Jasooralmadinah Travels&Tours: Best Places to Photograph the Golden Gate Bridge

Sunday 5 April 2015

Best Places to Photograph the Golden Gate Bridge

This was my experience in San Francisco, and below is some information on the different locations I photographed.

Best Places to Photograph the Golden Gate Bridge

Though I obviously didn’t have time to go everywhere to photograph the bridge, I think I did find the 3 best places to do so. I didn’t get the classic fog on any of my shoots, and got fairly average light on 2 of my shoots, but the bridge and landscape surrounding it makes it fantastic no matter what.

Battery Spencer

This is likely the most typical postcard photo of the Golden Gate Bridge. The location atop an old military battery offers nice clean views of the bridge. It also gives you the opportunity to put the San Francisco skyline in the back of your Golden Gate Bridge photos. From what I saw, this was the favourite spot for tourists to come and get that classic image of the bridge and city.

There is only a very minimal amount of parking available up near the battery, so you might need to be patient when coming here. There actually weren’t a lot of photographers up shooting with us, but there was a constant stream of tourists. Anyways, here are a couple of the photos from this viewpoint.

Presidio Park

Presidio Park is essentially on the opposite side of the bay from Battery Spencer. The views are fairly similar except for the fact that you have a nice green backdrop to the images of the Golden Gate Bridge from here rather than the city light as is the case from the other side. I actually preferred photographing this side to Battery Spencer because there were far more compositions available for photos here. There were nice rocks down on the beaches below, you could shoot straight onto the bridge, and I even found a couple giant Cedar trees that I used to frame the bridge within.

Here are a couple of images I took from Presidio Park:

MacKenzie Beach

On the day I left San Francisco, I got up before 5am and headed to MacKenzie Beach. I had actually spotted this beach the day before and it looked like a fantastic place to get a different perspective of the bridge. I was right. Hiking down to the beach gives a sense of nature in the foreground of the bridge. I even managed to get a couple photos where there are stars visible over the Golden Gate Bridge.

It was a bit tricky getting down here in the dark, and would likely photograph better at sunset rather than sunrise, but this was easily my favourite location to photograph the bridge. The rocks and beach make great anchors to the photos. Unfortunately, the light I got on the morning of my visit to MacKenzie Beach was fairly average. However, I still managed to get a couple cool images.

Other places to Shoot the Bridge

Here are a couple other places that you could photograph the Golden Gate Bridge. However, I didn’t photograph these locations. But, if you have more time than I did and you want to shoot as many location as possible, you could add these to your list.

Fisherman’s Wharf

Down at the wharf, there are a couple places that might be interesting to photograph the bridge. It’s a bit off in the distance, but using things like the piers and sea breakers might make for some interesting images.

Marin Headlands

This location is above Battery Spencer and is a favourite spot for photographers to capture the bridge when there is low fog. Had there been fog, this is exactly where I would have headed.

The Bridge Itself

Of course, you can go onto the bridge itself. From there, you’re going to have to contend with traffic, but there are certainly some opportunities to create interesting images there as well.