Golden Gate Bridge. San Francisco, CA.

There's an odd story behind this photo. After I met up with some friends in the city, I realized I was pretty close to the bridge, and who doesn't love any open opportunity to shoot it (shot it before here and here), right? Only issue was that it was after midnight. I drove down to Fort Baker and walked down to the Horseshoe Bay area. It was too quiet. Uncomfortably so. My intuition was telling me to just head home; something wasn't feeling right.

Regardless, off I went onto a pier to take this shot. It was pitch black, and had forgotten to bring my flashlight. As I was setting up, I heard some noises from behind me - I turned around and saw the figures of three guys walking towards me.

Well, the camera's as good as gone; let's just hope they don't kill me, I thought. Again, it's the middle of the night, you can't see anything, waves crashing (the ocean at night scares me), and here I am with expensive equipment with three guys triangulating towards me.

Turns out - they were fishermen. They admitted they were actually scared of me, thinking my tripod was a shotgun. They were also drunk. "Have a beer with us." I declined. "No - you are having a beer with us." Couldn't say no to that.

So that's how the night went. For a few hours, I had beers with fishermen as we all told stories of our past, with this lovely sight in front of me. Typing that out, it has a romanticizing ting to it, but it was actually creepy as hell. I wasn't able to shoot as much as I wanted (just got a few frames), but still - a good memory, I suppose, and happy I got the shot I wanted.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/14, 30s, ISO 640, EF 17-40mm f/4L at 17mm