HDR Photography
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.
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.
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.
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.
New England has a lot of forest remaining. That might seem obvious, but in comparison to places like the UK (where millennia of human activity have annihilated most of the forests), it can be a bit startling.
This particularly gorgeous flower was spotted in the garden of a particular Berkeley professor. I’d like to think that adds to the mystery.
On the beaches of Florianopolis, the waves crashed on the broad black boulders and the sun dropped into the hills behind me. Not another person was evident, the water was impossible blue, and I said to myself, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
Everything is parked, arrayed, and prepared in precisely the right position for maximum efficiency. This might not really be the case, but when I stare through the airport glass, I see a ballet of criss-crossing tools and machines harnessed for travel.
My grandfather’s farm in Sherborn, MA is perhaps the only unchanging place in my life. Since before I can remember, I’ve sat on this screen porch and looked out through the trees and fields. The flora and fauna of the homestead keep growing and multiplying, but it’s all kept in check.
The midwest is a flat region, but the true two-dimensionality doesn’t hit you until you until you see the region from above. The tallest things for miles around will be water towers. Each town’s tower marks it, like a piece on the world’s most beige chessboard. Still, they have a certain beauty in the evening.
Costao do Satinho fills almost an entire end of Florianopolis’s island, and the hotel pictured here represents just a small bit of it. There are villas and beaches sprawling out over acres. Still, this part (at night) was one of my favorites, with its 1960’s style and very jet-set-minded architecture. This is a place that caters to a group from the past.
Little pockets of calm exist all over Berkeley’s hustling campus, but Strawberry Creek on a rainy day is a particularly superlative example. The leaves and water take on this lovely green that perfectly offsets the red needles from the Redwoods above. Against this palette, the textures of the mud and roots are all the more striking.
Evening is finally rolling around, low tide has rendered the waves gentle, and the beach is pockmarked by the day’s footprints. If you let yourself get lost in the sky and the mild surf, the sights of people disappear and the mind wanders into the sea.
Saturday isn’t a normal posting day, but I was so excited by this shot that I thought I’d bring you guys a bonus. I’m currently in Florianopolis, Brazil, home of (they claim) the best surfing in the world. The waves weren’t quite that impressive yesterday, but they were pretty close. The blue green-ocean, black rocks, and golden barnacles make for the perfect “Royal Surf.”
