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One half hour after sunset, the bridge from the parking lot at the end of Langdon Court makes a great shot any day of the year. The worst weather San Francisco can offer doesn't really ruin this picture. You can fine-tune your white balance to trade between a blue sky and a red bridge. Since the sky is lit by natural light and the bridge and ocean below it are lit by some form of incandescent lighting, you'll need to make artistic decisions about color. Apply additional color control to the bridge using a lens filter or selective color adjustment of the resulting image in software such as Photoshop. This is an excellent subject for white-balance bracketing, as it is difficult to evaluate color accurately on the small LCD display of a digital camera. As a starting point, note that a tungsten white balance (or tungsten film) on a clear night will result in an accurate bridge color but a sky that is way too blue for most tastes. In framing this photo, be conscious of the weeds and wild fennel that will try to enter the bottom right edge of the photo. You can decide whether to include them or not, but you may not notice them through a viewfinder in the dark.

The photo above used Daylight white balance. The one below used a setting partway between daylight and tungsten. The upper photo was taken slightly closer to the parking lot, allowing some foliage to block the construction lighting that appears in the the bottom right of the image below.

One should always exercise caution regarding strangers in dark secluded areas. With that in mind, I have had several nervous moments in this parking lot where the suspicious behavior of the stranger turned out to be merely cases of cruising by single young men with romantic intent or similar. Nevertheless their level of enthusiasm was unwelcome and could even be construed as aggressive.

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From San Francisco, take the last San Francisco northbound exit off Highway 101, just before the bridge. The exit sign reads "Golden Gate National Recreation Area View Area". At the stop sign turn right (Vista Access Road) and then in 150 feet another right at the next stop sign, Lincoln Blvd. Follow Lincoln Blvd for .26 miles (past the stop sign at Merchant Road) and turn right on Langdon Court. Follow Langdon Ct. through the paved parking lot and then around the left side of the old military structure to a gravel parking lot. This photo was taken from the northwest corner of the parking lot. The edge of the parking lot is no more than 20 feet from the top of the steep slope down to Baker Beach. Be careful not to fall off the edge in the dark.

Traveling southbound, proceed through the far right toll lane #1 (west side). Take an immediate right exiting Highway 101. Continue through the stop sign on Merchant Road. At the next stop sign turn right on Lincoln Blvd and an immediate right onto Langdon Court and continue as described above.

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