HDR Photography
Granted, I don’t speak Portuguese—but if I studied the signs correctly, I believe this building is a recreation of the sort of shack used in converting sugar cane into raw sugar. From the outside, it has just the right Brazilian charm. From the inside, the dichotomy at the heart of modern Brazil is even better represented: traditional cane processing equipment, including massive grinding stones, spend time alongside comfortable couches and a television.
As with my previous shot on here, this one comes from the museum of ancient life at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah. Unfortunately I realized too late that +/- 3 EV was much too wide for the low light here. Still I thought that the idea was good enough to merit posting and I may come back to this one in the future. The awe of a grown adult staring up into the rib cage of a prehistoric beast was too good to pass up.
Legendary tuned cars abound in manga and anime—the overpowered monsters in unassuming guise who reveal their true (horse)power in the last seven minutes of each episode. In at least two that jump to mind (Wangan Midnight and Shakotan Boogie), Datsun Z cars are the chief culprits.
This particular Z has been hanging out in Berkeley’s South Campus neighborhood as long as anyone can remember, delivering supplies to I.B.’s Hoagies. Each year, it’s modified a little further towards some ultimate form that exists in the mind of its owner. In the mean time, I love the idea of this rough style monster out on delivery service.
I dream of the perfect vacation house, nestled on the shores of some lonely Adirondack lake and stocked with just the right combination of boats and brews and firewood. I project this dream onto this unassuming cabin and its charming beach, nestled on the shore of Mirror Lake.
I recently took a trip to the Salt Lake City area and while I was paid a visit to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point. It’s a pretty neat museum if you’re in the area. This specimen is a Utahraptor, which you may recognize if you’re into prehistoric life or you read this web comic regularly.
During the blazing August heat, looking back to winter pictures leads to the oddest “time machine effect.” As you can see from the rapidly filling tire tracks in the driveway, we barely made it home ahead of what turned out to be a fierce storm. The comfort of “I don’t have to go out there” is so amplified when standing on a perfect porch, next to the door to a cozy house, and seeing the frozen, dark contrast in the graveyard across the way.
On the western edge of Cal’s campus (which is full of trees to begin with) sits this little grove of trees and benches commemorating the forestry club. The density of trees and the regularity of their positions creates this interesting corridor effect (even if there isn’t much to see on the other side).
The eternally-damp shoreline of the San Francisco Bay is the fascinating meeting of quaint docks and maritime randomness with the aggressive mass of a full-scale city. Charming piers abut the grandiosity of the Financial District, and the result is a surreal and unique setting. Amid this hubbub, the Coit Tower and the Embarcadero stand out as red beacons.
My new academic home at St. Lawrence University has involved a serious shift from Berkeley’s urban campus to the bucolic surroundings of New York’s North Country. The gentle flower-and-grass smells waft through the campus in place of petrochemical fumes, and an the evening sun provides just the right bit of warmth.
The use of space, the precision and repeated arches with their perfect alignment, makes the Cathedral of Learning pretty intimidating (but also even more beautiful.)
(The title, by the way, was borrowed from a piece by one of my favorite composers, John Adams, who in turn borrowed it from a William Blake poem.)
The seaplanes dotting the shores of Long Lake offer amazing views and transportation to visitors to the aptly-named Long Lake. On this rainy Sunday afternoon, however, they were quietly bobbing by their docks. The 1960s-era motels, the float planes, the miniature beaches and vacation homes: driving through Adirondack Park is like taking a step back in time. (The complete absence of cell reception furthers the effect.)
There’s comfort in the Adirondack charm of Mirror Lake Inn. The lodge atmosphere, the wood paneling, hand-made furniture and tiny lamps and games of checkers: it all brings me back to simpler times. (And when I’m sick of being inside, I can go sit on the porch in a rocking chair.)
Waterfalls don’t necessarily have the same impressive drama from the top, but they present another kind of wonder: the calm, burbling stream that disappears to infinity, replaced by the view of a sylvan landscape beyond. The pebbles and the trees contrast in lengthscale dramatically, but they all “belong” here.
Captured in UC Berkeley’s botanical garden.
The Cathedral of Learning, like most Neo-Gothic buildings, is mostly an exercise in symmetry. I’m all the more fascinated, then, by the little nooks and crannies that eschew this symmetry in favor of their own localized logic. This little bench-and-fireplace alcove, with its overlooking balconies and hexagonal lights, sets itself apart. I can’t help but think it’d look drastically more inviting and charming with a couple of big, woode benches pulled up to the fire. Perhaps they were missing because this was June, and nobody needs a fireplace in Pittsburgh in June.
Decaseconds 