Berkeley – Page 13 – Decaseconds

Time-Space Material

2014-Jan-29 adohertyh2 Comments

I’ve posted before on the strange properties of Berkeley and the Bay Area: the condensation of nature and suburb and weird architecture and intensity urbanity that compresses human interest and life into a tiny area. This high-density material seems to deform the very fabric of space a time, and make the distance of a few miles seem like a light year and the time of a decade seem mere moments. This photograph captures the folding and crinkling as it happens: crunch clouds, sharp trees, an array of buildings from multiple Berkeley colleges within the University, the stretch of Telegraph Ave. and the tiny shapes of Oakland (at the far right) in the distance.

Vanish to Fog

2014-Jan-222014-Jan-22 adohertyhLeave a comment

Bit by bit, my memories of Berkeley are vanishing. I can justify that this phenomenon is, at worst, neutral: the daily grind and the stupid time I missed the bus vanish, and only the weekends watching the sunset from the Berkeley Hills remain. Not to be trite: this empty, early-morning, fog-shrouded, post-apocalyptic view of the campanile is now my memory of the place, as well as an operational metaphor for that memory… If that’s not too obtuse.

Spring Blossoms

2014-Jan-162014-Jan-14 emceehammr6 Comments

One of the undeniably good things about the bay area is the unwaveringly pleasant weather we experience here. Since it’s been so nice outside recently I felt compelled to post this shot I captured last spring.

Shattuck Rooftops

2013-Nov-22 adohertyh2 Comments

Looking south, over the rooftops and streetlights of downtown Berkeley, the high-rise buildings of Oakland and Emeryville are luminescent ghosts in the bay fog. I’ve come back to this photograph again and again—the composition isn’t quite right, the quality is just average, but for some reason I find it inescapable. I can forgive all of its sins (and mine in taking it) for the trajectory of those sodium lamps, arcing gently to the south like some fairy worm.

Cold Containment

2013-Nov-20 adohertyhLeave a comment

Hyperbright hallways in the Energy Biosciences Building come straight from the set of a sci-fi movie. Between labs and storage space are cold room facilities like the one in the foreground of this photo, with its bank of controls on the wall outside. The research accomplished here lives up to the imposing appearance: the future of using biology to harness the Sun’s energy will be born here.

This is Telegraph Ave.

2013-Oct-21 adohertyhLeave a comment

A mid-winter shot down Telegraph Ave. to the heart of Oakland (from the top of Berkeley’s Campanile) is more nostalgia-tinged now than when I took it. And I do appreciate the way that this shot captures the Bay and the hills ringing it, the silvan suburbia of the East Bay, and even the oddly broad California streets.

Ultimately, even with the benefit of nostalgia, I still have mixed feelings about Oakland. In some ways, the existence of Oakland allows San Francisco to be an “unbalanced chemical equation,” pushing off many of its problems across the bay. Everything can still look peaceful from a distance.

All in a Row

2013-Aug-062013-Aug-09 emceehammrLeave a comment

On the western edge of Cal’s campus (which is full of trees to begin with) sits this little grove of trees and benches commemorating the forestry club. The density of trees and the regularity of their positions creates this interesting corridor effect (even if there isn’t much to see on the other side).

Berkeley Oranges

2013-Jul-16 emceehammr2 Comments

This one was also captured at the UC Berkeley Botanical gardens. There’s something just so refreshing about the way that oranges look on the tree. You can almost taste the juicy flesh just looking at the picture.

Another World with the Lights Out

2013-Jul-08 adohertyhLeave a comment

The night is normally an amber-bathed fry-cooker for my mind. On this particular night last fall, however, high temperatures and a local power outage changed the hues of the world to the red-and-blue-and-white of emergency lights.

Happy 4th! Pitcher Plant

2013-Jul-042013-Aug-16 emceehammrLeave a comment

I haven’t been posting as regularly as I’d like to recently (grad school has caught up with me recently) but since I have some time today I’ve got a double feature. This image was captured during the same outing to the UC botanical garden at Berkeley, this time in the orchid, fern, and carnivorous plant house. Keeping with the theme of the day, this also looks like some sort of crazy creature from a scifi movie.

Fiddle head

2013-Jul-04 emceehammr1 Comment

Ferns always remind me of my childhood and Berkeley seems to have so few. I grabbed this shot at he Berkeley botanical gardens. Looking at this curled up fern up close makes it look like some sort of crazy alien life form.

Hiking the West

2013-Jun-28 adohertyh1 Comment

Having recently spent a great deal of time hiking the forests of New England, the broad, grassy, and only sparsely forested hills of California are seeming more and more alien in my memory. With the fluffy intrusion of some low-lying clouds, the whole experience is rendered otherworldly.

Perch

2013-Jun-21 adohertyhLeave a comment

On the rocks of Grizzly Peak, nothing resets your soul like seeing the hills and trees towering above the hazy sprawl of Oakland.

The Scary Door

2013-Jun-17 adohertyhLeave a comment

With a campus as huge and old as Berkeley’s, it’s natural to expect that there would be some odd corners here and there. This particular back door, hiding in an out-of-the-way location at the back of Bowles Hall (and surrounded by creepy fences and trees) seems like the perfect place to hold the meetings of a secret society.

Night Espresso

2013-May-31 adohertyhLeave a comment

Looking down over an intersection in the dead of night reminds me of staring at a moment without time. No cars, no one rushing in and out of the coffee shop. Everything is still. The perfect subject, then, for a photograph.