How Did I Miss These?

A post came on social media from more than 11 years ago reminded me of trips around the Bay Area; comparing my RAW files with the images I ultimately posted to Decaseconds originally left me asking, “How did I miss these?”

In past cases of reprocessing pictures, I took another approach to images I already knew were solid. This first image today, boat sailing near Point Bonita lighthouse north of San Francisco, is in a whole different category: I hadn’t remember that I’d taken the image at all.

Two Sailboats and Point Bonita

The occasion was a trip to the Legion of Honor and Lincoln Park. Back then, not a single picture made it to Decaseconds. Many of the images from that day suffered from issues that I know how to correct now, but didn’t yet have the tools to conquer in early 2012.

New Year's Day in Lincoln Park

These pictures from a trip to Treasure Island to shoot the San Francisco skyline are likewise mystifying. I posted only a single picture from that trip.

Skyline as It Was

The old and new spans of the Bay Bridge, side-by-side, is a literally now-unseeable image.

When There Were Two

Though a lot of posts came of our trip to the Marin Headlands to shoot the Golden Gate Bridge, this more natural shot of the rocky coastline (those little black dots are sea birds) has its own kind of large-scale glory.

Pacific Hits the Headlands

Of course, a trip back through my photography in the Bay Area wouldn’t be complete without a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge that I previously ignored.

Untitled: Golden Gate Bridge

Big Buildings and Little Ones

Trinity College Dublin’s campanile was the subject of my last post, but today I’ll bring it back to one I know a bit better. This photograph is another from my series of Berkeley pictures that I’m only now able to reveal with improvements in noise reduction technology. The effect of seeing this “lost” image recovered has me wondering what other moments—

Big Buildings and Little Ones

Eucalyptus Trails

Why save RAW camera outputs from (in this case) six years ago? Digital photography is a rapidly advancing field, and the advent of machine-learning-based noise reduction techniques has completely changed what sorts of images are salvageable. This lovely shot of Berkeley’s fire trails and tall (but invasive) eucalyptus trees stayed in the “unusable” pile for half a decade because I took it freehand, just after sunset, before I deployed my tripod—resulting in an ISO 4500 image from my old D7000 that was just too noisy. Topaz’s latest filters solved that and now this photo can take me back to my California sabbatical.

Eucalyptus Trails

Muscle Cars at Dawn in San Diego

Dawn makes for this dynamic moment when parts of a scene are thrown into dramatic sunlight while others still benefit from delicate, scattered, indirect light.

I like these shots for how the Ford Mustang and Dodge Charger are bathed in relatively gentle, flattering light, but headlights and sunlight make the rest of the scene comparatively high-contrast.

Commuting in the 'Stang

Dawn Charger

A E S T H E T I C Rail

I’ve played with that 90’s vaporwave aesthetic in the past with aggressive color grading; on this particular San Diego dawn, those steps were hardly necessary. Palm trees and magenta hues do most of the hard work for themselves. I can hear the synths already…

A E S T H E T I C Rail

San Diego Runners

I last traveled to San Diego to present at the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society—but while that meeting took place during the day, early morning was unaccounted-for time. I went exploring in the area around the San Diego Convention Center and found that most of my early-morning compatriots were runners.

In this quartet of images, I’ve captured a few of those runners in the dramatic early-morning California sunlight.

San Diego Runner I

San Diego Runner II

San Diego Runner III

San Diego Runner IV

Dry Paths and Trails

Rain brings spontaneous desert symmetry breaking: some areas become rivers and streams, while others stay high and dry. La Quinta Cove brings hiking trails into this equation. Looking high over the landscape, those trails and dry streambeds may be hard to distinguish—until the rain comes. In the distance, just above the tan tanks on the left of the image, the Salton Sea serves as a reminder of how water and the desert interact.

Dry Paths and Trails

Hill Structure

My trips to this hill last year were constrained by the limitations of gravity; bringing my drone with me this year opened up whole new vistas and geometries. The artificial nature of this water retention area is far more apparent when view from the air.

Hill Structure

Where the Houses Stop/Palm Trees and Sprawl

Like a child’s legos, spilled out onto the floor until they reach the wall of the room, the sprawl of Coachella Valley reaches from one mountain range to the other.

Palm Trees and Sprawl

Of course, when that sprawl does reach the edge, modern California’s land conservation kicks in and a hard barrier appears between homes and desert.

Where the Houses Stop