A Trip Back to Berkeley on the First Day with a New Camera

Scenery of Berkeley’s campus from Oppenheimer had me looking back again to my RAW files (as I’ve done recently) and finding exceptional images that benefited from my evolution in processing skills over the past decade. This particular December 2012 day marked my first walk to work with my then-new Nikon D7000, and so it was a moment in which I was viewing my quotidian surroundings through a literal new lens.

The light shining down on the little bridge over Strawberry Creek to the Faculty Club, for example, is a far more interesting image to me as a memory than it was at the moment I first processed these in 2012.

Quiet Bridge on Busy Campus

Quiet monuments, dappled by sunshine, feel different from a decade away.

Base of the Campanile

Big, dramatic, and green are the themes of this bridge.

Concrete Bridge and Arch

I was struck by how many portrait-orientation shots I had initially bypassed. The curving stairs in front of Latimer Hall always looked charming beneath late-autumn foliage.

Tree Over Stairs

These stairs down to Hildebrand Hall’s D Level were my typical path to my office. They were about as intimidating in real life as they look in this picture—squeeze between the edges of different intersecting buildings and utilities pass-throughs.

Stairs to the D Level

Leaving again at the end of the day, the afternoon sun on Latimer’s facade is starting to shift to an oranger hue.

Evening Light on Latimer

The trip past the architecture school wasn’t one I typically made by 2012 (I moved from an apartment south of campus to one on the west side), but the light on its concrete architecture wasn’t to be missed.

Gold Light on Architecture School

South Campus Super Resolution

The “let’s enhance” action continues with this image of Berkeley’s College of Chemistry, Strawberry Canyon, and South Campus from the top of the Campanile. It holds a special place in my heart because it shows the entire terrain I traversed going to and from work during my first year in grad school.

South Campus Super Resolution

Berkeley and the Rainy Hills

True, Eastern-Seaboard-style storms are a rarity in the Bay Area. When the weather obliges, there’s no better place to experience the full brunt of a storm than the Campanile tower. Battered by the wind and enormous raindrops, I mentally thanked engineers for the weatherproof camera body and grabbed this three-exposure HDR shot. Angry clouds dwarf the Eastern edge of Berkeley’s campus. On the left, you can see the College of Chemistry and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. In the middle, the Haas School of Business, Strawberry Canyon, and Memorial Stadium. On the right, the College of Environmental Design and the International House. The heavy rain makes every color so much darker and more intense.

Berkeley and the Hills