The night is normally an amber-bathed fry-cooker for my mind. On this particular night last fall, however, high temperatures and a local power outage changed the hues of the world to the red-and-blue-and-white of emergency lights.
Tag: urban
Perch
On the rocks of Grizzly Peak, nothing resets your soul like seeing the hills and trees towering above the hazy sprawl of Oakland.
Night Espresso
Looking down over an intersection in the dead of night reminds me of staring at a moment without time. No cars, no one rushing in and out of the coffee shop. Everything is still. The perfect subject, then, for a photograph.
Signs of Spring
The spring is probably my second favorite time of year, after winter, because of all of the bright green foliage and brightly colored flowers. That green that just pops out at you from everywhere.
Around Coit Tower
As shot from Pier 14, Coit Tower stands atop Telegraph Hill. Its white surface, in conjunction with colored lights, make it absolutely stunning to see at night. Such surreal objects can lack a suitable sense of scale when photographed. This photograph satisfies me so in large part because the homes clustering the hill provide that scale, and a sense of the familiar to match the alien.
Across the Lot
Just around the corner in my neighborhood, across the parking lot of the Energy Biosciences Building, is this little slice of Downtown Berkeley neighborhood. The mixture of tacky, earthquake-proofed 1960s architecture, charming older apartment buildings, abandoned structures, and sprinkling of trees make it home.
Clouds Over Berkeley
Sometimes, the most glorious visions are right around the corner. Great clouds and just the right light can be frustratingly rare in California, land of infinite sunshine, so I was utterly thrilled to capture this gorgeous post-sunset cloudscape and the attendant Friday-evening bustle from the Berkeleyites stuck down on Earth.
Our Own Gold
The water practically glows with reflected light. The buildings tower over the scene. The long exposure captures the trails of aircraft in the night sky. San Francisco’s waterfront along the Embarcadero may not have the most enormous and prestigious structures, but nights like this make that irrelevant. The scene makes “enigmatic” and “cyberpunky” into something almost friendly. (Or at least inviting.)
High atop it all is that fascinating golden penthouse structure. The visual similarity to a treasure chest must be more than coincidence.
Back Streets of San Francisco
For every bustling San Francisco street, there’s a quiet alleyway like this one. The details of the setting at sunset really jump out: the cracked concrete and lumpy pavement, the intricate fire escapes and the peeling paint. Ninja Turtles are coming out of that manhole cover at any moment.
San Francisco Sunset
I feel like there’s a very set picture of what San Francisco looks like to people, the skyline that is depicted is usually the financial district or something including Alcatraz and/or the Golden Gate bridge. On the other hand people sort of know that San Francisco is populated with rows of apartments with bay windows on impossibly steep hills, but they don’t get the big picture here. San Francisco is at its core a sprawling city filled with such apartments and there isn’t just one hill but several. That’s what I tried to capture here, a sunset over what I believe is Russian Hill, looking down from one hill up to another.
Red Trees
On a recent outing to San Francisco I captured this shot of the these trees in the financial district. The red color and the way the lights were strung around the trees in a swirling pattern lead to a sense of motion, as if the trees have been set on fire. Its a very interesting effect which contrasted with the cooler colors of a nearby set of trees similarly illuminated but bathed in blue, not red.
View From the Hills
The hills that rise above Berkeley and the east bay are home to some of the most spectacular vistas — when the weather is nice. On this particular day we were just lucky enough to get a patch of blue sky peaking through the bleak grey clouds, which was enough to completely light up the east bay while leaving the gloom looming over the city.
Decaseconds 