Tag: HDR
Upgrading the Advanced Light Source
Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source, a massive X-ray laser sourced from a building-sized particle accelerator, was undergoing upgrades while I visited. Construction in the area added an mundane veneer to the superscience happening inside.
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.
Boxes on Boxes
The first “real” snowfalls of the winter have arrived in the North Country, and I can’t think of a better time to look back on the never-snow geometries of Berkeley. The architectural possibilities expand when structures will never have to bear the load of a late-winter storm and stairs will never have to be scraped free of ice and snow. I think the design is particularly well-expressed in the boxes-on-boxes-on-boxes design of this building. The best detail, to me, is the sunlight passing in one side and out the other of the corner window on the first floor.
Golden Gate in Summer
I love finding the little details in epic landscapes that provide the sense of human scale and presence. (It’s a bit like a photographic “Where’s Waldo?”) In the lower center of this image, at the left edge of the Berkeley Marina, you can see light tiny lights of the restaurant where diners look out over the Bay and the sunset.
Island Gradient
There’s this perfect moment during a summer sunset in the Bay Area, as darkness falls and the flawless gradient fades through oranges to purples, when the lights haven’t quite come on yet. Marin is dark, Angel Island is silhouetted, and the world is seems to revert to an uninhabited state.
Tree Lined
Fall in Effect
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.
California Convertible at Midsummer
Our first snow of the year arrived last night, so I thought now was a perfect time to look back on summer nights with convertible German sports cars and Bay Area sunsets.
Piano House
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.
One Red Tree
From a quadcopter-eye’s view of Johnson Hall, the effects of this season’s abnormal weather are on full display. Instead of “oranges and golds,” the North Country landscape has reached an odd “green trees and bare sticks” mix. This rogue maple is fighting the good fight for fall!
Normandy Village on Sunday Morning
Picture the setting: Berkeley’s anachronistic Normandy Village, early Sunday morning after a night of heavy rain. Quietly heading down the back stairs to get a cup of truly life-changing coffee. Passing by another tiny and odd Spruce St. apartment.
Spectroscopy Lab
After spending my entire adult life as a laboratory scientist, the web of gas lines and vacuum pumps and electrical cable seems normal. I do understand, rationally, that all of this looks overwhelming. There’s so much purpose and productivity behind the network, however, that it’s worth the sophistication.
Decaseconds 