This view of the Olympics towering over Puget sound, from the community beach near where I grew up, always gets me. Just stunning.
Tag: Nature
‘Tis slightly past the season
There’s a holly tree in my parents’ back yard which in the winter seemingly attracts every bird in the area. It also happens to be about the most colorful thing in the Northwest (apart from the sunrises/sunsets).
Redwoods
Here’s a shot I captured during an excursion to Portola Redwoods state park in northern California. I didn’t have my DSLR with me and so I was stuck with my iPhone but I figured that I would see what I could do with an iPhone shot with my usual suite of photo tools.
No Dark on the Beach
The beach at Costão do Santinho is as bright as day, 24/7. In the winter, it was eerily empty (save for a few roaming packs of wild dogs, later on…) I’d like to imagine that the warmer weather brings all-night volleyball tournaments.
Either way, the mist-capped waves, black rocks, and bright bits of algae make the lonely beach even more alien.
Arboreal Campus
It’s sort of hard for me to believe upon revisiting this shot that it was taken on a college campus, or that beyond this stand of trees is a relatively well traveled street. This is just one of many things that struck me as awesome about UBC’s campus.
Three Brothers
These three trees (try saying that one three times fast) outline a little glade in the Berkeley Hills. Their needles and shade enforce the limits of a calm place for an afternoon nap.
Americana Double Feature
I had my own staging of Two-Lane Blacktop in central Oregon this weekend, with the company of this particularly lovely 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet. This is grass seed country, and this particular weekend fell in the middle of the harvest. Long, perfectly maintained roads are intercut with forested hillsides and busy fields. By this point in the evening, however, nightfall brought calm with it.
For every sunny hilltop like the one above, there was a tree-lined valley. The setting sun really picks out the details of every treetop, but it’s a shame that Oregon has such a clean, healthy atmosphere. Without other molecules in the air to scatter the light, the sunsets lack the exciting colors of other parts of the country. This photograph captures the feeling of blasting down the road, wind in my hair, with only an occasional truck for company.
View From the Hills
The hills that rise above Berkeley and the east bay are home to some of the most spectacular vistas — when the weather is nice. On this particular day we were just lucky enough to get a patch of blue sky peaking through the bleak grey clouds, which was enough to completely light up the east bay while leaving the gloom looming over the city.
Firetrail Falls
The fire trails up in the Berkeley hills are notable for the views they reveal at the top, the payout for climbing the hills on foot, but on the way to top you can find some fairly interesting nature-filled set pieces like this shady water way.
House on the creek
North Berkeley has some of the most picturesque homes in all of Berkeley, like this one perched above one of the many creeks criss-crossing Berkeley. Like this one they are rarely as fancy or as large as the homes you find up in the hills but somehow they seem more like they’re actually someone’s home.
Silly Bird
I was out on some of the nice walking trails in the hills about Berkeley when I came across this stand of shrubs full of song birds. I caught this one climbing all over this plant, as well as hanging upside down from the stalks. I was able to approach surprisingly close before our friend got spooked and flew off but in the mean-time I was able to grab a few choice shots.
Green Berkeley
Say what you will, but I do sort of like the urban jungles that folks around Berkeley tend to plant around their houses. Some, like these folks, even attempt to groom the foliage which results in this, a sort of idealized representation of a small corner of forest.
Evergreen
If my last post represented what I find foreign about Berkeley today’s post represents what I find comforting and familiar. UC Berkeley’s campus is full of beautiful evergreens like these, with the result that large portions of the campus remind me a lot of my home in the PNW.
Berkeley: Tropical Paradise?
Growing up in the good ol’ PNW I didn’t see many palm trees except on TV and in Movies so it was a little weird for me when I suddenly found myself in a place where they were landscaping staples (though I suppose not as much as they are in southern California). Whenever I see a palm tree (like this one in downtown Berkeley) it tends to remind me how tropical it ISN’T in the bay area, as if these trees which I associate with warm beaches are mocking me.
Ingrained
This little stream was running by the trail not far from where Brendan took yesterday’s photo. At first, I felt distressed to see that tires had been dumped into the stream, but further inspection made it obvious that they’d been washed there in heavy rain years ago. There was a certain relief in seeing them encrusted in moss and being (at least partially) reclaimed.
The contrast between the blacks/greys of the tires/rocks and the array of greens in the moss, ferns, and trees worked out really nicely for highlighting the contrast between the “static” parts of the image and the encroaching life.
Decaseconds 