HDR Photography
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.
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.
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.”
Park Street is the residential/academic (i.e. St.-Lawrence-housing) street orthogonal to Canton, New York’s Main Street. As night falls, the cozy pinpoint lights of individual homes is contrasted by the broad glow of the streetlights on those biggest avenues.
A year onward from the 2017 Kentucky Summer Classic and Pony Finals, I’m looking back at many of the images I captured. Many of these only saw the light of day previously through my Instagram account, so I thought it’d be appropriate to give a complete spectrum of the the KHP experience. Some of these shots are the from the Rolex Stadium’s Grand Prix, others from the humble warm-up ring; all of them show people focused on the equine world.
The Downtown Berkeley BART stop was about to be closed for renovation when I last visited Berkeley. Have those changes been brought to fruition? Does that mean the end of the weathered bright entrances and weirdly sharp stairs? I know a quick search could answer these questions, but for just a moment I’m embracing the mystery.
Sunset and rain arrived in synchronization to the Pearl District last summer. A corner apartment looked pretty cozy.
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.
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.
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.
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 connects Oakland and Berkeley (and is a pretty good Michael Chabon book, too.)
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 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 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.
Decaseconds 