Backstory: How I Backed Off and Made Better Portraits

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Tim Porter

When I first started making portraits of people, everything I shot was tightly framed. It was all about the face. I came in close and measured my success by the details I could see. The more pores the better as far as I was concerned.

Some shrink, I’m sure, could attribute my desire to fill the frame with face to some unaddressed childhood need or perhaps a lack of adult intimacy, but it probably had more to do with the Yousuf Karsh portraits I saw in school and my desire to replicate those (not that I ever did).

Today, as much as the face still fascinates (and as much as I still want to focus on follicles), I’ve backed off. Now, I’m looking more for context than closeness. I want shape, posture and attitude more than detail.

Some of that change in approach came from maturing as a photographer, but much of it also comes from the assignments I have. Frequently, I find myself making a portrait of a person simply standing or sitting somewhere and I need to use the environment around him or her to create an image that is striking, or at least has some snap. Also, many art directors want openness (or negative space) in the frame so they have the option to overlay type in that area.

Because I rarely have any control over the location or the timing of the shot, which means I’m often having to make something interesting under either muddy skies or full sun, I’ve become attached to using a single strobe to isolate the person from the background.

These images of Chuck Collins, CEO of the YMCA of San Francisco, illustrate what I mean. Marin Magazine asked me to photograph Chuck and I met him on a moist, gray December morning at the YMCA’s facility in the Marin Headlands.

I arrived early and looked over the place. It was bleak. Empty buildings. No kids. Windswept grounds. The vacant basketball court had appeal, though, as did a small empty amphitheatre with low, wooden seats. Both had strong vertical structures (the hoop and the flagpole) I could use.

Chuck helped, too. A good-looking easy-going guy, he gave me enough time to adjust the light several times and even helped me lug the battery pack from the basketball court to the amphitheatre.

I liked the results, which you can see in the images on this page (bigger versions below). The magazine, as it often does, chose a different frame, but that’s why they pay me – to give them choices.

You can see more of my photographs of interesting people at photography.timporter.com or here.

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On the Job: The New Supervisor

Posted on October 13, 2014 by Tim Porter

Damon Connolly, a San Rafael attorney, is the newest Marin County supervisor. I photographed him recently for Marin Magazine inside the county’s distinctive Frank LLoyd Wright-designed Civic Center.

I’ve photographed several local politicians inside the building (here’s Rep. Jared Huffman) and each time I try to use differently the variety of shapes and shadows it contains. Before Connolly arrived, I’d decided I was going to use only one light and work with the darkness as much as I could.

I also knew the type of photograph the magazine prefers — something not too dramatic, rich in color and vertical (to fit the page format). I wanted something more stark.

The day was warm and the Civic Center, because of its glass ceiling, holds heat. Connolly was also wearing a dark suit. I worked fast, first making “my” photos, shooting into the afternoon light and keeping Connolly in the shade. Many, such as the horizontal below, I thought would work for the magazine.

After a few minutes, I changed directions and asked Connolly to sit on a circular bench in the middle of the corridor and using the same strobe (this time positioned more full on to soften its effect) made a series of verticals that I thought the magazine would prefer.

I was right.

Here’s the image the magazine chose:

And here’s how the art director used it:

My choice — the top image on this page — was one of several I took while Connolly and I were still talking and before he started posing. In post, I converted it to black and white and bumped up the contrast. The picture is a simple one, a man alone in a corridor, and, for me, the gray tones emphasize the simplicity.

On the Job: Filmmakers

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Tim Porter

Donna LoCicero, Robert Campos, Three Still Standing

Photographers like alleys in the same irrational way that cats like empty boxes. We can’t pass one up. So, of course, I was purring with excitement when San Francisco filmmakers Donna LoCicero and Robert Campos told me they lived in a South of Market alley.

I was photographing them for Marin Magazine in connection with their film, 3 Still Standing, a documentary about three comedians — Will Durst, Johnny Steele and Larry “Bubbles” Brown — who were contemporaries of Robin Williams and Dana Carvey but never achieved the success the latter two did. The film is opening at the Mill Valley Film Festival.

As I parked down the block from their home (parking in Soma!!!) I was already looking for places to make the picture, but LoCicero and Campos — being both visual pros and busy people — already had scoped their neighborhood. The next alley over, they said, had a couple of options, one dark and one lighter.

We schlepped the gear — one light, a heavy battery and a C-stand — set up by a black corrugated wall, shot for while and then moved up the street in front of the yellow wall you see above. Couldn’t have been easier — pre-selected backgrounds, subjects who schlep and two people with a good sense of humor.

In 30 minutes, we were done.

The magazine used the shot below against the black wall. I like the yellow one above a bit more. The vertical (in the slideshow) is a behind-the-scenes snap for those of you who like to see that thing.

Donna Lo Cicero, Robert Campos, 3 Still Standing

On the Job: Arrested

Posted on July 18, 2014 by Tim Porter

A few months ago, I interviewed and photographed a cheery, avuncular, 70-year-old doctor named James Simon (below) who was the flight surgeon at a small airfield in Marin, Gnoss Field in Novato.

Today, Dr. Simon found himself on the front page of the local paper, the Marin Independent Journal, as the lead character in a tale of what police said was road rage gone bad.

Simon was arrested after allegedly shooting a man who had followed him and his wife home in Corte Madera after some sort of altercation on Paradise Drive, a two-lane, tree-lined road that leads to some of Marin’s tonier homes..

The victim, whose name was not released, apparently tried to drive into the Simon’s garage as he was closing the door. According to police, Simon went in his home, returned with a .357 magnum, fired a warning shot into the air and then two bullets into the victim’s abdomen.

The victim survived, Simon was arrested and we await the story behind the story.

Corte Madera Mayor Michael Lappert, a reserve cop and one of the first officers on the scene (and coincidentally a one-time patient of Simon’s), summed it up:

“It’s a bad thing all around. If there’s anything to learn from this, it’s that road rage can only have a bad ending.”

(Here’s the Marin Magazine piece I did on Simon).

On the Job: Gavin Newsom, the Light and the Dark

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Tim Porter

I recently photographed Gavin Newsom for Marin Magazine and took advantage of the opportunity to make some images for myself after I’d gotten what I thought the magazine needed.

Newsom, the current lieutenant governor of California and a former mayor of San Francisco, was pushing his book, Citizenville. I’ve photographed him before at several public events and he is photogenic and very camera aware so it is difficult to capture him even momentarily out of character.

During the interview with writer Stephanie Martin in a bright corner of Murray Circle, the restaurant at Cavallo Point in Sausalito, I used the strong daylight streaming through a pair of large windows and the rich warmth of the walls. Those are the images the magazine used and you can see them below in the slide show or on the pages of the article. The color was so intense I had to take out quite a bit of the yellow.

For myself, though, I wanted something darker, so in the five minutes I had with Newsom between the end of the interview and his departure I photographed him with the harsher light of a single oct0box hung over his head. Later, I converted one of my favorite frames into black and white, which you see above. The other black-and-shot shot (below) was lit with the window light and I think it works better in monotone than in color.

Ever since returning from the Mary Ellen Mark workshop in February, I’ve been working more with black and white conversions and very much liking the effect. As much as I love the excitement color can bring to an image, I feel that it can also distract from the subject.

With Newsom, a man who knows he is working the camera, black-and-white seemed to penetrate his shell a little deeper. What do you think?

An aside: Last year, I photographed Newsom’s wife, Jennifer, in my studio. Here’s a video of me doing the shoot.

Gavin Newson, lieutenant governor of California

On the Job: America’s Cup

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Tim Porter

John Kostecki, America's Cup

John Kostecki is the brains behind the boat. As the tactician for Larry Ellison’s 2013 America’s Cup team, the 48-year-old world champion sailor is the guy who will be plotting the course when the team’s 72-foot catamaran races this summer on San Francisco Bay.

I photographed Kostecki at Oracle Team USA’s headquarters off lower Third Street in San Francisco. When Kostecki told me to meet him at the team “shed,” I envisioned some shanty-like building sitting dockside along the water. Wrong. The “shed” is massive warehouse on Pier 80 whose size dwarfs the 44-foot hulls of the catamarans team used last summer for preliminary races.

As I usually do, I had little time to make a picture, and went with one light and a wide lens. I wanted to highlight Kostecki, of course, but also show the spaciousness of the shed.

Here’s the interview by Stephanie Martin of Kostecki in Marin Magazine.

On the Job: Cleaning Up Your Mess

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Tim Porter

Conservation Corps North Bay, CCNB, picking up litter on U.S. Highway 101

Many of us are pigs. Sadly. We toss our plastic bottles, takeout containers and other trash out of our cars, inconsiderate of the environmental damage it does, the aesthetic blight it causes and the cost to to clean it up.

I spent some time walking a section of U.S. Highway 101 in Marin County with a crew from the Conservation Corps North Bay (CCNB) for a story in Marin Magazine about how, even in the wealthiest of the Bay Area’s counties, motorists use public roadways as their private dumping grounds.

The CCNB crews consist of young men and women who were born into challenging lives and, with the help of the Corps and the sweat of their brows, are turning them around.

Next time you’re about to dump your double-decaf-mocha-grande cup out of the car window, think about who has to clean up your mess.

On the Job: Brenda Chapman, Oscar Winner

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Tim Porter

Brenda Chapman, Brave

Brenda Chapman won an Oscar for co-directing the animated feature “Brave,” but before she did that she stopped by my studio a few months ago for an interview with Marin Magazine and a photo session.

She was delightful. As she talked with writer Mimi Towle, Brenda mugged for the camera, sketched some drawings on a large pad she’d brought with her and generally kept us all in laughter — mimicking, for example, her heroine’s (Merida) stance with a bow and arrow.

Merida, by the way, is based on Chapman’s 13-year-old daughter, Emma, a student at Mill Valley Middle School. She told the Marin Independent Journal in an article published today that when her daughter was younger …

“… She was so strong-willed, challenging me every step of the way. Honestly, I never did that to my mom. It was old school in my house growing up. But my daughter took over my life. I’d be going to work thinking about the morning I had with her. It evolved into channeling that energy into creating something positive around it.”

Congratulations to Brenda.

On the Job: Claudia Cowan, Fox News

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Tim Porter

Claudia Cowan, Fox News reporter The key to looking good in a photograph — aside from being biologically blessed with an attractive array of DNA — is being relaxed. That’s why I like pointing my camera at broadcasters and actors. They’re used to being in front the lens. They know how to hold themselves, how to smile and how to wait (which is important during a shoot because there always seems to be a lot waiting — for something technical, for the makeup, for everyone to say what they need to say.)

Nothing much phases them. Ordinary people — meaning you and I — get nervous when they wait or, say, there’s a computer glitch (which happens regularly these days with tethered shooting). Oh, oh, they think, the photographer’s having a problem and I’m going to look terrible.

That doesn’t happen with pros like Claudia Cowan, Fox News’ San Francisco reporter. I photographed her for a Q&A with Marin Magazine (here’s the story). She brought a couple of dresses, several hats and the other important thing for this kind of glammy photo with a lot of lights — a makeup artist, a good one like Christina Flach.

Christina and I worked together once before — only that time it was more personal. I photographed her husband, ex-tennis pro Ken Flach, who hung up his racket to open a barbecue joint, Best Lil’ Porkhouse in San Rafael.

My work is small time compared to much of what Christina does — TV ads, print campaigns, etc. — so she was as cool as Claudia, which makes my job pretty easy. All I need to do is get the lights right, make sure the cords are connected and push a shutter button a hundred times or so.

Working with pros makes me look even more professional.

(See Claudia and Christina together in the gallery photos below).

On The Job: Christmas Lights

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Tim Porter

Christmas lights

I love Christmas lights. What’s outside a house during the holidays says a lot about who’s inside. Are they garish? Tasteful? Excessive? Subdued? Artistic? Do their lights have a message? Something religious, something commercial or maybe just: “Peace.”

Last December I photographed dozens of homes, houseboats, trees and yards in Marin County festooned with lights, mechanical Santas and inflated snowmen. Some, such as the single peace sign on a driveway gate, made me wistful. Others, such at the Mill Valley home above, made me marvel at the creativity of its decorators. And a few, such as a Mill Valley waterfront home ablaze with thousands of lights (see the slideshow) made me wonder about sanity of the people who lived there. (They turned out to be a wonderful older couple — here’s their story.)

Marin Magazine collected a dozen or so of the shots and ran them in the December issue. Here’s the layout.

Merry Christmas, all.

On the Job: Children of the Canal

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Tim Porter

Monica Rivera, Canal Alliance

Immigration is not an abstraction. Beyond the policy debate and political posturing are real people who make their way to the United States in search of opportunity, their bodies ready to work, their minds intent on success and their hearts filled with dreams of better lives for their children.

Four years ago, I spoke with some of those children, boys and girls — sons and daughters of immigrants from Mexico and Central America — enrolled in a Canal Alliance education program about their future. Their stories and their pictures ran in Marin Magazine under the headline “Sueños de Niños,” dreams of children. Recently, I talked with six of them again, all young women now, some in high school, some in college, one already a mother. Their dreams have changed and so have they.

Here are their stories from 2012.

Here are their stories from 2008.

The photos below are from this year. Inset into each is the photo from 2008.

On the Job: The Survivor

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Tim Porter

On April 14 the Low Speed Chase, a 38-foot yacht named after the infamous televised police pursuit of O.J. Simpson, set off from San Francisco Bay for the Farallones Islands, a jagged outcropping of rock 27 miles out in the Pacific, as part of the annual Full Crew Farallones Race, an and out-and-back competition known to test the skills of even the most experienced sailors.

Eight souls were aboard the Low Speed Chase. Three returned to shore alive. The death of the other five crew members — one of the worse U.S. yachting tragedies — and the confluence of massive seas and miniscule course miscalculations that led to the foundering of the Low Speed Chase is well documented. (See a video of ocean conditions at the time). What was originally missing were the personal stories of those who survived, plucked from the sea and the shoals of the Farallones to sail another day.

That gap was filled in part by Bryan Chong, one of the three survivors. The 38-year-old Tiburon father and tech company vice president first told his story to Latitude 38, the voice of the Bay Area yachting community, and later, more extensively, to writer Jennifer Woodlief, an investigative sports reporter, author and former Sports Illustrated scribe.

Woodlief, who also lives in Tiburon, used Chong’s account at the heart of her 6,000-word accounting of the tragedy, which Marin Magazine published in two parts in its October and November 2012 issues. (Part 1, Part 2).

I acted as photo editor on the story, getting shots made by San Francisco Chronicle photographer Brant Ward from Polaris, by the U.S. Coast Guard and by Sophie Webb, a Farallones researcher who was on the island and witnessed the Coast Guard Rescue of the survivors.

I also photographed Chong on a gray, damp August morning at the San Francisco Yacht Club in Belvedere, making the photo you see here. Woodlief, who was very pregnant at the time with her fourth child, wrangled a light-stand for me as we all stood on the wobbly dock.
In the 30 minutes we were together, Chong was relaxed and at ease. We didn’t talk about crash. I didn’t ask him what thoughts were in his head when he was in awash in the ocean. Woodlief did, though, and here is part of her account:

“Bryan experience the the helpless sensation of losing his breath while accidentally swallowing mouthfuls of water. He thought about giving up, he thought about his wife and baby son. … Time after time Bryan pulled himself up to safety just as waves pitched over him and hurled him backward, locking him underwater. ‘It was so steep and the waves kept hitting me,’ he says. ‘It was a constant struggle to get on the rocks.’

Read the whole story.

On the Job: Red, White & Blue

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Tim Porter

I just voted and am feeling more American than usual. To spread the democratic spirit — and to inspire your apathetic keister up off the couch if hasn’t voted yet — I offer this collection of stars and stripes, which I shot for Marin Magazine for its July issue.

You may be surprised, as I was, by how widely the flag is displayed here in one of the nation’s most notoriously liberal counties, although truthfully its does fly more frequently in the cul-de-sacs of surburban Novato and than in redwood canyons of hipster Mill Valley.

Flags are symbols, interpreted differently by each of us. For some the American flag signifies liberty, for others oppression. Four years ago, Barack Obama used its colors to communicate hope. This election, Mitt Romney wrapped his opposition in it.

In its earliest iterations the American flag represented individual freedom and collective self-determination. Freedom is now a politically charged word, hijacked by conservatives who wield it as a cudgel against those who question their values and sneered at by liberals who dismiss it as the refuge of small minds.

On this day, when we vote, something so many of the world’s people can’t do in a meaningful way, let’s embrace the flag as a symbol of opportunity — to make a choice, to live as we please, to speak our minds — something I hope we can all agree upon.

On the Job: The Lemonade Girl

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Tim Porter

Vivienne Harr, lemonade stand

Now that we’re one day shy of the first day of Fall, I’m getting around to sharing some of the photos I made this Summer — and this is one of my favorites: Vivienne Harr, an 8-year-old Fairfax girl who set up a lemonade stand in a local park and with the help of her social media savvy dad, Eric Harr, has raised more than $30,000 (and counting) to combat child slavery.

Vivienne has drawn plenty of media attention. She’s as cute as they come, her organic mint-infused lemonade is tart and tasty, and her story is a compelling one: A photograph of two Nepalese children carrying heavy slabs of rock, taken by Marin photographer Lisa Kristine in her book Slavery, inspired young Vivienne to do something. She launched a web site (makeastandlemonade.com), opened her stand in Doc Edgar Park in Fairfax and set a goal of taking in $150,000 to be donated to Not For Sale, a anti-slavery organization. (How terrible is it that as this point of human history there is even a need for an “anti-slavery” group?)

Vivienne is still out there at the park in Fairfax if you want to donate (or you can skip the lemonade and use your credit card on her web site.) Or, connect with her on Twitter or Facebook.

One of the shots I made ran with this short feature in Marin Magazine.

On the Job: The Stand-in

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Tim Porter

Nate Seltenrich, Oakland writer, inside Terrapin Crossroads

Hey, Tim, I’m often asked, what’s the secret to killer lighting? (Really, it happens all the time).

They’re thinking I’m going to say expensive Swedish strobes (got ’em) or compact, go-anywhere Nikon speedlights (got those, too) or even a hand-painted, Avedonish backdrop like Annie uses (don’t have that).

John Truong, photographer, in front of the Lark Theater

Wrong. Wrong. And wronger.

What I tell them is this: The secret to killer lighting is a stand-in — someone to be in front of the camera while you fiddle with the power or feather the softbox or pile sandbags on the stands because you’re doing an outdoor shoot in gale-force winds.

Sometimes the stand-in can be an assistant, someone you’re actually paying, such as photographer John Truong, left, posing with the Lark Theater behind him in preparation for a shot of the movie-house’s owner (here’s the final shot).

Other times the stand-in might be a writer you’re on assignment with, such as Nate Seltenrich of Oakland, above, who occupied the velvet couch for me inside Terrapin Crossroads in San Rafael while we waited for Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh and his wife, Jill. (Writers are generally less thrilled about standing in than assistants.)

Oftentimes, the stand-in might be a somewhat reluctant PR person (whom I won’t show for fear of losing future favor) or and even more reluctant spouse (ditto).

Who the stand-in is really doesn’t matter as long as they have the patience to hang in there until you get the lighting just right — that is, killer — so when the actual subject shows up (often someone with no patience whatsoever) you can make his or her picture straight off just like the professional you are.

On the Job: Bernice Baeza: 1943-2012

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Tim Porter

Bernice Baeza, photographed in April 2011 outside the Lark Theater in Larkspur for Marin Magazine.

Bernice Baeza was sticky, meaning you only had to meet her for a few minutes, like I did, and she’d stick in your mind for long time.

At least that’s how she was for me. I photographed Bernice in April 2011 outside the Lark Theater in Larkspur for Marin Magazine. The magazine was writing about her successful resurrection of the moribund movie-house into a thriving community center that not only showed first-run and classic movies, but filled its seats with Oscar parties, simulcasts of opera and London theater and a long list of other events. When we met, she had just undertaken a similar project with a shuttered movie theater in Novato.

Bernice died on July 21, of lung cancer, the paper said. Nothing could have surprised me more. Was she sick when I made this photograph? She certainly didn’t seem so — although a disease as relentlessly deadly as lung cancer surely had to have been at work in the background then.

My first impression of her on the April evening was how un-Marin she was. The way she stood, solid and occupying her ground. The way she spoke, gently but directly. The way she dressed, dark even on this warm Spring night. All said New York, not Marin.

We chatted as I fussed with the lights and waited for the sky to darken so I could get the colorful neon of the Lark just right in the background, and I learned she was indeed a New Yorker. I told her a story about incident in my misspent youth when I rolled a car on the thruway near her birthplace of Nyack. She smiled knowingly and I thought we had a bond.

But maybe not. Maybe that’s just how she made everyone feel, welcome and worthy. Whatever it was, she stuck. I wish I had known her better. (Her family is maintaining her Facebook page.)

On the Job: San Rafael Pacifics

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Tim Porter

Bud E. Luv sings the national anthem at Opening Day for the San Rafael Pacifics.

The San Rafael Pacifics, an independent minor league baseball team, played its first game last night. I was on hand at Albert Park in downtown San Rafael.

I needed a picture for Marin Magazine, but since it was for the August issue so I wanted something from the scene and not from the action — and there was plenty of both — a couple of home runs from the home team, a duck mascot (Sir Francis the Drake), seats on the field, kids and families galore and a kitschy character singing the national anthem, Bud E. Luv (above).

The idea to renovate the old ball park (which seats 800) and use it for a summer baseball league was controversial. Neighbors worried about traffic, noise and rowdy fans. My studio is a block from the stadium, so I understood their concerns.

Based on what I saw last night, though, those worries were baseless. Parking was easy, the crowd was chill and despite a few opening day glitches (announcer Will Durst bowing out at the last minute, for example) all was under control.

I recommend a visit. The baseball is fun, the stadium is beyond intimate and the dogs are as good as those at AT&T. Now I want to go back and shoot some baseball.

On the Job: A Painter

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Tim Porter

Greg Martin, Marin County painter and Marin Magazine cover contest winner

I had the opportunity this year to again photograph the winner of Marin Magazine’s annual cover contest. The winner, chosen from among more than 400 entries, was painter Greg Martin.

I photographed Greg in his studio, a basement space in his San Anselmo home. The studio is small, not more than than 10 x 20, and Greg is a big guy, what some would call a strapping lad. I squeezed a small strobe and umbrella against one wall, and let the light ricochet around the studio’s white walls and ceiling, producing a nice, soft look.

Greg’s artwork, which walks the line between whimsical and ethereal — a fun place to be — provided the backdrop. Later, I noticed he wore the same deep red Pelton’s Triumph T-shirt that he has in his bio photo for his website.

Greg was the main attraction at the magazine’s Open Studios’ party celebrating the finalists for the cover. Here are some snapshots of him and some of the others. He has a show up at Gallery Bergelli in Larkspur (the opening is tonight.)

I enjoy photographing artists, especially painters because their studios and their painting supplies fascinate me (although Greg’s was a bit too clean for my taste). Here’s my post from a year ago about photographing the 2011 cover contest winner and a collection of other artist portraits.

Visit your local Marin artist this weekend (May 12-13) during Marin Open Studios. I’m showing my newest work at The Image Flow, 401 Miller Ave., in Mill Valley, from 11-6.

On the Job: Marin’s Tweeps

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Tim Porter

Put 10 or 12 people in a dark coffee shop, add in a freelance writer, a magazine editor, a roomful of customers and a couple of homeless people in the back, and you’ve got a scene.

I show up with a big light, a step ladder and a lot of attitude, hoping I can herd all these cats in front of the camera long enough to make something to illustrate a story about Marin’s twitterati. Yep, this is a tweet-up and these are the tweeps of Marin.

I’d rather photograph 10 kids than 10 adults. The kids will pay attention to me, out of fear or curiosity or the simple habit of listening to adults, but the grown-ups won’t stay focused for more than 10 seconds at time. They chit-chat, they get bored, they fuss. And when you throw in the cell-phone-in-your-hand factor, they check email, texts and tweets.

That all means that this kind of shot is lot of fun. As I shot away using almost ridiculous exposures — 1 or 2 seconds to burn in the ambient light while hitting them with the strobe — there was lots of joking, which I pretended wasn’t directed at me. Hey, they were laughing with me, right?

The group shot was done in five minutes, but the editor also wanted some casual, non-posed shots, so I gathered several of the tweeps together in a “non-pose,” moved the light in above them, put the 17mm on the camera and encouraged them to act it up as I shot. They did. And I did. The result is the vertical shot you see here, which ran full page in Marin Magazine as a section opener.

Thanks to Mimi Towle (@mimitowle) for organizing it and the tweeps: Sally Kuhlman (@Sally_K), Sarah Houghton (@TheLib), Suzanna Stinnett (@Brainmaker), Maria Benet (@Alembic), Toni Carreiro (@toniCarr) and Marilyn LoRusso (@fun_master).

And I’m @timporterphoto.

On the Job: The Threat of Rising Seas

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Tim Porter

High tide already floods the bike path through Bothin Marsh in Mill Valley.

I wrote and photographed a piece for the current issue of Marin Magazine about the projected effects of climate change, most specifically sea-level rise, on Marin County.

Marin, like much of the San Francisco Bay Area and other parts of California, faces a wetter future. If current temperature and sea level trends continue through the century, routine tides could be as much as 55 inches higher than they are today and even higher during storm surges.

Imagine the affect of four-and-a-half feet more water on coastal communities such as Mill Valley, where today’s highest tides already flood city streets, marshes and recreation areas. The bike rider above is crossing Bothin Marsh between Mill Valley and Sausalito, which is already inundated several times a month by winter tides.

If what scientists predict comes to pass — and some form of it will despite all of today’s “green” mitigation efforts — rising seas are going to change the way we live and extract severe financial and social costs.

Here is the opening section. The rest is below the jump (or here online).

Rising Seas: Marin prepares for a wetter, warmer future

On the winter days when the monthly tides are highest, you can stand on the narrow, asphalt ribbon of the bike path that traverses Bothin Marsh in Mill Valley and watch the water of Richardson Bay climb over the man-made banks and rise slowly, inexorably, until its cold wetness reaches your shins. You are no longer on dry land. You are in the middle of the bay.

Flash forward to the year 2100. The earth has had 88 more years to warm up, and the seas have been rising a little more every year. Your grandkids stand in that same place on the marsh and wait for high tide. When it comes, the water flows over their heads.

That’s climate change. That’s the threat Marin County faces — higher seas, bigger tides and stronger waves that could drown the marshlands of Mill Valley and Novato, flood neighborhoods built on reclaimed land in Tam Valley, Santa Venetia and Hamilton, and erode the coastal bluffs of Bolinas.

The mess that rising seas could make of Marin is but a small part of the larger challenge climate change presents to the planet. But this story is not about the global effort to regulate carbon emissions, not about the national yammering of politicians, preachers and scientific professionals about why the earth is warming (is it man, is it nature, is it a vengeful God delivering payback for our profligate ways?), and not about whether the earth is in fact getting warmer. The mercury is rising and the oceans along with it.

This story is about Marin County and how a lot of people here are trying to make sure that come the day when the waters of San Francisco Bay — which have already risen 8 inches in the last century — are lapping at the doorsteps of homes and businesses now hundreds of feet from shore, that the inhabitants of that warmer, wetter future do not ask of our generation: Why didn’t they do something?

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