Pam Biasotti Photography Blog

If you love Curb Your Enthusiasm you are going to be so jealous of me.  I just received the BEST stuff in the mail today from my dear buddy Amy who had the nerve to get out of expensive California and move back to Virginia where all her family is.   She has been such a wonderful friend for the past 5 years and you know how when you get older it gets harder and harder to forge those friendships that are meaningful and lasting.  She moved back to Virginia after living in the Bay Area for eleven years.  I spent endless hours practicing my photography on her daughter and she really understood me.  When she moved away I was heartbroken–then my dog passes away—it’s been one hell of an Autumn.  In fact, she’s the kind of friend that was going to forsake Thanksgiving with her own family to come out and babysit my dog with cancer while I was on my family vacation!  What kind of friend does that?  A best friend I tell you. Unfortunately Riley didn’t want to cost us the $$$$ to fly Amy and her daughter out here to spend a lonely week taking care of him so he gracefully passed before that time (I think that dog had a plan) but I know she would have been here in a heartbeat if I needed her.  Check out this wonderful gift she sent me just because.  It really made me cry with happiness that someone cared enough to try and knock me out of this funk I have been in for the past month.

Oh, I have left my heart in San Francisco many times. There is no city like it and there will always be a charming draw of people to our city by the bay. I mentioned to you in a previous post that I was waiting patiently for Connie and Terrilyn to arrive to attend a workshop with me. It was called the one light workshop and we had an excellent time. The hardest part for these ladies was staying awake! The workshop usually goes into the wee hours of the morning and by midnight California time, they were exhausted and we headed back to casa Biasotti for some sleep.

The next day we had some time to play and we stopped by to pick up Theresa, who has family in the Bay Area. Theresa is the Blog Queen extraordinaire. She can get you set up and running a blog in no time. So the four of us headed out to city. I had warned my East Coast buddies that California is a deceivingly cool climate this time of year. Bring layers. Bring your jackets. Prepare to freeze your buns especially in the evening. I was most worried about Terrilyn, as she is from the west coast of Florida and spends many of her photo sessions frolicking on the beach in the warm Gulf of Mexico waters. Connie had informed me that in Maryland they were having awesome warm weather but since she once lived in California I expected her to remember how cool it can be in the evening.

The day was sunny and bright and we didn’t do too bad until the late afternoon. We started our journey through the city and headed straight for the Golden Gate Bridge. We drove across the bridge to Marin County and had a great lunch at Sam’s in Tiburon.

As photographers, we always have our cameras ready. After lunch we stopped to catch the reflection in the window. Pretty cool, huh? We thought outside the box on this one didn’t we? Connie took this photo. She gave me permission to post this. It is copyrighted by Barefoot Photography.  (Snicker snicker)

After lunch since we were in the neighborhood, I thought the best way to experience the Golden Gate Bridge and view of the city was to take the ladies to the Marin Headlands. There are many beautiful views and photo ops. Lots of fun. You have a gorgeous view of the bay, the city and the bridge. Plus four wacky women. Excuse my expression. I don’t know how to jump gracefully and beautifully. Tyra would send me home for not photographing well. That is why I get behind the camera and not in front of it.

Theresa wants you all to know that she really can jump high, but in that picture (which was the best one of me jumping) she doesn’t really show how good a jumper she can be.

So here she is. This is the lady that does Blogs for Photogs. SHE JUMPS

Connie jumps too. Somehow a small child got stuck to her leg while she was jumping. It was very difficult to carry him around in her leg the rest of the day.

I also want to make a quick disclaimer before other photographers look at these photos and tell me to clean my sensor. I am quite aware my sensor is dirty and needs cleaning. I am also quite aware that I should have used the patch tool to remove them. Thank you for noticing in advance.

Here are a few more.

Another Connie photo that she gave me permission to use. Obviously *I* didn’t take it!

If they were a band they could use this on a CD cover

Ok, so for the two people left reading my blog because I know I have probably lost everyone else by now, let’s move on. I had to take the girls down Lombard street, as cheesy as it is. I wanted to show them the world’s most crooked street and it was near the Buena Vista anyway.

The Buena Vista. Oh my. How can you not go there? I go there every chance I get when in the city. World FAMOUS Irish Coffees. Yum. Terrilyn doesn’t do coffee so Theresa had hers. Connie politely sipped hers. Theresa and I knocked down Terrilyn’s and a few more.

Theresa took this photo. I am using it with her written permission. Very important to get permission and not steal images from other photographers.

Now doesn’t that look refreshing and tasty? Since we were feeling good from those drinks, we walked around the area and checked out the cable cars and did a little shopping for the families. Here are my Rice A Roni ladies enjoying an authentic cable car. They had it all to themselves.

Are you still with me? Should I break this up into part 2? Hmmmmm. To be continued I guess………….

Should be thanking me for all my patronage. I have invested quite a bit in Apple products the past year or so. I have purchased a MacBook Pro notebook, cinema display monitor, software, external hard drive, ipod accessories and of course an Iphone. Well, how about two iphones? There is nothing more hilarious than going to a workshop of other photographers and seeing everyone playing on their Iphones. You could always spot a true Iphoneaholic. My biggest fear was realized today. Don’t continue reading this if you gross out easily. My iphone which always sits in my back pocket of my skinny jeans (those low waisted show your crack at every opportunity whether you want to or not) fell out of the back pocket as I was getting up from the—um–well–you know—commode and fell in with a loud kerplunk. I cried out in agony “NOT AGAIN!” as when I was pregnant with my second child over 7 years ago I did the same thing to a Nextel. At least back then it was my company’s phone and they replaced it at no cost to me. This, however was MY beloved Iphone. The greatest thing invented since sliced bread–I adore my Iphone. I worshipped my Iphone–it made me spiritual and giddy while I surfed the net and texted and did everything imaginable on it. It did everything for me and there it lay in a pool of water and other unmentionable liquid as I fished it out as fast as possible. I cleaned it as best as I could. It still worked! Part of me was ecstatic and the other part of me grossed out that it had been swimming in the potty which held my potty. It kept giving me a message saying that something was not functioning correctly and did I want to turn on the airport mode–WHAT?–no way–I drove to the AT and T store and embarrassingly mumbled to the employee that I needed a new iphone. Why? “Cause it fell in the toilet” I mumbled. It what? ” IT FELL IN THE TOILET” I said clearly. The employee’s eyes grew wide and she stepped back as if my spoiled phone was going to infect her with some disease. I felt like George Costanza trying to return his $100 book that they wouldn’t take back because it had been in the bathroom. I was instructed to go to the Apple store where they could try and repair it. I jumped into my car and headed over to the Apple store. The place that has taken so much of my money this past year. At least the employees are nice and sympathetic over there. They told me to make an appointment with the Genius Bar for tomorrow and they will swap my phone for another for ONLY $249. Why is that? Cause they take your phone and give you a refurbished one. Great. So you are going to take my phone that fell into the toilet and fix it to give to someone else and for $249 I can get another refurbished Iphone that has probably also been dropped in the toilet and most likely in a toilet full of #$%$%#$? No thank you. Please show me where the brand new Iphones are. By now my current Iphone is going schiztoid and not even working correctly. So, now I have a brand new Iphone. Here I was so happy I paid less for my phone when Apple lowered the prices and now….well now I have paid what the original folks paid to get the Iphone when it first came out. Brilliant. All you Apple shareholders….YOU ARE WELCOME!!!!!

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