Day 3 - Fleet Week

Today was my final day - I don't have to work Monday as it's just a cleanup day and they said I shouldn't do that... so I'll stay home and work on fotos instead, as I have been for months already!

Instead of my usual position greeting people at the ViP boxes, I was at a refreshment stand and helped them with sales. It's not easy as you think, selling soft drinks - it's actually a fine art and anyone who has assisted at an organizational stand selling anything knows that it's actually more work than it seems.

Taking breaks - overmanned - often, I got a chance to use my monster lens to get more pixs but I did see someone with even a bigger lens than mine.... even the case his lens was safely stored inside was bigger than my lens and camera alone! I am amazed how people can find this money! His pixs must be waaay better than mine and he must work with an agency, be a company photographer, or sells a LOT of his fotos; lordy knows nobody buys mine and my image sales for the past decade won't even buy a dinner, let alone such a huge lens!

It was again breezy and biting cold and though the wind died for an hour or so, it was like all the days I've been shooting this year's Fleet Week: windy, cold but with sun. At least there were a few clouds today which added to the background, filling up that empty sky!

The Marina Green was packed with children's amusement rides and of course the ViP and box seating areas, with a lot of food vendor stands and others. I even saw a booth of the eye clinic who did my eye correction there! Because of the people this time I had to drive around for 10 minutes till I luckily saw somebody leave and gave me my place in heaven. All day I have been hearing of how difficult it was to find parking, but event organizers and the City have been encouraging everyone to bus or walk in, which still many did do. Seeing the Marina Green like this was also a flashback to my childhood, when my parents would take us out to the Marina when we would lie down on the grass like everyone else, all eyes up to the dark sky to watch the July 4th fireworks. Then was nothing like today... even the chairs we had then weren't anything like today and not portable at all...

How life has changed so.....

So, enjoy these few unedited pixs of today's Fleet Week scenes!! Tomorrow I'll be shooting from somewhere close to the Golden Gate Bridge - exactly where I don't know yet....