I came upon this charming shot of my desk in our Normandy Village apartment as I prepared a book of my 2017 photography. The perfect place to work on a sabbatical grant.
The Dragonfly
Enormous Nozzle, Enormous Thrust
Standing behind the F-14 Tomcat at the Aviation Museum of Kentucky, the brain has a tough time comprehending just how enormous the nozzles on the hot side of the jet engines really are.20
Reichstag Dome
Lights in the Normandy Village
Farther on in spacetime from sabbatical, the details of the cozy Normandy Village apartment where we made our home shift into hazy legend.
Cobra in Profile
The sleek shape of the Cobra made it my favorite helicopter as a kid. (Every kid has a favorite helicopter… right?) A contrast is revealed with the maintenance panels opened and the complicated mechanical components of the powerplant on display.
Inhuman Scale
The absolute enormity of Manhattan’s buildings is sometimes inaccurately portrayed by their steep, vertical faces. The great wings of Westfield World Trade Center leave little doubt in the mind. Look at those two tiny people at the bottom of the image.
Manhattan Rooftop Scenes
Given the catastrophic cost of real estate at the southern end of Manhattan, a look at the use of rooftop space reveals a sharp contrast: roofs are either lush garden spaces or barren mechanical utility areas. I had expected to see more “in between” spaces among the penthouses—casually or informally used rooftops. I guess nothing spends more than a few hours on a New York rooftop without a reason to be there.
Secret Seine Staircase
I’d never dare to suggest that an enormous stone staircase in a tourist-focused area of Paris would be a “secret”, but that glowing doorway below street level looks like some secretive club or spy rendez-vous.
Fall
Empty Dorms in Spring
When spring shades into summer and the students go home for break, the campus is oddly empty for the best weather it ever sees. The empty dorms feel a bit like the result of a very tidy zombie apocalypse.
Schloß Nymphenburg
Every Detail of the Bay
My favorite view of the Bay Area (and the view that first let me define the idea of the civilization gradient as an element of my photography) is layered up with loads of detail. Down in Berkeley Lab is the building where I worked on sabbatical, and across the Bay Bridge is the completed Salesforce Tower hiding in the marine layer. The differences, particularly from the last time I showed a very similar shot from the spring, are in nature: the high-altitude clouds have been replaced with empty skies and that rolling marine layer, while the green hills have shifted to a dry, highly flammable tan.
Mighty Midtown
Neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, Chelsea, and the Bowery are remarkably low-rise until they suddenly run into the wall that is Midtown Manhattan. The new pencil towers under construction may look out of place, but at least they don’t block the views of nature to the north.
Straight and Narrow
Decaseconds 