Visiting Governors Island (lacking that apostrophe since 1784) for the first time this weekend, I was astonished to see its historic buildings standing in such contrast to the sleekly modern shape of One World Trade Center in the distance. The island is only 800 yards off the coast of Manhattan, but seems a generation away.
Tag: Coast
Triple Tower
The Old Grid
My favorite cities are those with borders artificially constrained by water (like San Francisco, Hong Kong, or Manhattan), usually leading to towering structures and high density. San Francisco’s situation was different for a long time; a subset of NIMBY residents (alongside an array of other economic factors) meant that this grid of smaller buildings persists, in spite of housing shortages and corresponding high housing prices. As this slowly changes and the city begins to warm to the idea of new development, this uniform grid of little buildings might someday shift.
Yacht Race
As promised, images from the Corinthian Yacht Club’s Friday Night Race. I’m told that the boat in the lead is particularly valuable enough that it should be in the lead.
The light changed over the course of the evening, lending the setting a different feel that matched the coastline west of the center of San Francisco.
California Coast II
Rough Coast
Another California Coastline
Sea Rocks
Mist in the Clearing
The stunning, overwhelming, almost-heartbreaking Muir Woods National Monument in California has become a photographic cliché. (Thanks, Ansel Adams.) That doesn’t prevent me from discovering something new in every corner and every moment. The incredible contrast of scale between ferns and sequoias twists the mind, and the quiet, misty paths (early in the morning anyway) transport you to an overwhelming alternate world.
Forest Walkway
Among the Ferns
California Cthulhu
Early in the morning, before another human has arisen, in the fog and rain and the sound of crashing California surf, the cliffs of Marin are strange and alien and haunting. They stagger out of the fog, all stunted shrubs and jagged rocks and decaying 20th century gun emplacements. I’ve always rather fancied the idea that America kept expanding until they reached the end of the continent, where the cliffs and the alien landscape drove us all a bit mad.
Cliffs of Brazil
Rocks and Surf
California Coast
My last trip to La Jolla, CA gave me a chance to shoot from the summit of Mt. Soledad. I’m continually astonished by the degree to which nature has been remodeled by the folks who settled California.