HDR Photography
I found this little guy sunning himself near the Imagery Winery in Glen Ellen. Here the lighting was good enough to put together a single shot pseudo-HDR shot, really bringing out all of the interesting details in the rock and the scales of our little lizard friend here.
A very popular plant in Berkeley, the Calla lily also makes a pretty respectable photography subject.
Today, I’m posting another photograph of UC Berkeley’s greenhouses at their Oxford Research station. This area has a bizarre mix of well-maintained, modern facilities along with others that look as though they haven’t been touched since the 1960’s. The vibe reminds me a bit of certain levels in Portal 2. More than anything, it’s amazing that I was able to stand around in the parking lot of this fascinating place for 20 minutes taking photos.
I’ve always loved the little details of a gorgeous house–the tiny trim pieces, or the leaded glass windows. This particular shot reminded me of playing in the yard as a child. In the winter time, the sun set before dinner, so when the time came to head in, the house had this unearthly blue glow that made the warm light from inside so much more inviting.
Normally I’d have thrown a shot like this away as its no good for HDR (there are no details to enhance, only shadows) but looking at it and playing with the white balance and composition a bit I think I like the effect. There’s a sense of grand scale here with the top of the bridge emerging from the haze and with the infamous Alcatraz in the foreground.
This shot of a surfer in La Jolla, CA is another from near the Scripps pier that I featured previously here. The contrast between the reflection on the sand and the rough, concrete pier turned out pretty well, by my favorite part is also the one over which I had the least control: the surfer (and her brightly-colored board) just happened to be walking by. The whole scene just felt so classically “Californian.”
This sculpture is frequently photographed (as a quick search of Flickr will reveal) but with all of the recesses and light and dark it’s a natural subject for some HDR photography. There will almost certainly be more to come of this one in future posts.
The clouds finally cooperated while I was driving past a beach outside San Diego. I was chuffed at the degree to which the clouds matched the curvature of the hillside. The blue sky also makes a pretty stark contrast with the dull browns of winter-time southern California.
From the same set as my last post, this is a photo taken at New Brighton State Beach, this time a single shot HDR, again, showing the beauty of California’s central coast. That is, aside from the lens flare.
This is an old one of mine that I thought would be nice to put up on the blog. Pictured is the Palo Alto, a concrete ship sunk off of Seacliff State Beach, as shot from New Brighton State Beach. I would highly recommend a drive down California’s Central Coast for anyone looking for some great photo ops!
UC Berkeley has an enormous number of greenhouses just to the west of their main campus. The glow from inside them at night fit nicely with the streetlights reflecting off the low cloud cover on this particular night.
A recent trip to San Diego gave me a chance to wander around the gorgeous La Jolla Shores neighborhood, home of UC San Diego and the Scripps institute. The salty air on the beach really speeds the degradation of structures; when you take that in combination with the minimalist concrete structures favored by UCSD, you can get some really dystopian looks. When you combine this with the traditionally “idyllic” beach, it makes for a disturbing contrast.
Hearst Mining Building is one of the prettier buildings on UC Berkeley’s campus, so you can expect it will probably show up a few more times. This is a picture of one of the skylights in the main hall. The mixture of textured brick and painted steel has always appealed to me.
The coast near Pacifica, California has some gorgeous, craggily coastline. All kinds of people were out walking their dogs; if I were a little braver, I would have gone over to shoot portraits of them, as well. Still, composing everyone together into a landscape produced a pretty satisfying result. The old man on the log looks more idyllic than I could have hoped.
I was initially disappointed that it was such a misty evening, but the upside was that the contrast was lowered to the point where I could produce HDR images from a single RAW photo.
Here is another shot of the advanced light source, previously featured here. This time we have a wider shot which includes part of the San Francisco skyline, the bay bridge, Treasure Island, the Golden Gate bridge, and the city of Berkeley. The lighting on the hill makes the ALS look particularly science-fiction-y.
