aerial – Page 25 – Decaseconds

Jamaica Bay to Manhattan

2014-Oct-15 adohertyhLeave a comment

Departing JFK International Airport over Jamaica Bay, with the Manhattan skyline glittering in the sunrise, brings to mind my favorite topic: the gradient between dense urbanization and “wilderness.” If there’s a consistent theme to my photography, it’s the desire to capture this gradient in a single image (as I sometimes have in other settings.) Even my wide angle lens couldn’t capture the whole scene, but here’s One World Trade Center and the Empire State Building alongside the wetlands of Jamaica Bay, with New Jersey and Brooklyn buffering and smoothing the divide to a gradient.

Manifest Land Use

2014-Sep-26 adohertyh2 Comments

I can’t decide if the title is a play on “Manifest Destiny” or a command in the style of Magic: the Gathering (“Manifest: Land Use!”). Either way, this shot from high above the American Midwest conveys the limitless (if bland) expanse of the region.

Small Town Survey

2014-Aug-25 adohertyhLeave a comment

Somewhere over America on my transcontinental flight, I spent a lot of time pointing my eyes out the window. (Even calling it staring would probably imply too much attention and effort.) Among the low hills and fields of the whole of North America, I saw this town poking out from amid the rural surroundings. In abusing vignetting effects, the “this is my SimCity!” vibe is transformed to some Cold-War-paranoia-inducing, spy-plane-esque, “Soviet bombers over the heartland” effect. (And in my continuing efforts to document the gradient between urban and rural, this is a new approach.)

Oregon and Washington

2014-Aug-202014-Aug-20 adohertyh3 Comments

Aerial photography presents a magical, avian view of the world around us, but until I (someday) get a quadcopter drone, commercial air travel is my best friend. (Other than the fact that pretty much all other aspects of commercial air travel are pretty miserable.)

In any case, this photograph of the Columbia River, with Oregon on the right of the image and Washington on the upper-left, does a good job of capturing the strange mish-mash of agriculture, residences, and industry in the Pacific Northwest.

Geometry of Agriculture: Brazil

2013-Apr-26 adohertyh1 Comment

On a jet high over central Brazil, the cropped, divided, and cultivated land has a strange organge and purple color to it. Some fields are the broad circles of modern irrigation equipment, while others are odd heptagons nestled next to rivers and streams. From above, the landscape is alien. As an awesome side-note on Brazilian airlines: checking luggage is free and encouraged (so the overhead bins are empty), the airlines serve ham and cheese sandwiches instead of pretzels, and no one speaks a word of English.

Stormy South Campus

2013-Mar-202013-Mar-16 adohertyhLeave a comment

A real, rare storm lashes the East Bay. To the south of campus, the stark concrete facades of the undergrad students’ dorms and the elaborate homes of Piedmont stand in opposition to the elements.

College of Chemistry

2013-Mar-11 adohertyhLeave a comment

UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry is truly massive, occupying five interlinked buildings in a massive complex (with tendrils reaching out to half a dozen other buildings.) Even the courtyard at the center of the complex actually functions as the roof for two more floors of subterranean lab and office spaces (including my own.) From an aerial photography context, I suppose you could call this my self-portrait.

Berkeley and the Rainy Hills

2013-Feb-202013-Feb-20 adohertyh3 Comments

True, Eastern-Seaboard-style storms are a rarity in the Bay Area. When the weather obliges, there’s no better place to experience the full brunt of a storm than the Campanile tower. Battered by the wind and enormous raindrops, I mentally thanked engineers for the weatherproof camera body and grabbed this three-exposure HDR shot. Angry clouds dwarf the Eastern edge of Berkeley’s campus. On the left, you can see the College of Chemistry and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. In the middle, the Haas School of Business, Strawberry Canyon, and Memorial Stadium. On the right, the College of Environmental Design and the International House. The heavy rain makes every color so much darker and more intense.

Balineario Camboriu

2012-Oct-22 adohertyhLeave a comment

Flying high above Brazil, I got a feel for the strange contrasts of the country. Over the interior, I saw mostly mountainous jungle and farmland; as we neared the coast (as in today’s shot), I got to see more of the urban side of modern Brazil. In the southern part of Brazil, where the climate is Mediterranean (much like California), the same pattern of “intense urbanization adjacent to vegetation-carpeted hills” seems to predominate.