A Trip Back to Berkeley on the First Day with a New Camera

Scenery of Berkeley’s campus from Oppenheimer had me looking back again to my RAW files (as I’ve done recently) and finding exceptional images that benefited from my evolution in processing skills over the past decade. This particular December 2012 day marked my first walk to work with my then-new Nikon D7000, and so it was a moment in which I was viewing my quotidian surroundings through a literal new lens.

The light shining down on the little bridge over Strawberry Creek to the Faculty Club, for example, is a far more interesting image to me as a memory than it was at the moment I first processed these in 2012.

Quiet Bridge on Busy Campus

Quiet monuments, dappled by sunshine, feel different from a decade away.

Base of the Campanile

Big, dramatic, and green are the themes of this bridge.

Concrete Bridge and Arch

I was struck by how many portrait-orientation shots I had initially bypassed. The curving stairs in front of Latimer Hall always looked charming beneath late-autumn foliage.

Tree Over Stairs

These stairs down to Hildebrand Hall’s D Level were my typical path to my office. They were about as intimidating in real life as they look in this picture—squeeze between the edges of different intersecting buildings and utilities pass-throughs.

Stairs to the D Level

Leaving again at the end of the day, the afternoon sun on Latimer’s facade is starting to shift to an oranger hue.

Evening Light on Latimer

The trip past the architecture school wasn’t one I typically made by 2012 (I moved from an apartment south of campus to one on the west side), but the light on its concrete architecture wasn’t to be missed.

Gold Light on Architecture School

Lee Looks at Lake Mohonk

Our stay at Mohonk Mountain House last fall produced so many images I loved. I posted the first of them last October, and today (more than a year later) I post the last. This nook between glacial cliffs is simultaneously private and yet offers an exceptional view of the lake and Skytop perched on the cliff in the distance. This is the perfect place to spend an afternoon reading a book.

Lee Looks at Lake Mohonk

I Can See My House From Here

Peak foliage on Trinity College’s campus looks as effulgent as always, but there’s an added perk in being able to see my downtown-Hartford home in the same shot. (It helps that the building is 27 stories tall, I’ll admit…)

I Can See My House From Here

Low Water in the Lake

A clifftop view of Mohonk Mountain House’s swimming hole shows the impact of last summer’s drought: sections of beach that would be deep underwater are instead showing green sprouts of grasses. Even with that minor asterisk, the setting is idyllic and captures the late-summer pleasures of a little escape well.

Low Water in the Lake

Leaving Before the Fireworks End

Fireworks displays in metro areas always mean serious traffic, but the line of stopped cars along Bushnell Park has clearly formed before the fireworks display even ended. From this vantage point, there’s luckily more to see than traffic; the magenta luminescence of excited lithium ions paints its colors across the buildings and treetops of downtown Hartford.

Leaving Before the Fireworks End

A Return Trip to Brazil

New adventures in color grading have brought me back, much as I did with images from Spring 2012, to my Fall 2012 trip to Florianopolis, Brazil. Big changes in how I tackle challenging raw images have produced a drastically different outcome to my photoprocessing.

Quiet Alone at Dusk

The dark rocks and chaotic waves come through in a whole different way.

Dusk Waves Over Broad Stone

So, too, does this sculpture stretched over the water—the purpose of which, if there is one, I’ve still not ascertained.

Costao do Satinho Framework

There’s a sense of texture and place that a dark ocean and bright beach convey together.

Costao do Satinho and Its Beach

I can still remember wandering back to my room at the end of the evening, feeling like I was a visitor to an alien world.

Costao do Satinho International Grid