HDR Photography
There’s that perfect moment when the sky is still blue but the oranges of sodium vapor lamps begin to scatter from the surfaces of the clouds and the Eiffel Tower looks particularly otherworldly. When so many American cities have switched to lighting their streets with white LED lights, I was surprised at how much of Paris is still lit by sodium lamps.
A Parisian cliché says that the best view of the city comes from the top of the Tour Montparnasse—because it’s the only shot in which the enormous tower can’t be seen. My trip to Paris last week didn’t give me the time to establish that definitively, but I can certainly attest that the city looks fantastic from the deck. Cityscapes like this were what originally inspired me to get into HDR photography a decade ago, and they still fascinate me now.
Summer made a perfect match of the elm leaves and Trinity College’s chapel. I wonder if the alignment looks as good with rime on the branches?
Between these two shots, the sunset light over Canton, New York changed very suddenly. Rain arrived within the hour.
Here I am, perched on a rock in 2018.
Like family members showing up with big station wagons to pick up their students for Thanksgiving Break, snow dumped onto St. Lawrence University today. The look is charming, but the timing could have been better…
Capturing pictures of the everyday and mundane details of living in a place as odd as Berkeley’s Normandy Village means that I can look back to the little details. This maroon fire escape served as the back door to our apartment, but also easy access to the shared laundry room—and thus a route I frequently traversed, trying to find a time when the machines were free.
Weekend wind banished the last of the leaves from the trees and brought us fully into Stick Season. During this worst of all possible seasons, I appreciate looking back to the pictures I took when the world was a bit more vibrant. On the second day of this summer, the sunset hid behind the big leaves of the trees—the leaves that now coat my lawn.
Down the tiny alleys, side streets, and driveways of Berkeley are all kinds of odd old garages. My favorite details of these structures usually come down to scale; the driveway tracks and garage measurements were clearly built to be just large enough for the cars of the period. As American vehicles have grown larger, they now appear comically mismatched with anything but a vintage car in the scene.
The Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal at Liberty State Park may not serve quite the role it once did, but the structure remains a lovely and imposing feature across the Hudson from downtown Manhattan.
Walking through the side streets of Berkeley, all kinds of delightful sports cars are secreted away in the driveways of wood-shingled homes. This BMW 2002 looks like it’d be a hoot to drive.
This Alfa Romeo Spyder also looks (and this is a technical term) “the business.”
Liberty State Park’s Empty Sky Memorial is a sobering corridor facing downtown Manhattan. Taking a moment of stillness between the walls of names, I saw some other visitors doing the same thing.
Un-fall has included a disappointing lack of brightly colored foliage and odd weather. I say: bring on winter.
Though much of the country is enjoying crispy fall weather, the mountains and hills of the northeast have already been carpeted with the first snowfalls, and much of the bright foliage has already fallen to the forest floor.
The somewhat-reflective panels on the planar faces of Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry make the pallet for the Bay Area’s winter colors.
Decaseconds 