings. A friend, whom I shared the video with, quipped, “Lord loves SaaS.” 

That quip was a good reminder — I live in San Francisco, the city that sometimes forgets that there is more to life than tech. I heard some people saw the aurora borealis, but I slept through it.

Anyway, enjoy these photos. They were captured with an iPhone 15 ProMax using the Halide Camera app and then edited with Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop. I removed noise from the images using Topaz Photo AI software. 

May 12, 2024: San Francisco.