Tag: Sunset

Every Detail of the Bay

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My favorite view of the Bay Area (and the view that first let me define the idea of the civilization gradient as an element of my photography) is layered up with loads of detail. Down in Berkeley Lab is the building where I worked on sabbatical, and across the Bay Bridge is the completed Salesforce Tower hiding in the marine layer. The differences, particularly from the last time I showed a very similar shot from the spring, are in nature: the high-altitude clouds have been replaced with empty skies and that rolling marine layer, while the green hills have shifted to a dry, highly flammable tan.

Every Detail of the Bay

San Francisco’s Russian Sunset

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I sometimes reprocess older pictures when I find some new approach or something special in an image that wasn’t there before. This picture is a bit different—though I captured it at this time seven years ago, I found that I felt no urge to reprocess any part of it. I was happy with it then—though apparently not enough to post it until now—and I’m impressed with it today.

San Francisco's Russian Sunset

Fire Trails Apart

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As busy as the cities of the Bay Area become, there are the spaces in the fire trails (like the one in the foreground) to get some quiet and distance. There’s an odd orthogonality of the senses in being able to see all of the commotion below with none of the accompanying sound.

Fire Trails Apart

Oxbow Beyond St. Lawrence

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St. Lawrence University’s campus has an “everything the sun touches is your kingdom” vibe—the school extends over almost an entire quadrant of town. Just under the setting sun is the most-frequented version of campus, but it continues to extend over the woods to this oxbow.

Oxbow Beyond St. Lawrence

Six (Christmas?) Trees Above Berkeley

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Two of my past St. Lawrence University students are working on their Ph.D.s at Berkeley and I discovered yesterday that one was giving her Graduate Research Conference (Berkeley’s version of a thesis defense, but earlier) while the other was in the audience. I’m very proud of both of them.
Understandably, this had me thinking about my experiences at Berkeley. In this picture from Grizzly Peak, the perspective folds together Oakland, San Francisco, and Berkeley. In the foreground, look at those gnarled trees—they’re weird but they’ve grown tall. I’ll take that visual metaphor for the grad school experience. I took this picture on Christmas Day in 2016, so I guess that makes these Christmas trees, too.

Six (Christmas?) Trees Above Berkeley

New and Old Wood

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The expanses of wood in the modern architecture of Berkeley’s Energy Biosciences Building contrasts with the timber-framed buildings of old Berkeley across the street. As campus expands and the needs of modern Berkeley grow, I expect most of those older buildings in the space between Shattuck and Oxford will eventually vanish.

New and Old Wood

A Sunset No Longer Seen

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Though UC Berkeley’s Energy Biosciences Building still stands, this particular view of the sunset lighting its wooden overhang is no longer available; the construction of Berkeley Way West in what was once the building’s parking lot has closed off that section of sky.

A Sunset No Longer Seen

Little Path//Big View

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I took this picture two years ago, during a wonderful springtime in Berkeley when a rainy winter had made the hills lush and green. The view is enormous, overwhelming: Oakland, San Francisco, Emeryville, and Berkeley all packed into one. I like the contrast of the tiny path on the green hilltop on the left side of the image providing a quiet contrast.

Little Path//Big View