HDR Photography
For the most photographed bridge in the world, I’m always humbled to remember that the Golden Gate Bridge didn’t even exist 100 years ago. Seeing it now, in the bracket of Alcatraz and Marin, I think I understand better why it’s Roman Mars‘s favorite piece of design in the Bay Area.
Telegraph connects Oakland and Berkeley (and is a pretty good Michael Chabon book, too.)
Sunday morning is the perfect time to take the family out for a coffee walk. Berkeley’s busy Gourmet Ghetto is just a little quieter then.
Saturday morning, on horseback, in an open field!
Contemplating a drive back across North America, I’m most looking forward to the West. The mildly populated areas (look at the tiny path in the distant center of the image) remind me of the best parts of Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns.
This image resulted from the process of demonstrating color filters to my coworker. Colors, with black and white? Of course! The rich, dark sky and bright foreground in this picture result from (digitally) applying a red filter. My favorite part of that now-visible foreground is the large Chevrolet pickup, shoehorned into a parking space on a narrow San Francisco street.
In the emptiness of Wyoming, big structures along the interstate are rare. When the temperatures are ultracold and the factory is emitting tons of vapor, that brings up a new level of interest.
The American West appears in the hills beyond Malibu, California: Small communities connected by winding roads in the shadow of Castro Crest. Visiting Balmoral Farm nearby, I compared (in my mind) with Scotland’s Balmoral Castle and was struck by the degree to which America (mostly) has titanic landscapes in place of castles. What is the attraction to tall formations of stone, and does that change when they’re human-made?
(Side note: I like that this looks like a picture from the past, but I love even more than the effect is ruined by a house with solar panels on its roof. Can you find it? Click through to the Flickr page for the 57 MP original panorama.)
This physical plant building at Berkeley Lab has the broad A-frame structure and charming attic windows of an alpine lodge. It also has an evergreen-encrusted window to Berkeley and the Port of Oakland. In spite of the appearance and the surroundings, this is a highly utilitarian setting. Quite the juxtaposition.
Nothing like Nik’s Analog pseudo-vintage photoprocessing to produce the maximally creepy image. This particular lamp at St. Lawrence, ensconced in the boughs of a maple tree, creates the best patters at night. The tendrils extending from a central bulb remind me of the structure of a neuron.
California coastline is so much bumpier and more dramatic than the eastern locations I grew up with. Can you spot the two tiny people on the left cliff, overlooking the water? Nothing like a couple of tiny people to provide a sense of scale.
This highway in the hillside makes the mountain look rather smug, I think. This is the Han Solo of rocky formations.
In in the instant before the train passed under the George Washington Bridge, I took this picture, distorted by motion and extreme angle, of a lone man standing on the hillside above the train. That silhouette, isolated against the sky and near the framework of the bridge, is the stuff of conspiracy theories. In this case, of course, it would be the most mundane theory.
Bannerman’s Castle on Pollepel Island in the Hudson River was once an arsenal, and then a tourist destination, before it burned down in 1969 and the island was closed to the public. Now the fortified silhouette of the ruins apparently inspires an incredible amount of use as a hideout for the supernatural in fantasy fiction. Though I didn’t know it at the time I took this picture, this island is one of the major inspirations for Lev Grossman’s Brakebills College. A sunset train ride down the Hudson River is the perfect occasion to stumble on a structure like this.
Decaseconds 
