Landscape – Page 22 – Decaseconds

Convertible in the Hills

2017-May-03 adohertyhLeave a comment

“All things are transient,” said my scientific collaborator, with just a hint of irony. From up in the hills at Berkeley Lab, where we study the way that light and matter interact, he meant it in three senses:

We use “transient absorption spectroscopy” to study the changes in a material after it is exposed to light. The new states we create are transient.
The gentle blue-hour conditions of this picture are transient; the light was completely different ten minutes later.
Berkeley Lab sits atop the Hayward Fault; a large earthquake could topple the lab at any time.

In the face of all of that transience… Might as well go for a drive.

Little Building, Big Facility

2017-Apr-28 adohertyhLeave a comment

Across the frozen expanse of Wyoming in December, signs of life and industry have the strange look of an off-world colony. If not for the tiny building in the foreground, the image would be totally devoid of reasonable features at human scale.

Watching the Gradient

2017-Apr-212018-Jun-01 adohertyh7 Comments

Do you see the lone person, sitting on the hillside, on the right side of this image? People provide scale, but also something more in this context. In addition to watching the literal gradient of the sky at sunset, this picture is part of a set of images of the “civilization gradient” from wilderness to dense city center. I quite like the added layer of a gradient from the individual in nature to the greater mass of humanity in cities. Traveling between rural New York and the crowded Bay Area has made me more aware than ever of the contrast.

Crest in the Bay

2017-Apr-17 adohertyhLeave a comment

I imagine the Bay Area like an elementary-school art project bowl, a bit lump and uneven but mostly ringed with hills. And like a proud child filling their handmade bowl with mounds of cereal and milk, there are lumps and liquid in the middle. If I strain the simile to the limit, both the bowl and the Bay are home of delicious foodstuffs. Rushing to the crest of Berkeley’s Grizzly Peak after a rich dinner, I can see the whole bowl. (And avoid the skunk sneaking up on us in the tall grass.)

Two Views of Western Nevada

2017-Apr-12 adohertyhLeave a comment

Transcontinental driving in the dead of winter is all about dodging storms—but no one’s perfect. In the emptiness of Western Nevada, with only an occasional RV/farm combo to keep us company, the edge of a major storm ran into the setting sun.

“Post-apocalyptic” was the general vibe. The landscape was so large as to be without scale; I couldn’t tell you the actual height of the hills in the distance.

Between Berkeley and San Francisco

2017-Apr-07 adohertyhLeave a comment

I spent this week BARTing back and forth from downtown San Francisco to “downtown” Berkeley for the American Chemical Society’s National Meeting. Bouncing between the familiar and the strange, all tinged with a general sense of familiarity, gave me a sense of dislocation, like an atom in slightly the wrong place in a crystal structure. Beyond meeting scientists and seeing old friends, I can think of one exciting new discovery this week: the new seat fabric on the BART is an enormous improvement over the horrifying cloth of yesteryear.

Industrial “Alpine Lodge”

2017-Apr-05 adohertyhLeave a comment

This physical plant building at Berkeley Lab has the broad A-frame structure and charming attic windows of an alpine lodge. It also has an evergreen-encrusted window to Berkeley and the Port of Oakland. In spite of the appearance and the surroundings, this is a highly utilitarian setting. Quite the juxtaposition.

Industrial Harbor

2017-Mar-29 adohertyhLeave a comment

The orange hue and misty hills remind me of the poster for Apocalypse Now, but this is just the northern end of San Francisco Bay. In this age of upward-climbing property values and Silicon Valley rags-to-riches stories, I’m continually amazed that there’s room for industry. If these facilities had to be started today, I can’t imagine that they’d wind up in the same position.

Rather Be Sailing

2017-Mar-24 adohertyhLeave a comment

Morning sun provides very stark, even lighting across the San Francisco Bay. I know rationally that gravity forces the big body of water to be (basically) flat, but the curves of the shore and the shadows of the clouds have always made the Bay itself seem to have hills and valleys. I can also confirm that the water feels pretty far from level when actually sailing it.

Launch Spiral

2017-Mar-17 adohertyhLeave a comment

I’m sure there’s a perfectly mundane aeronautical explanation for the spectacular spiral trail weaving between the sunset clouds over San Francisco. I’m also sure that I prefer to imagine something much more exotic and high-performance.

Vertical City

2017-Mar-15 adohertyh3 Comments

San Francisco’s verticality comes from its steep hills. Increasingly, however, that z-dimension size is being joined by towering additions to the skyline. Though I know it’s a contentious issue locally, I’m excited to see the new construction in downtown.

Leafy Window to Oakland

2017-Mar-13 adohertyhLeave a comment

My past couple of posts have been images of San Francisco, foregrounded by nature and suburbs—the style I like to call a “civilization gradient”. This image similarly presents downtown Oakland, California, past the hilltop homes and Cal fields of Strawberry Canyon and through the invasive alien leaves of Berkeley Lab’s eucalyptus trees. The HDR processing techniques that Brendan and I use are perfect for settings like this, with an array of light intensities across a broad landscape.

Dinner Time in Strawberry Canyon

2017-Mar-10 adohertyh1 Comment

The work day is ending and the eight-to-six employees are returning home. They meet in bars or at rec leagues or around the table or in front of the TV, but the hour is still too early to head out for a night’s adventure. In between work and nightlife is dinner time. We’re not tired enough to go to bed yet; the night is young and full of paths over which to integrate (to borrow Feynman’s view).

Shelter from the Red Sun

2017-Mar-08 adohertyh2 Comments

Red sunset light hit the hilltops of Marin and the span of the Golden Gate Bridge and just a bit of San Francisco, but the little hikers in the foreground are sheltered from it. So too, I assume, are the people on the streets between San Francisco’s skyscrapers. Many of my favorite photographs are those that show the gradient from nature to dense urbanity, and I think this one fits that bill.

Wyoming Homestead

2017-Mar-06 adohertyh1 Comment

Even on this bright afternoon before a winter blizzard clamped down on central Wyoming, the cold and isolation of the state is astonishing. Each homestead seems mostly isolated, and the rolling hills give the illusion that the curvature of the Earth has been flipped inside-out. First settlers on a ringworld?