HDR Photography
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.)
Chicago’s suburbs are filled with older train stations like this one. In an area where quaint, older homes are often knocked down to make way for McMansions, these stations are sometimes an area’s only link with the past. (Luckily, Hinsdale is better than most areas in this respect.) On a particularly dramatic and thunderstorm-ready afternoon, this particular train platform feels like it could be unstuck in time.
The sequoia trees of Muir Woods stand straight and proud (just like that Neil Young song), but not every tree is so cooperative. Leaning at a jaunty angle and encrusted with moss and wee ferns, this nonconformist of a tree doesn’t have time for any of the “straight up” nonsense.
Not far from Muir Woods, the Pacific coast cliffs of California are a starker, steeper, and foggier place than I expected. The nearly sheer cliff face, the scraggly trees hanging on for dear life, and the weather- (and person-) beaten railings make the whole place feel mythical. The fog density hit just the right soupiness on this particular day; we could just barely see and hear the waves crashing on the rocks below.
Early in the morning, before another human has arisen, in the fog and rain and the sound of crashing California surf, the cliffs of Marin are strange and alien and haunting. They stagger out of the fog, all stunted shrubs and jagged rocks and decaying 20th century gun emplacements. I’ve always rather fancied the idea that America kept expanding until they reached the end of the continent, where the cliffs and the alien landscape drove us all a bit mad.
True, Eastern-Seaboard-style storms are a rarity in the Bay Area. When the weather obliges, there’s no better place to experience the full brunt of a storm than the Campanile tower. Battered by the wind and enormous raindrops, I mentally thanked engineers for the weatherproof camera body and grabbed this three-exposure HDR shot. Angry clouds dwarf the Eastern edge of Berkeley’s campus. On the left, you can see the College of Chemistry and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. In the middle, the Haas School of Business, Strawberry Canyon, and Memorial Stadium. On the right, the College of Environmental Design and the International House. The heavy rain makes every color so much darker and more intense.
This little canyon ends at the beach, and its miniature stream flows back and forth with the tides. On this particular evening, it was starting to rain as the sun set through the clouds. The beach was abandoned, and whole scene felt post-apocalyptic.
Today’s photo, taken just as the rain started to pick up in the Marin Headlands, is one of my favorites. The alignment of this little bridge to the Golden Gate itself, the harbor, the construction equipment, with Angel Island and the rest of the North Bay off in the distance: it all provides a sense of scale and perspective. The way the warm sodium lamps contrast with the colors of the evening bring your eye to the bridge and its gorgeous structural steel. Rigid geometries contrast with the fuzzy plants of the hillside. This is a picture I want to crawl inside.
Today’s image is the result of a little experiment I did, in which I limited myself to shooting only with a simple prime lens. This is perhaps my favorite image that stemmed from the experience: Berkeley’s historic Lewis Hall on a rainy afternoon. The reflections from the wet concrete buildings, the grid of the plaza’s brick pattern, and the intricate array of the hall’s windows combine to produce such a strong sense of place. In contrast with these hard, angular, man-made structures are the curves of the redwood trees. Would the picture have been better, had I taken it with a wide-angle zoom lens? I’m really not sure.
Once you venture even a few miles from the suburban world of the East Bay into the hills surrounding, all sorts of weird little “model train set” vistas appear. On a rainy, gloomy day, with low cloud cover penning in the view, you could almost be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled into a giant’s basement hobby space.
The environment changes so completely when it rains that I can’t help but run out with my camera in the moments between storms. Today’s photograph is another from UC Berkeley’s Strawberry Creek on a particularly drizzly day. The contrast between nature and the manicured stone walls works out quite nicely when everything is wet and glistening.
Decaseconds 