HDR Photography
I imagine the Bay Area like an elementary-school art project bowl, a bit lump and uneven but mostly ringed with hills. And like a proud child filling their handmade bowl with mounds of cereal and milk, there are lumps and liquid in the middle. If I strain the simile to the limit, both the bowl and the Bay are home of delicious foodstuffs. Rushing to the crest of Berkeley’s Grizzly Peak after a rich dinner, I can see the whole bowl. (And avoid the skunk sneaking up on us in the tall grass.)
The Transamerica Pyramid is one of my favorite subjects, and I’ve lately enjoyed photographing it juxtaposed with older brick buildings.
I’m certainly glad I didn’t fall in while trying to capture this.
Transcontinental driving in the dead of winter is all about dodging storms—but no one’s perfect. In the emptiness of Western Nevada, with only an occasional RV/farm combo to keep us company, the edge of a major storm ran into the setting sun.
“Post-apocalyptic” was the general vibe. The landscape was so large as to be without scale; I couldn’t tell you the actual height of the hills in the distance.
San Francisco street scenes featuring motorcycles parked provocatively outside bars and cafés have become a recent focus of mine. Blues and reds in bright Sunday sunshine are enticing.
I spent this week BARTing back and forth from downtown San Francisco to “downtown” Berkeley for the American Chemical Society’s National Meeting. Bouncing between the familiar and the strange, all tinged with a general sense of familiarity, gave me a sense of dislocation, like an atom in slightly the wrong place in a crystal structure. Beyond meeting scientists and seeing old friends, I can think of one exciting new discovery this week: the new seat fabric on the BART is an enormous improvement over the horrifying cloth of yesteryear.
If there’s one thing that Asheville, NC has it’s lots of breweries. If there’s a second thing it’s cool old Art Deco buildings.
This physical plant building at Berkeley Lab has the broad A-frame structure and charming attic windows of an alpine lodge. It also has an evergreen-encrusted window to Berkeley and the Port of Oakland. In spite of the appearance and the surroundings, this is a highly utilitarian setting. Quite the juxtaposition.
Striking modern architecture next to industrialization-era brick and ironwork makes for a dramatic combination. It’s also the bedrock style of my favorite cities, including New York and San Francisco. In this particular image, the sport bike and the small group enjoying breakfast at front add the perfect hint of scale.
After a night of storm clouds and rain drops, the historical oddity that is Berkeley’s Normandy Village is most charming. Little corner doors and bonus windows peak out from behind ever turret.
The orange hue and misty hills remind me of the poster for Apocalypse Now, but this is just the northern end of San Francisco Bay. In this age of upward-climbing property values and Silicon Valley rags-to-riches stories, I’m continually amazed that there’s room for industry. If these facilities had to be started today, I can’t imagine that they’d wind up in the same position.
