Behind San Francisco are clouds both natural (horizontal) and the product of human craft (the vertical spiral).
Tag: Cityscape
Quitting Time at the Lab
Snow covered northern New York this week, and the temperature rests in the single degrees Fahrenheit; now is an excellent time to look back at the warm eternal-summer glow of California. Particularly in contrast to the >60-hour-per-week graduate students down on campus, the “standard” workweek of staff at Berkeley Lab was a remarkably normal trend. At the end of the day, with that sunset light arriving, the workers who keep the physical plant running come outside into the evening breeze and head home.
Midday in the Bay
With the weather above clear, midday in the bay is a nearly shadowless moment of odd geometry. It almost looks like a rendering from a computer simulation where the artist was uninterested in spending the time to model the shadows.
Snakeskin Building
Though not the building’s official name, I think “snakeskin” is the correct way to describe the tile pattern on the side of this new addition to Portland’s Pearl District.
Telegraph Ave.
Telegraph connects Oakland and Berkeley (and is a pretty good Michael Chabon book, too.)
Blade Running the Port of Oakland
The Bay Area is already the setting for numerous cyberpunk adventures (like William Gibson’s classic Virtual Light—ironically set on the now-dismantled Bay Bridge in the “future” of 2006); applying a little Blade Runner grime to the present-day Port of Oakland and the towers across the Bay seems very appropriate.
Beaver Moon
The “Beaver Moon” is the last full moon in November—the last time in the season, supposedly, when beaver traps could be set at night. How fitting that my first visit to Toronto, Canada occurred on just such a night. The city has a character that seems to be a mix of Vancouver-style modernism and Chicago-style Old City; it was a great reminder of the kinds of HDR shots that first attracted me to the technique to begin with.
Summer Camp ’17
I never went to summer camp as a child, but I have to imagine that the experience was a bit like sabbatical in the Bay Area: Warm days spent on rewarding activities in a beautiful place.
Little Lights in Strawberry Canyon
Beyond the bustle of the East Bay at rush hour, the preserved wooded hills of Strawberry Canyon seem so quiet.
San Francisco: Texture and Geometry
Beautiful San Francisco and its changing, growing skyline are the site of some incredible sunsets. This image from earlier in the spring features a sunset of mostly naturally induced colors, but the fires threatening the Bay Area at the moment are producing a much more intense set of hues.
Transbay Tower Grating Effect
No offense to Salesforce, but the rainbow sunset reflections off the curved surface of their tower seem to fit much better with a building named “Transbay Tower”—particularly when it sits on the skyline near the Transamerica Pyramid. The darkened and humble shape of Alcatraz in the foreground makes for an appropriate memento mori to San Francisco’s grand architecture.
San Francisco Sun Show
California summer: Blue skies (no clouds), dry grass.
California winter: Complicated skies (crazy clouds), lush grass.
Looking across the verdant hills of Berkeley Lab to San Francisco, it’s not hard to see why I prefer the winter months in California.
Bunker Hill and Bridge
Two structures (ship and bridge) designed to cross water, though over very different length scales. The two-centuries-old advances in metallurgy that allow for steel production at this huge scale still amazes me.
University Avenue II
University Avenue connects downtown Berkeley with the Interstate. The growth of the city hasn’t been matched by the growth of the road; every year, the avenue transitions further to its (possible) future as a glowing vein of gridlock across the East Bay.
A Midsummer Night’s City
In the Berkeley Hills, above the National Lab’s Advanced Light Source, the view over Oakland’s twinkling night sprawl entrances. Look at all of those light-emitting objects! As LED lights have replaced sodium vapor models, I’m particularly fascinated in the shift as cities glow white, instead of orange.
Decaseconds 