Late in the day and early in the summer, Tiburon had a sleepy vibe. Though Friday night may bring people, most have evidently not yet left work; with the exception of a pedestrian or two, it felt like I had the town to myself.
Tag: street
Sunset on Cedar Street
I never thought much of Berkeley’s Cedar Street during my time in graduate school, but returning for sabbatical brought me a very different connection with it. Cedar functioned as the main connection from my apartment on Spruce to Shattuck’s Gourmet Ghetto, and so I traveled it for every purpose from getting coffee and groceries to an extravagant dinner at Chez Panisse.
New Year Special: Streets of San Francisco
Happy New Year!
As a celebration of 2018, I wanted to show a large set of the street photography images I took while in San Francisco for my 2017 sabbatical. That seems to be a fitting way to look back on the year that has passed.
Boxes on Boxes
The first “real” snowfalls of the winter have arrived in the North Country, and I can’t think of a better time to look back on the never-snow geometries of Berkeley. The architectural possibilities expand when structures will never have to bear the load of a late-winter storm and stairs will never have to be scraped free of ice and snow. I think the design is particularly well-expressed in the boxes-on-boxes-on-boxes design of this building. The best detail, to me, is the sunlight passing in one side and out the other of the corner window on the first floor.
Telegraph Ave.
Telegraph connects Oakland and Berkeley (and is a pretty good Michael Chabon book, too.)
Standard Berkeley Street Scenes
The title of today’s post is somewhat sarcastic: there is such an incredible variety of vehicles and homes visible on any Berkeley street that a “standard” is impossible. This Volvo wagon and turreted home both seemed like prime examples of classic Berkeley engineering.
Sunday Morning Family Walk
Sunday morning is the perfect time to take the family out for a coffee walk. Berkeley’s busy Gourmet Ghetto is just a little quieter then.
University Avenue II
University Avenue connects downtown Berkeley with the Interstate. The growth of the city hasn’t been matched by the growth of the road; every year, the avenue transitions further to its (possible) future as a glowing vein of gridlock across the East Bay.
The Old Part of Campus
Though St. Lawrence has its share of modern buildings (including my own), it’s the old part of campus (buildings like Piskor and Sykes Halls) that best captures the Harry Potter vibe of small liberal arts colleges in the Northeast.
Chevrolet in Chinatown
This image resulted from the process of demonstrating color filters to my coworker. Colors, with black and white? Of course! The rich, dark sky and bright foreground in this picture result from (digitally) applying a red filter. My favorite part of that now-visible foreground is the large Chevrolet pickup, shoehorned into a parking space on a narrow San Francisco street.
Triumph II
Further Motorcycle Imaginings
San Francisco street scenes featuring motorcycles parked provocatively outside bars and cafés have become a recent focus of mine. Blues and reds in bright Sunday sunshine are enticing.
Old Under New
Striking modern architecture next to industrialization-era brick and ironwork makes for a dramatic combination. It’s also the bedrock style of my favorite cities, including New York and San Francisco. In this particular image, the sport bike and the small group enjoying breakfast at front add the perfect hint of scale.
Microbus Foliage
Berkeley’s seasons are a weird, fractured, microcrystalline version of their East Coast equivalents. There’s a nice congruence between the variable season a given tree might be experiencing and the variable model year any street-parked vehicle might be representing. Having autumn foliage gently localized around this classic (if oxidized) VW Microbus makes for a delightful combination.
Squad
“Teenage” is a category that remains linked to California, and there are few places where the California/teenager overlap occurs more than in an older-model car jammed full of your best friends on a sunny Saturday afternoon in downtown Berkeley. There are plans to be made! We have to pick up that guy from the BART! What about hitting Grizzly Peak? Time to drive!
Decaseconds 