At the Cincinnati Zoo, this bird watched carefully for the right moment to spear fish from a nearby pool. After 10 minutes, the bird gave up and flew away. I guess it wasn’t worth the trouble.
Author: adohertyh
Upgrading the Advanced Light Source
Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source, a massive X-ray laser sourced from a building-sized particle accelerator, was undergoing upgrades while I visited. Construction in the area added an mundane veneer to the superscience happening inside.
Transamerica Glow
The retrofuturistic shape of the Transamerica Pyramid emerging from the more traditional architecture of San Francisco is one of my favorite photography subjects. When will this Star Destroyer finally lift off from its docking station in the Bay Area?
Snakeskin Building
Though not the building’s official name, I think “snakeskin” is the correct way to describe the tile pattern on the side of this new addition to Portland’s Pearl District.
Boxes on Boxes
The first “real” snowfalls of the winter have arrived in the North Country, and I can’t think of a better time to look back on the never-snow geometries of Berkeley. The architectural possibilities expand when structures will never have to bear the load of a late-winter storm and stairs will never have to be scraped free of ice and snow. I think the design is particularly well-expressed in the boxes-on-boxes-on-boxes design of this building. The best detail, to me, is the sunlight passing in one side and out the other of the corner window on the first floor.
Golden Gate in Summer
I love finding the little details in epic landscapes that provide the sense of human scale and presence. (It’s a bit like a photographic “Where’s Waldo?”) In the lower center of this image, at the left edge of the Berkeley Marina, you can see light tiny lights of the restaurant where diners look out over the Bay and the sunset.
Behold, Shasta!
See Mt. Shasta rising from the forests around it, all snowbound and rocky. Perspective may push them together, but the difference in scale between trees and mountaintops is staggering.
Golden Gate Classic
For the most photographed bridge in the world, I’m always humbled to remember that the Golden Gate Bridge didn’t even exist 100 years ago. Seeing it now, in the bracket of Alcatraz and Marin, I think I understand better why it’s Roman Mars‘s favorite piece of design in the Bay Area.
Island Gradient
There’s this perfect moment during a summer sunset in the Bay Area, as darkness falls and the flawless gradient fades through oranges to purples, when the lights haven’t quite come on yet. Marin is dark, Angel Island is silhouetted, and the world is seems to revert to an uninhabited state.
Telegraph Ave.
Telegraph connects Oakland and Berkeley (and is a pretty good Michael Chabon book, too.)
Blade Running the Port of Oakland
The Bay Area is already the setting for numerous cyberpunk adventures (like William Gibson’s classic Virtual Light—ironically set on the now-dismantled Bay Bridge in the “future” of 2006); applying a little Blade Runner grime to the present-day Port of Oakland and the towers across the Bay seems very appropriate.
California Convertible at Midsummer
Our first snow of the year arrived last night, so I thought now was a perfect time to look back on summer nights with convertible German sports cars and Bay Area sunsets.
Liberal Arts
The aerial view can help to put the day-to-day challenges of life in perspective. Nothing looks quite so huge from up here.
Beaver Moon
The “Beaver Moon” is the last full moon in November—the last time in the season, supposedly, when beaver traps could be set at night. How fitting that my first visit to Toronto, Canada occurred on just such a night. The city has a character that seems to be a mix of Vancouver-style modernism and Chicago-style Old City; it was a great reminder of the kinds of HDR shots that first attracted me to the technique to begin with.
Summer Camp ’17
I never went to summer camp as a child, but I have to imagine that the experience was a bit like sabbatical in the Bay Area: Warm days spent on rewarding activities in a beautiful place.
Decaseconds 