Orinda Theater-Texting Under the Full Moon

Buy Print on SmugMug

Get Snapseed for Half Price

It wasn’t long ago that I wrote about Snapseed,  my favorite iPhone photo processing software and how it’s also available as a stand-alone for Mac and Windows desktops.  Well, right now Nik Software is selling Snapseed for half price, $9.99!  I was notified by Nik today about that and they didn’t say how long it will be at that price so this is a great time to get this wonderful software!  I first learned about it as an iPhone app and I still use that app every day.

Orinda Theater

The Orinda theater has always been sort of an iconic image for me going back to my childhood in the 1950′s when making the journey from Berkeley to my Great Aunt’s Walnut Orchard in Walnut Creek.  Highway 24 was a two lane road then and there was literally nothing in Walnut Creek.  No Nordstom or Tiffany’s.. no Broadway Plaza.   After passing through the Caldecott tunnel I always remember passing by the Orinda Theater on the way to those family picnics in Walnut Creek. Her old farmhouse is still standing at the corner of Wiget Lane and Walnut Avenue but the walnut orchards where we would ride the horse & buggy and my grandfather would take me out shooting a 22 rifle are long gone to the surrounding subdivisions.

Back in the day, when I got started in photography in the 70′s, I was shooting film out of an Olympus OM-1.  One of my first subjects then was the Orinda theater.  I think I may still have those prints but they haven’t seen the light of day for many years.  Recently I’ve had a yearning to go back and shoot this great building.  Another concurrent project is shooting the full moon.  On Wednesday evening I got both.

Planning full moon shots is easy with another iPhone app called TPE (The Photographer’s Ephemeris). It’s really cool in that it shows the paths of the rising and setting sun & moon laid over a google map.  This allows me to pre-plan shots where I want to include either of them in my shot.  I was checking out the app this month to see where the full moon would be rising and when I checked the Orinda theater location it lined up PERFECTLY with the shot I have had in my head.  It gets even better.

There were two young couples who had just finished visiting Rokko, the bartender across the street at Casa Orinda.  They saw me with my tripod and camera and excitedly ask me if I would take their picture.  Sure!  I had them sit on the edge of the fountain and they got their phones out.  The light from the screen, I noticed, lit their faces nicely so I told them to just sit their and do their texting thing with the phones while I took this shot .  Pretty cool huh?  In all it was a pretty magical evening for everybody.