HDR Photography
If I hadn’t taken this picture myself I probably would have guessed this picture was captured on the coast of the PNW. I really enjoy this type of terrain, found in the Marin Headlands north of San Francisco, with evergreen trees on rocky cliffs rising above the sea. The looming rain clouds really make the shot for me, giving this that real maritime feeling.
On Monday, Brendan showed you his view of the Golden Gate Bridge; today, it’s my turn. I was lucky enough to capture the moment an enormous container ship passed under the bridge on its way into the Pacific Ocean. The scale of both the bridge, and these behemoths of the ocean, shocked me when I first thought of it. I had been watching this ship for almost an hour as it maneuvered its way through the bay from the Port of Oakland, and as it passed Alcatraz, I realized that the island and the ship were nearly the same length! To then see the ship pass trivially under the Golden Gate was astonishing.
By this point in the evening it had started to rain, and keeping the lens clear was becoming increasingly difficult. I didn’t dare risk missing the moment the ship passed under the bridge, so I dried the lens, put the cover on, and waited patiently for just the right moment.
I found this rock formation interesting, especially in this light, with the red colors of the rocks contrasting with the green plants surviving on the otherwise barren rocks. In the low light the rocks almost look shiny.
Last month, I had a chance to shoot Brighton Boast a Bit (a.k.a. Posey the pony) and Piper J. Klemm (the rider) as they practiced a bit at Show Park Del Mar. Capturing motion is a very different experience for me, given that I’m usually shooting some pretty static landscapes, but I particularly liked this shot of Posey looking a bit unhappy as Piper asks her to pick up the gallop. The swooshing tail really tells the story.
How could a SF based photoblog not contain several shots of this iconic Bay Area landmark? This was taken at the overlook in the Marin Headlands just west of the bridge.
So often in suburbia, the facades of buildings are a bit boring and a couple of designs feel ubiquitous. The back of a commercial property, though, has been given over to this hyper-utilitarian aesthetic that is a much more interesting subject. A couple of security lights cast the some of the best shadows.
The Napa and Sonoma vallies are just filled with an odd mixture of beautifully manicured lawns and working farms, sometimes even coexisting on the same property. This embodies the reality of viticulture, that it all starts in the fields.
Pictured here I’ve got a picture of the Ram’s Gate Winery on a beautiful spring day. The nice cloud detail and blue skies are contrasted with the simple architecture and field in a, I feel, particularly compelling manner.
Christmas in the Hill household used to mean a big roast. This year, though, the allure of a perfectly-marbled ribeye overcame us, and we fired up the grill on a 20-degree Chicago evening. The flying sparks from the drippings were really captured in the HDR shot. There’s always something particularly strange and foreign in the quickly-varying flames when different brackets are composited together.
Here again we have a shot of the San Francisco skyline, this time from Treasure Island including the interesting Transamerica Pyramid.
To the adults at the beach, it was December: the light was fading fast, the wind was a bit chilly, and every surfer had a wet suit. To the kids, though, it was summer. A day at the beach is always a slice of summer, with the wave splashes and ambitious sand construction projects to prove it. With the camera down at “kid height,” the beach stretches on forever and I faced a contest in which serious consideration was given to who had created the most imposing edifice.
Here we’ve got a shot of the construction on the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge as shot from Treasure Island with the port of Oakland in the background.
UC Berkeley’s student machine shop has a truly fascinating collection of old machines that are still fantastically useful. (I’ve posted on it before.) This particular photograph is of a lathe’s controls–both those for moving the tool bit relative to the metal as well as those for the automatic feeds.
When everything I work with in the laser lab is computer-controlled, it’s refreshing to work with a machine that works entirely from a clever design of gears and cogs. There’s a solidity and strength in a device that is completely independent of interference from microprocessors.
The Bay Bridge connecting Oakland and San Francisco is actually a pair of bridges, resting for a moment on the island of Yerba Buena. Attached to Yerba Buena is the ironically-named Treasure Island, a man-made island composed entirely of fill. From there, photographing either the East Bay or San Francisco itself works out quite nicely. Today’s shot of the western span of the bridge has a bit of the unlit Yerba Buena outcropping on the left and the hyperintense lights of AT&T Park (home of the SF Giants) under the bridge. On this particularly clear night, I was thrilled to be able to capture it all without a thick slathering of fog.
Berkeley has a Student Machine Shop, and my scientific experiments would never get off the group without it. I’ve lost track of the number of times that I’ve needed a part that has never before been made–I can only imagine in my mind what I need. I make some preliminary drawings, and I head up to the shop to machine this fantasy part from aluminum or, more rarely, steel. To see that form from my imagination slowly becoming reality is one of the most exciting experiences I’ve ever had. (It’s probably worth noting that I started as a sculptor before transitioning to photography.)
This particular photograph is of a milling machine, used to make planes, grooves, and holes in metal. In many ways, it’s a lot more flexible than a lathe (the other ubiquitous machine shop tool), but also a bit more threatening looking.
I found this little guy sunning himself near the Imagery Winery in Glen Ellen. Here the lighting was good enough to put together a single shot pseudo-HDR shot, really bringing out all of the interesting details in the rock and the scales of our little lizard friend here.
Decaseconds 