Tag: Strawberry Creek

A Trip Back to Berkeley on the First Day with a New Camera

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Scenery of Berkeley’s campus from Oppenheimer had me looking back again to my RAW files (as I’ve done recently) and finding exceptional images that benefited from my evolution in processing skills over the past decade. This particular December 2012 day marked my first walk to work with my then-new Nikon D7000, and so it was a moment in which I was viewing my quotidian surroundings through a literal new lens.

The light shining down on the little bridge over Strawberry Creek to the Faculty Club, for example, is a far more interesting image to me as a memory than it was at the moment I first processed these in 2012.

Quiet Bridge on Busy Campus

Quiet monuments, dappled by sunshine, feel different from a decade away.

Base of the Campanile

Big, dramatic, and green are the themes of this bridge.

Concrete Bridge and Arch

I was struck by how many portrait-orientation shots I had initially bypassed. The curving stairs in front of Latimer Hall always looked charming beneath late-autumn foliage.

Tree Over Stairs

These stairs down to Hildebrand Hall’s D Level were my typical path to my office. They were about as intimidating in real life as they look in this picture—squeeze between the edges of different intersecting buildings and utilities pass-throughs.

Stairs to the D Level

Leaving again at the end of the day, the afternoon sun on Latimer’s facade is starting to shift to an oranger hue.

Evening Light on Latimer

The trip past the architecture school wasn’t one I typically made by 2012 (I moved from an apartment south of campus to one on the west side), but the light on its concrete architecture wasn’t to be missed.

Gold Light on Architecture School

Under the bridge

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This one’s a little different, here I was playing around with a pinhole on my Canon T3i. This is actually a manually measured 3 shot HDR pinhole photo of a bridge on Cal’s campus. Composing this shot was a bit of a challenge as really the only way to judge composition is to take a long exposure (in this case not that long with the help of very high ISO settings). Processing it was also a bit of a challenge as the amount of change in the lighting over the duration of the three exposures created really weird looking highlights. Still, the peculiar kind of “lo-fi” quality is neat, and I’ve been experimenting with landscapes where the reduction in detail is less noticeable.

Under the Bridge

Rain and Roots

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Little pockets of calm exist all over Berkeley’s hustling campus, but Strawberry Creek on a rainy day is a particularly superlative example. The leaves and water take on this lovely green that perfectly offsets the red needles from the Redwoods above. Against this palette, the textures of the mud and roots are all the more striking.

Rain and Roots

The Walk to Work

adohertyh2 Comments

Though, like anyone else, some days at work turn out to be excellent while others are slogs to the finish, my morning walk to work is always a high point. I cross this little bridge over Strawberry Creek and stare up at the redwoods and inhale those great pine-y smells–much better than any cup of coffee!

The Walk to Work

Antique Creek

adohertyh1 Comment

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.

Antique Creek