HDR Photography
At the moment the sunset sets behind the hills, the sky above San Francisco is still gold, but the massive structures and high-tech vehicles of the city below are activating their illumination machines and preparing for night beneath the marine layer. If the Bay Area is a loose solar system of different worlds, San Francisco must be its cyberpunk crown jewel.
Bays Mountain in Northeast Tennessee is home to a large public park with a cool nature center, some pretty hiking trails, and a large reservoir. Sitting in a little bowl on the top of the mountain, and allowing only a single boat (a barge for showing guests around the lake) means that the water is often exceptionally smooth, leading to amazing reflections on days like these.
The grassy, rolling, limestone-based Kentucky countryside looks too perfect. Precise fencing geometries and gently rippling ponds are just too much. I’m reminded of the famous Microsoft Windows XP default wallpaper, “Bliss.” The key to making both images work, I think, is an overall very clean image with just enough small details and imperfections at the edges to show you that it must be real.
The view from the balds of the Roan Highlands is out of control.
Sunset after an aggressive summer thunderstorm is a strange place of pinks and blues.
On a day much like today, ready for rain but without any guarantees, a hint of blue sky is an eyeball magnet.
Fire trails seem like a friendly, common, down-to-earth feature of many California hillsides. There’s a strange context alongside the blazing sky and the busy city in the distance. When I look farther off and see the Golden Gate Bridge and Angel Island, the juxtaposition feels only more emphasized.
But perhaps I like that vision. We build things both grand and humble.
Now that I’ve got a little more free time I finally got an opportunity to get out and snap a few shots. Here I’ve got a shot toward North Carolina from a scenic overlook on the way from Asheville, NC to Johnson City, TN. I was stunned by the vastness of it all.
Rose gardens are more frequently Brendan’s purview on this blog (check out this post, or this one), but my visit to Portland, Oregon this summer gave me the chance to shoot some rose gardens of my own. The dramatic sky, the far-off pavilion, the spouting fountain, the acres of roses, and the mis-matched ramp and stairs at the edges of the picture: Peninsula Park Rose Garden hits all the right fairy tale notes. I was lucky to be able to capture it at just the right heavy summer moment—though I have to wonder how it would look in the fuzzy first moments of sunrise, too.
When denser, darker, smoother clouds than have ever been seen before appear over a science building (even if it’s MY science building), I find myself wondering if some mad science is afoot.
On the tiny, summer-camp-esque beach beneath Lampson Falls, the detritus of the falls washes up on the sand and makes for the most pleasing geometry alongside the stratified rock and the “pointy” trees.
Aerial photography presents a magical, avian view of the world around us, but until I (someday) get a quadcopter drone, commercial air travel is my best friend. (Other than the fact that pretty much all other aspects of commercial air travel are pretty miserable.)
In any case, this photograph of the Columbia River, with Oregon on the right of the image and Washington on the upper-left, does a good job of capturing the strange mish-mash of agriculture, residences, and industry in the Pacific Northwest.
Shot of Mile Rock Beach on a typical San Francisco summer day.
The North Country is green and lush at this moment, but it’s worthwhile to look back on the recently-thawed saltscape that was spring. I still feel a certain sense of amazement at the number of fierce winters homes like this have survived.
Up early in the morning (to photograph a horse show, naturally), I watched a storm brew over St. Lawrence’s fields. The model-railroad trees and fences and the morning colors scattered through the clouds made it worth being up at such an hour (almost).
Decaseconds 