Spreckels Theater closed in 2020, was sold in 2021, and leaves behind its marquee as a grim and overly optimistic reminder of a different time.
Category: California
Return Flight, Almost Night
Reflections of sunset light from the engineered surfaces of an aircraft are quite different from the rougher surfaces of buildings and plants at ground level.
Lunch on the Elevator of the USS Midway
From a past carrying aircraft to the flight deck of the USS Midway, this carrier elevator is now a lunch spot.
San Diego Cyberpunk
This view—past tall metal fences, over bright yellow industrial pipes and through palm trees, would fit well in the cyberpunk environs of Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City. Having not been back for several years, I was as entranced as ever by the strange mishmash that constitutes SoCal.
San Diego Trolley
Sun? Palm trees? Ample public transit? This must be California.
Maximum Effort 2024
I recently moved into a new office with a huge, boring, blank wall totally ready for a huge, interesting, dramatic landscape. That naturally meant returning to one of my favorite land/cityscapes, this view of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, and Marin from sabbatical in 2017. For an image I expect to stare at for years to come, I really pulled out the stops in terms of producing the best possible image. Click through to Flickr to zoom in and get all of the details!
Chuck
A shot of a basically antique lathe from back in the Berkeley student machine shop. New or old, that chuck needs to keep the part in place when it spins up to speed—and it definitely did.
A Kind of Self Portrait
I captured this image more than a decade ago to show the pleasing trio of power receptacles mounted to the wall behind our boxed-up laser system, but I was also inadvertently capturing a kind of self-portrait in the reflection of my legs and tripod in the polished laser box panel.
Optical Sequence
For all of the fancy-looking holders and posts and hardware, an optical table is ultimately designed to put specific optics in front of the laser beam as it travels to generate a desired effect. This view of the space leading to our detector shows how many parts can accrue in pursuit of a given goal.
Retroreflection I & II
Retroreflectors are used in optics to send a beam of light back from whence it came. While this can sometimes involve laborious alignment of adjustable mirrors, these custom-built “zero degrees of freedom” mounts hold the high-reflector mirrors against perfect-90º prisms to guarantee the correct geometry.
Kookaburra Grid
I like the interplay between the metal grid and the diamond bokeh of wire mesh—two regular, human-made patterns with the far more natural form of a kookaburra amidst them.
Artificial Green
An aerial view of Coachella Valley reveals the artificial irrigation-induced greens amid the natural desert.
Feeding the Giraffes
The looks of excitement and joy on the faces of visitors to the Living Desert as they feed lettuce to the giraffes is pretty infectious.
Desert Settlement at Sunset
Returning to this viewpoint year after year, I’ve watched as the small cluster of white buildings (trailers?) at the bottom of this canyon keeps growing. Worksite? Settlement? Cult? Who knows, but I feel like there’s a good noir mystery to be written from this starting point.
Zoo Nap
You and me both, buddy.
Decaseconds 