HDR Photography
Orange and blue may be the most overdone color combination for movie posters, but I’m more tolerant of the hues when when they spring natively from the night sky and the sodium lamps of a city. Something about the stone textures of big buildings really appeals to me.
(And if you look carefully, you can see Brendan, my fellow photographer, in the bottom of the picture.)
There’s something really off about this rocket ship you can find on the SF waterfront. It looks like a strange cross between the 1950’s concept of a futuristic spacecraft and an abandoned nuclear weapon. The shininess and corrosion create a strange dissonance. Works well with the futuristic pier located nearby.
Anyone else reminded of the bomb in Megaton in Fallout 3?
Climbing Telegraph Hill on foot means stairs. Lots and lots of stairs.
Climbing Telegraph Hill by car means loops. Lots and lots of loops.
(Though I’m sure my memory is exaggerating.) On that winding road through the trees and stones, under the watchful eyes of the wild parrots, are occasional glimpses of the Golden Gate Bridge. With the last wisps of sunlight landing on the hill, the craggily texture of the tarmac and the rocks and trees contrast so perfectly the with the far-off Platonic idealism of that bridge.
True, Eastern-Seaboard-style storms are a rarity in the Bay Area. When the weather obliges, there’s no better place to experience the full brunt of a storm than the Campanile tower. Battered by the wind and enormous raindrops, I mentally thanked engineers for the weatherproof camera body and grabbed this three-exposure HDR shot. Angry clouds dwarf the Eastern edge of Berkeley’s campus. On the left, you can see the College of Chemistry and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. In the middle, the Haas School of Business, Strawberry Canyon, and Memorial Stadium. On the right, the College of Environmental Design and the International House. The heavy rain makes every color so much darker and more intense.
There’s something about the lighting and the way it plays off the curved hand rail that reminds me of a dystopian future in one of Neal Stephenson’s novels or of disembarking from a futuristic space port.
UC Berkeley’s Energy Biosciences Building looks pretty awesome at sunset and has a great staircase. More of that surreal, futuristic staircase is on display in today’s photo. What I really like about this image, though, is the sense of texture that it gives. The polished, precast concrete floor, the wood ceiling, the thick glass windows, the brushed steel of the elevator: every material is used in a way that best emphasizes its physical properties. The mixture of matte and gloss, rough and smooth, makes it at once a sophisticated and welcoming space.
The rooms are not the only thing nice about KITP/UCSB.
UC Santa Barbara seems like paradise compared to northern California, being basically directly on the beach. On this campus the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics stands out as especially great. Take, for example, this room just off KITP’s library, used as overflow office space for visiting graduate student associates. It has a fantastically high ceiling and overlooks the beach. Makes it hard to get work done!
This incredibly ornate entrance controls access to the Russ Building, one of San Francisco’s loveliest bits of architecture. The vibe of exclusivity and opulence really shouts, “Xanatos from Gargoyles.”
Today is a rare double-post, featuring my favorite structure on Berkeley’s campus: the Hearst Memorial Mining Building. This beaux-arts-style hall was finished in the early 20th century, and I find it particularly notable for two reasons (beyond just being aesthetically pleasing):
1. The interior atrium reminds me of the Bradbury building, and I get a fantastic cyberpunky (see Blade Runner)/steampunky (see Steamboy) tingle every time I step through the doors.
2. The building was updated in a seismic retrofit from 1998-2003, yet is still just as gorgeous as ever. This is a case of a putting a lot of effort into saving a building that is worth saving, and doing it in a way that doesn’t obliterate the elements of the building that were so appealing to begin with.
Just pass those enormous, varnished wood doors is this stunning atrium. Today, I’m showing only a small part of it. Come Friday, I’ll offer a wider view of the space.
This was the scene over the Berkeley hills last week, as a massive full moon rose over Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. You could practically hear scientists howling, but I suspect that was more because their experiments weren’t working than because they were werewolves.
Given all of the processing that goes into producing an HDR image, I can’t exactly say that this image “hasn’t been Photoshopped.” When you get right down to it, every single image receives some sort of post-processing, even if it’s just to bump up the contrast. What I can say, however, is that the size of the Moon has not been artificially enhanced. Our celestial cousin really was that gorgeous and enormous on this particular evening.
Today’s photograph comes courtesy of Dr. Piper Klemm.
Decaseconds has seen photographs of the surreal desert landscape of Thermal before, but Piper took this picture that represents the real spirit of the place. Fancy riding clothes, beautiful ponies, and random hot air balloons drifting over the landscape. Just lovely.
I live above a four-way intersection, and see three or four big crashes a year—typically from drunk drivers who run the red light. This particular night, however, saw insanity in the intersection due to a multi-hour power outage. The normally orange-hued nighttime tarmac was, on this night, lit only by headlights, emergency flashers, and road flares. It was all very strange, very surreal, and the perfect subject for a photograph.
San Francisco’s waterfront is really pretty spectacular at night. There’s so much color.
Sometimes, the most glorious visions are right around the corner. Great clouds and just the right light can be frustratingly rare in California, land of infinite sunshine, so I was utterly thrilled to capture this gorgeous post-sunset cloudscape and the attendant Friday-evening bustle from the Berkeleyites stuck down on Earth.
Decaseconds 