On America’s birthday, the Department of Energy’s National Lab system feels like quite a gift. The amount of innovation and discovery coming from the dramatic-yet-humble concrete structures is another reason to celebrate.
Summer Nights
This view of King Commons park in Johnson City is a place that I keep coming back to again and again.
WRX In Its Natural Habitat
A curving, semi-broken mountain road beneath an aspen grove is the natural habitat of Subaru’s Impreza WRX. As I took this shot, I was riding in a Subaru myself—there was an appropriate sense of kinship.
Halloween Rainbow
Summer research students at St. Lawrence have reached the halfway point (chronologically) of their projects, and the wildest (read: hottest) weather of the summer is coming along with it. At times like that, looking back on (and forward to) the cooler fall weather is a respite.
Summers
Ash Vortex
Fires in the dry, brush-filled country of the American West can be a serious problem. Driving along the Interstate, we saw the ash-carpeted remains of one. The wind whipped the fine particles into a vertical column at the crest of this hill.
Shamrock
This is one of those places, with its neon lighted sign, flower boxes, and flag pole out front that makes you wonder not so much where it’s from, but when it’s from.
Exiting the BART
The Downtown Berkeley BART stop was about to be closed for renovation when I last visited Berkeley. Have those changes been brought to fruition? Does that mean the end of the weathered bright entrances and weirdly sharp stairs? I know a quick search could answer these questions, but for just a moment I’m embracing the mystery.
Western Landscape I & II
Working through processing my back-catalog of sabbatical photos, I’ve finally come to the end of those I took in California. My semester of science and good food had come to an end, and now we drove back across the continent. The drive in December meant lots of snow-covered deserts and hillsides; summer was a bit different.
The human-made structures are as insignificant as you’d expect in the face of the great, empty American West.
Tip of the Mountain
Spectroscopy Lab
Approaching the summer solstice, the start of fall-semester classes and their attendant labs seems far away, but a new class of St. Lawrence first-year students will be here before I know it.
This was one of the light sources students were interrogating: a sodium lamp, like the ones used in street lights (at least in the twentieth century—LED street lamps are becoming increasingly dominant now.)
West Point Light
Bayglow
There’s a sunset balance point when the intensity of San Francisco’s city lights precisely match the intensity of the light remaining in the sky. When those photons are in equal proportion, even a busy city can look oddly peaceful.
That Was Home
Arriving at the one-year anniversary of the end of my sabbatical time in Berkeley, I’ve also reached the end of processing pictures that I took while I was there—though many more will be posted in the future. Our apartment was on the second flood of this build, where the screen of the same laptop on which I’m currently typing lights up the bottom-right corner of the window and the narrow slit of dark windows were over the kitchen sink where I’d cook dinner.
Wild Salmon
Seeing the neon signs and hustle and bustle of people at Pike Place Market reminds me of my childhood, doing the shopping with my parents for fresh vegetables.
Decaseconds 