HDR Photography
The expanses of wood in the modern architecture of Berkeley’s Energy Biosciences Building contrasts with the timber-framed buildings of old Berkeley across the street. As campus expands and the needs of modern Berkeley grow, I expect most of those older buildings in the space between Shattuck and Oxford will eventually vanish.
Though UC Berkeley’s Energy Biosciences Building still stands, this particular view of the sunset lighting its wooden overhang is no longer available; the construction of Berkeley Way West in what was once the building’s parking lot has closed off that section of sky.
Lovely, gentle dusk colors—pinks and magentas and purples and aquas—settle over San Francisco and the Marin Headlands, but it barely touches the bright red (technically International Orange) of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Cobblestone side streets and traditional architecture find themselves juxtaposed with modern expanses of aluminum, steel, and glass on the streets of Paris.
Midtown Manhattan’s golden skyline during the blue hour seems to stretch on “forever”; why not introduce some periodic boundary conditions and make the effect literal?
In comparison with the pathways between buildings in Northern New York (mostly shielded against the elements), I’m a bit disoriented by the semi-exposed stairwells and walkways of California. The mixture of features I associate with being inside (like the door with full glass window) and those I associate with being outside (like the tubular steel guard rails) makes for a juxtaposition.
The utilitarian, earthquake-resistant architecture of Berkeley Lab amid the verdant hills of the East Bay seems like a science-fictional setting—a location that can’t possible exist—in contrast to San Francisco in the distance.
The bold train station geometry of the Musée d’Orsay couples with the high density of artistic masterpieces to produce some kind of dimensional portal.
I took eight years of French classes as a middle- and high-school student, and those courses’ textbooks inevitably had charming pictures of Parisian locales throughout. In trying to cover a wide range of French experiences, those books tended to show “everyday” life alongside the expected pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, and so I came to associate all of these images with a sort of “imaginary,” idealized Paris.
Imagine my surprise when I arrived in France and found that it looks exactly like my books.
The multistory lobby of Trinity College’s Raether Library was impressive and modern to me when I was a student, shortly after it was built… And I’m happy to report that it remains so to this day.
Winter’s lockdown continues (it might warm up above -10ºF today!), but spring will eventually return. The footbridge to SUNY Canton will eventually be free of ice and the smallest hints of leaves will peak out from the tree branches.
St. Lawrence University’s campus is quiet for the moment; athletes have returned early from break but pretty much everyone else is still on winter vacation. The snow adds an extra layer of dampening.
When they return, the school will once again take on its weird ski lodge vibe.
Though the symmetry of Notre Dame de Paris stands out from the mere mortal constructs around it, I enjoy playing the game of identifying the breaks in its symmetry. Some of those are small, like the different statues around the building. Others are more significant, like the triangle in place or an arch above the left-most set of doors.
There’s that perfect moment when the sky is still blue but the oranges of sodium vapor lamps begin to scatter from the surfaces of the clouds and the Eiffel Tower looks particularly otherworldly. When so many American cities have switched to lighting their streets with white LED lights, I was surprised at how much of Paris is still lit by sodium lamps.
Decaseconds 