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

Watching the Water

On a hike with my extended Decaseconds family to Laurel Falls, we paused by the flowing water to explore some strange arrangements of roots and rocks. Landscapes are so much more enticing to a human viewer when there are obviously human forms in the picture, they say, and this image definitely supports that thesis.

Watching the Water

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

Stone Valley: Rapid Stairs

The rapids of Stone Valley in Colton, New York have a certain stair-like repeating quality to them (at least for the 363-ish days/year during which the dam above keeps its spillway gates closed).

Stone Valley: Rapid Stairs I

Farther along the river, the effect again repeats: stone ledges turn the rushing water into less-metallic slinky.

Stone Valley: Rapid Stairs II

This isn’t a mere trompe-l’œil where a particular angle makes stair-like shapes appear in the stones and moving water. A view shifted by 90º confirms the structure.

Stone Valley: Rapid Stairs III