San Francisco features this incredibly rapid transition from enormous, modernist towers to older, mostly wooden structures. This transition seems to be located, at least partially, along the divides between the flat portions of the city and the truly, insanely steep bits. Today’s photograph shows the full gradient between the two zones. I particularly like the two tiny figures, sitting on the steps, in the bottom right corner of the image. This tiny detail provides a little bit of a human element to an otherwise dehumanizing scale. They seem to be silent observers, casually taking in the flow of traffic as the sun’s last photons scatter through the atmosphere.
Author: adohertyh
Almost Rivendell
UBC’s Green College (shown here from another angle) is almost 100 years old, but when you’re inside it, the passage of time seems to stop. The heavy, wooden columns and beams seem to have been there forever. The trees are enormous, and enigmatic towers and cottages dot the interior, like the buildings of some alternate-reality castle.
Rural Electrification
The empty, remote bits of Vermont have a strangely sinister feeling as the first rumbles of thunder pass overhead and the sky turns that almost-yellow color. The whole world is empty, with not a trace of humans but for a gravel road and the lonely power lines. In a way, it’s astonishing that power is supplied to so much of the country this way.
Pool Bar
After the Grass Harvest
This bucolic hillside in Corvallis, OR is a special sight. In the rolling heartland of the state, the grass seed harvest happens for only a couple of weeks out of the whole year. I’ve previously posted other shots from the broad hills and valleys of this area, but I particularly like the interplay between the orange of the sky and the pink of the clouds as sunset creeps in.
An Atavistic Collection
This weekend, I finally conquered a serious challenge: organizing my ancient photo collection. As I went through it, I found some photographs from almost a decade ago. Unfortunately, they weren’t taken with a DSLR, but I’m presenting them here as a taste of compositions, colors, and places that aren’t otherwise found on Decaseconds that frequently. With no further ado:
This is the creek, behind my childhood home, where I spent countless hours building castles, bridges, and walls from sticks and stones. The water comes from the top of nearby Mt. Riga, and is icy cold through most of the year. Somehow, we still managed to handle swimming in it during the summer.
This picture shows the Long Walk of Trinity College in Hartford, CT. This is the oldest part of the school, built when the campus moved to its current location in 1863. This particular day at the end of November was the first snow of the year. Everyone is just a bit surprised, the leaves are still on the trees, and the snow seems wetter than at any other time.
This photograph was taken at the top of Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire. Though the top of the mountain is barren but for a few shrubs, it turns out that this isn’t because of being above the tree line. Over the course of centuries, the mountain was repeatedly burned, both to make room for livestock and because wolves were living in its caves. Now, just a handful of berry bushes and grasses crust the smooth, ancient stone of the mountain. Some have called it, “the Most Hiked Mountain in America.”
Finally, I have a picture from Key West, Florida. The sunsets and the enormous thunderheads there make for some lovely pictures, but my favorite detail is at the horizon: the poles supporting power lines, alone in the water, bringing electricity from key to key.
No Dark on the Beach
The beach at Costão do Santinho is as bright as day, 24/7. In the winter, it was eerily empty (save for a few roaming packs of wild dogs, later on…) I’d like to imagine that the warmer weather brings all-night volleyball tournaments.
Either way, the mist-capped waves, black rocks, and bright bits of algae make the lonely beach even more alien.
Nob Hill at Dusk
For Halloween, I offer you a photograph from this weekend’s trip to San Francisco’s Coit Tower. Nob Hill, backlit by sunset, highlights the sinister aesthetic complexity that fascinates me about cities. When viewed from afar, this tangle of streets, cluttered rooftops, and modernist towers seems to hold so many secrets. Maybe I’ve been watching too many films noir. Either way, the onset of night in a crowded place certainly has its own unique visual palette.
Artificial Photosynthesis
I’ve shown you the inside of the Energy Biosciences Building before, but I’m particularly happy with the way this shot captures the grandeur of all of this wood, steel, concrete, and glass. The sun casts the best shadows and refractory patterns through it all. (Well, maybe not THROUGH the concrete–but on it, anyway.)
Cyberdojo
The University of British Columbia’s campus has the odd quality that many modern campuses do. The vast majority of the buildings are post-war additions, and carry the strong characteristics and visions of each of their respective architects. This particular building caught my eye for the way it integrates a Japanese-style bridge, pool, and island into the courtyard of what could otherwise be a glossy but unremarkable structure.
The combination makes me think of the entrance to some sort of futuristic dojo in a cyberpunk novel. No wonder William Gibson calls Vancouver home.
Tool Tray
When I’ve published photographs from UC Berkeley’s student machine shop in the past, I’ve tended to focus on the enormous, ancient, and immovable machine tools that dominate the shop. The tiny details at the edges, however, are the key to making everything function. Here we see the array of a Allen wrenches, tool bits, and cutting oil necessary to turn a chunk of steel into a precise part.
Balineario Camboriu
Flying high above Brazil, I got a feel for the strange contrasts of the country. Over the interior, I saw mostly mountainous jungle and farmland; as we neared the coast (as in today’s shot), I got to see more of the urban side of modern Brazil. In the southern part of Brazil, where the climate is Mediterranean (much like California), the same pattern of “intense urbanization adjacent to vegetation-carpeted hills” seems to predominate.
Golden Gate City Sandwich
With the sun setting behind me into the Pacific, the light on the Golden Gate Bridge, the city, and the Bay Bridge beyond it (thus the sandwich effect) begins to shift from golden to deep blue. The lights came on just as the rain started to spit, and the whole scene made me wish I’d brought a thermos of hot chocolate with me.
The Loneliest Hydroelectric Station
Today’s post is a particularly old photograph of mine–so old, in fact, that you’ll have to pardon the fact that it was taken before I owned a DSLR. I happened upon it the other night, and it was so lovely that I just couldn’t resist processing and posting it.
Above Bridal Veil Falls, in the box canyon cliffs surrounding Telluride, CO, is this building. At first, it looks to be a lonely house, but the truth is far more fascinating: it is the second AC hydroelectric power station in the United States. The facility was restored in the 1980’s, and still provides 1/4 of the power to the little town of Telluride in the distance.

















