HDR Photography
I recently moved into a new office with a huge, boring, blank wall totally ready for a huge, interesting, dramatic landscape. That naturally meant returning to one of my favorite land/cityscapes, this view of Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco, and Marin from sabbatical in 2017. For an image I expect to stare at for years to come, I really pulled out the stops in terms of producing the best possible image. Click through to Flickr to zoom in and get all of the details!
When the Bay Area feels so dense and overwhelming with information, people, and ideas, a drive up to Grizzly Peak is an escape.
A throwback to my time in Berkeley. I definitely miss this view.
UC Berkeley’s botanical garden is one of the best places to go in Berkeley on an sunny day.
Perched atop the hill above UC Berkeley’s campus, overlooking the rest of the bay area, sits Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Perhaps the most iconic building is the advanced light source, featured prominently in Berkeley lab’s logo. I was able to grab this shot from the fire trails above LBNL in the Berkeley hills.
I believe I’ve commented before that San Francisco, once the clouds roll in, bears some resemblance to the Bespin’s cloud city, especially with Sutro tower poking out above everything else.
I love that time of the evening when the earth is dark but the sky is still blue with just hits of orange and red and the clouds have just a little pink hue.
Going back through old photos is always a trip. This particular shot reminds me how far I’ve come in the past year. At the time I don’t think I thought anything of this picture but now looking at it I really like the contrast between the colors in the sky and the darkness falling over the bay and the silhouette of the Golden Gate Bridge. The clouds rolling in from the ocean also add a neat effect.
The hills that rise above Berkeley and the east bay are home to some of the most spectacular vistas — when the weather is nice. On this particular day we were just lucky enough to get a patch of blue sky peaking through the bleak grey clouds, which was enough to completely light up the east bay while leaving the gloom looming over the city.
Berkeley is a strange and wonderful place full of odd things in the least expected places. For instance check out this mural by Beth Emmerich, far up in the Berkeley Hills away from prying eyes. It’s actually kind of an experience, and it wraps around on all three sides of this car port. She’s also got photos (not taken by me) of other samples of her murals and other art on her website, if you’re interested.
On a recent stroll through the hills east of Berkeley I came upon this house I had seen many times before but never really seen, you know? At first glance it looks like a perfectly reasonable home there’s something about the degree to which the landscaping in the foreground engulfs the home and the juxtaposition of this with the palm tree in the background that I really find fascinating. It looks like the kind of house that would be the setting for some sort of fantasy novel where a normal kid ends up going on some sort of magical adventure.
I was out on some of the nice walking trails in the hills about Berkeley when I came across this stand of shrubs full of song birds. I caught this one climbing all over this plant, as well as hanging upside down from the stalks. I was able to approach surprisingly close before our friend got spooked and flew off but in the mean-time I was able to grab a few choice shots.
This shot comes again from the Maintenance Building over the Caldecott Tunnel. It was a gray day and the building is all gray so I decided to play with some HDR in black and white.
This is one of the earliest HDR images I ever took, and though I was still getting a few of the details worked out, I really loved the way that the reflection of the sun from the building’s windows was captured at sunset. The clouds and the soft forms of the hills make a nice contrast with the buildings of UC Berkeley.
Last post for today (making up for a lack of posts all week) is this shot of the Advanced Light Source (the domed building) at Berkeley Lab as seen from the Berkeley hills shortly before sunset. With the haze it sort of reminds me of some sort of mountain top compound used for nefarious purposes.
Decaseconds 