A trip into San Francisco to meet a friend for dinner on Saturday brought me into the neighborhood of the landmark Transamerica building, and I seized the opportunity to snap a night picture.

Since I didn't have my pocket tripod handy, I used a short stack of quarters to prop my Canon S200 up on the ground with just a little bit of tilt for a series of time-delayed long exposures. Following is a brightened version of a 4 second exposure that, in hindsight, could have been longer, as I only ended up using the bottom half of the CCD's dynamic range. In the upper-right is an unavoidable bit of tree that worked its way into the shot.

The building itself is certainly remarkable, and its iconic pyramidal shape provides a neat exaggeration of perspective that lends the illusion of extra height as you look up from the base to see it seem to vanish to infinity. I very much enjoyed the opportunity to stand there and admire this piece of human achievement for a few moments. What a magnificent marriage of engineering, art, and commerce.