Summer’s just around the corner.
Tag: HDR
Glass Overhang
I’ve posted shots of the intense geometry of the Seattle Public Library before, but I thought this shot captured a new facet of its oddness: an ordinary if elegant entrance and ground floor that suddenly shifts to an impossible angle as the building rises.
Watauga Lake
Watauga lake is a pretty spectacular man made lake which, judging by the view down the other side of Watauga Dam (the top of which makes up part of the Appalachia Trail) used to be a pretty spectacular river valley.
Fusion Ball
That Newtonian worldview (one of cause and effect, of a Universe that is fundamentally understandable), so often criticized as unromantic and clinical, makes this setting transform: where there was once a bucolic sunset over empty fields, there is now a repeating pattern of polymerized sugars on an iron-cored planet, gravitationally bound to a thermonuclear fireball. Isn’t that cooler?
Empire Hotel on Broadway
A classic New York street scene: the charm of the Empire Hotel alongside the NYPD and and bags of trash. Maybe the old man’s flyers are right: could the world be ending? (Probably not.)
Brick to Great Heights
Nearly every surface in this image is brick. From the alleyway to the retaining walls to the towers: brick, brick, brick (or pavers). I understand sheathing a structural steel building in glass or densglass or (heaven forbid) “exterior insulation finishing system,” a.k.a. Dryvit, but the kind of person-hours necessary to assemble all of that orderly brick is mind-boggling.
Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse
It’s not one of the more iconic lighthouses of the outer banks (like Cape Hateras or Bodie Island) but the diminutive Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse on Roanoke Island (yeah, that Roanoke) has a certain charm.
Barn and Birches
Suddenly, the grass is infinitely green and thick and the trees have buds again. There’s this fundamentally Scandinavian feeling to the rolling hills and pine forests of the North Country that is best captured in spring and early summer. The world looks like a Bob Ross painting.
Stealthy Empire State Building
Can a building hide? Or surprise? Or sneak?
The Empire State Building, hiding at the other end of 34th St. in Manhattan, seems to support the possibility. The canonical modern New York street scene, one of luxury cars stuck in traffic and smoke from cooking street meat and old industrial buildings being converted into high-end condos, can still surprise. One step away is another scene built of different buildings and people in view.
In the Mist
On the way back from the Outer Banks, a perfect storm of conditions led to this amazing mist over a Watauga Lake. As the mist lifted this small island came into view like some kind of mini magical realm (or the setting for some kind of horror film).
Fallow
Spring comes slowly to the North Country, and the weather always seems to far outpace the biological response. The trees give no indication that temperatures have remained solidly in the “warm” category for weeks now. I remain hopeful for the photosynthetic inevitability.
Boulders
Despite a failure properly plan the outing leading to a hike that was 3 times as long as anticipated, the trip to the Channels of Virginia near Abingdon were well worth the extra effort. I’ll definitely be coming back.
Contrary Building
This four-story apartment building was so clearly designed to be flanked by siblings of similar stature. It’s now the contrary holdout on a lot dominated by a monster tower block that threatens to engulf it.
Red, White, and Black at the New York International Auto Show
I’m not in the market for a hypercar (like the Bugatti Veyron below), nor a supercar, nor even really a car, at this particular moment. When friends and family heard that I had attended the New York International Auto Show last month, the response was often in the range of questions about what kind of car I planned to buy. I’m not planning on replacing the Mini just yet, I love the combination of graphic and industrial design on display at a show like this—not to mention the mix with civil and mechanical engineering. Cars have their costs and benefits, but it’s tough to wanter a place like the Javits Center and not feel a little bit of awe.
Porsche’s eternal and outwardly-unchanging 911 (like the R version here) is suprisingly subtle by the standards of similarly-performing vehicles, but it fit well into the classy setting of Porsche’s display: red and white matching perfectly.
Acura’s new NSX is a monster (in performance, engineering, and cost), and joins a category of hybrid hypercars that transform the environmental technology into a performance booster. Sure, the numbers are impressive, but the design just has so many creases and parts. Overdesigned?
The real star of the show (for me), however, was this humble Mazda MX-5 Miata. I might have some bias from owning a 1995 Miata in the past (in this same white paint/black top combination, even). This is a driver’s car for the masses. It’s light and fast and efficient. Shame about the trunk space…
Seaweed
Puget Sound is great, but the beaches are not exactly filled with nice clean sand.
Decaseconds 