Beautiful colors adorn the handicapped ramp at San Francisco city hall. It is probably one of the best looking disabled access areas in San Francisco. When you come here for the first time and see the railing, you think it is part of the décor. You would never think that it was actually installed to be a disabled person's ramp. The nice thing about San Francisco City Hall is that as they have updated it, they have taken great pains to keep the vintage look. They matched the current colors and style of the old time architecture from 1918 when wheel chair access was required. The Gold railing has become one of our favorite places to bring our newlyweds during our building photo tour.
There is quite a bit you can do with the colors and depth provided. In the image above, we photographed our couple looking down the rail and used selective focus to blur the foreground and background. This has the effect of really focusing your eye on the main subject, our bride and groom! This type of effect is used quite often in portrait photography because as a viewer, you mainly want to see the main subject and do not want to be distracted by a prominent background. However, San Francisco City Hall is a bit different because of the focus on beautiful architecture. This architecture and background has to be included in the wedding photos. We want to provide our clients with a little bit of both. Some close up shots with blurred backgrounds and some wide angle images that display the amazing backgrounds throughout this historic building.
The photo below was captured differently. For this image we used a wide angle lens that keeps most everything in focus. We were trying for a natural look and basically what you would see if you were standing there watching them pose. We gave the groom some quick instructions on how to dip the bride without losing her and we managed to create a great shot. Notice the groom's leg position which ensures he has good balance and is able to easily hold the bride in place for this nice photo. The next photo down is also more in focus than the main image and was meant to show detail in the railing, but without taking away from the couple. All of the wedding photography examples below utilize the gold handicapped rail in some way. It really provides a nice natural frame for our San Francisco city hall wedding photography. This location also happens to be a more private spot that not too many wedding photographers utilize. This leaves it just for us and our newlyweds! It is rare to find spots in SF city hall without too much foot traffic. This happens to be one them and certainly beautiful and unique. We are always finding new places to take our newlyweds for pictures at this historic building. The fun thing is when we find a new angle or background that we have never seen before on other City Hall Websites.
