Photo nostalgia for the day: the strange, flat light of the marine layer burning off the Bay. The mix of architectural styles from the early twentieth century makes Berkeley, on a day like this one was, seem like a scale model of itself.
Tag: California
Sand For Miles
There are few places like an ocean beach, especially those on the California coast.
Come On, Street!
Having been outside the crazy-sphere of city life for a year now, I like looking back on the outrageous geometries that San Francisco calls reasonable. (I’m guessing the number of patches are repairs to that very steep street is a testament that road crews are just as uninterested in climbing it as the average pedestrian.) It’s really not surprising that so many classic movies take place in San Francisco: drama and strangeness is built right into its structure.
Span Aside
This photograph is a double-case of finding interesting details by looking away from the obvious. On one hand, this subtler image was captured opposite an intense sunset over San Francisco. The color palette is heavy with pastels, but accented with a few harsh reds from Oakland in the distance. In the image itself, there’s a tiny building under the right-hand span of the bridge. Seeing something so (let’s say) adorably sized next to something so dominant and enormous makes for a charming contrast.
There’s Another San Francisco
Though most pictures show the San Francisco of gleaming buildings like the Transamerica Pyramid, there’s another San Francisco of a perfect grid of squat buildings clinging to undulating hills.
Into the Sprawl
Sea Rocks
I haven’t been away for more than a couple of months and already I miss the California coast.
Two Trails
I present to you a pair of photographs:
The first is from Muir Woods on the Marin Peninsula of California. That morning was rainy and the colors are rich and dark and the setting is some natural/romantic variety of Baroque. Practically overwhelming.
The second is from Stone Valley this weekend, dry and crunchy with snow, the river mostly frozen at the surface, with currents of dark water beneath. More minimal, more quiet, more subdued. But is this trail any less beautiful than the first?
Triple Rockin’
When I looked out my window to a scene every night, it was easy to dismiss the weird, Californian beauty of the Triple Rock bar/brewery and the rooftops beyond it. Now that I’m 3,000 miles away, this odd-yet-normal/everyday-urban scene seems so much more special.
Graduate Student Workspace
When all of “my space” meant a tiny Berkeley apartment and a tiny grad student desk, things that were important to me and integral to my daily life accrued only in those places. This desk might appear messy, but it’s also stuffed full of books and tables and notes. There are parts of my bike and parts for the laser and parts for making things in the machine shop. There are drawings and computer equipment, and there are cups for coffee and cups for beer. What more does a graduate student need?
The Corner Booth in Aki
Aki is a tiny Japanese restaurant just north of the University of California’s campus, and it was my regular Friday lunch spot with my Decaseconds co-author, Brendan. That corner booth in the back (the one drenched in noontime sunshine) was the very place that the idea and name for Decaseconds were born. Over a steaming dish of katsudon, we hashed out the idea. When I began photography, I captured moments very much in the present, but in looking back to this image (and giving it a processing tweak here and there), I’m exploring my new ability to travel back through time to places and experiences past. That warm corner is one of contemplative nostalgia. 
Sci-Fi Garden
Today’s photograph is from two years ago, and what was once my mundane walk home has now become a totally alien scene of science fiction flora and architecture. The overwhelming light of the windows and the sharp geometries imposed by noise reduction algorithms really add to the effect.
Berkeley Marina
Nostalgia views the world from a distance but with specific acuity. A view from Grizzly Peak of the Berkeley Marina might look like a warm, buzzy vision of NorCal, but with my own memories I attribute specific instances and moments to every aspect of the landscape: Kites flying over Caesar Chavez Park. Stories of a ferry to San Francisco that once ran from the decaying jetty. Learning to sail on the tiny boats on the “left” side of the peninsula. Sailing from the Marina to Angel Island, crewing a professor’s 40-foot sailboat. Finding a place to live, driving up and down University Ave. from the hotel to the hills. Crossing the highway on the bicycle bridge for a long, flat, sunny ride along the shore. All of that experience is encoded into the image, but I’ll always be the only person with the key to decrypt it.
Redwood Creek Is Calm on a Rainy Morning
Yet another image from Muir Woods: when you’re faced with such beauty, how do you say something that hasn’t been said before? Maybe some pictures don’t need text accompaniment.
Berkeley Still Life
Berkeley is a pretty surreal place; as I process that, I thought my 400th post on Decaseconds might be a great time to really show it. The yellows of the birch tree are so sharp on a foggy fall morning, amid the hard, stained concrete of the past and the high-tech Li Ka Shing Building (one of my first-ever posts) materials. Visual contrast, both literal and metaphorical, align with the conceptual contrast of a place that prides itself on being countercultural while also being the birthplace of many of the technologies and ideas that make our modern culture possible.
Decaseconds 