When I lived in Minneapolis, I regularly went on photo walks. For a brief period while living in Berkeley California, I went for walks during my lunch break from my job and frequently took pictures. I have driven past these locations in El Cerrito and Richmond, California hundreds of times in the last decade, but seeing them while walking is a completely novel experience.
Category: Sun
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Single Blade
Sunset or sunrise photography always produces a rush of emotion because I can see, feel, hear and even smell the passage of time. In the later months of summer, this rush is further emphasized by the warm tan of drying grasses that blanket the ground.
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Cloud Blanket
Falling asleep with my head under my blanket is comforting. This blanket of clouds, seemingly pulled up over the bay at sunset, feels comforting. The gradient of light from bright to dark definitely contributes to that feeling. It is as if I’m being eased into night instead of the world suddenly going dark.
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Leaf Heart
The bright disc of the setting sun sits behind a heart-shaped leaf at the end of a dry branch. Other dry branches are above it, some sharp and some hocus.
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Precarious
Compared to the size of the universe, we are smaller than the atoms that make up our bodies. We live precariously on the outside of a sphere rotating at almost 1,000 miles an hour, flying through space at 67,000 mph. The energy for our daily lives originates within a giant spinning nuclear reactor located 93 million miles away.
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People-set
It is mind altering to think that, every second of every day, the sun is simultaneously rising and setting, somewhere in the world. By degrees, there are 360 sunsets and sunrises per day. By human life, there are 7.8 billion sun ups and sun downs each day. Through all of these, the sun is stationary and we get up and lay down. Maybe we should call the ends of days, people-rise and people-set?
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Sun Flag
The sequential bands of light and dark are the appeal for me in this image. The dark bands of clouds at the top, the dark lines of the distant horizon, the light band of water in the center, the dark band at the edge of the shore, and the band of wet mud at the bottom come together to remind me of a stratified flag.
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Needles in the Sun
Sometimes I don’t know what to say about something aesthetically pleasing, and this is one of those times. Contrasting elements drew me to this composition. I like the difference between the sharp pine needles and soft trees in the distance. The brightness of the orange sky against the dark foliage is also appealing.
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Oakland Savanna
From this distance, the Oakland docks remind me of an African savanna. The cranes look giraffes, probably because of their legs and long necks, and the distance between the trees remind me of images I’ve seen of trees on a savanna.
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Smoky Sun
On this day, smoke from California wildfires extended for miles into the Pacific Ocean. Normally, the orange glow of particulates in the sun, is that a distance, but today I felt as if I was in the sunset, instead of viewing it from afar.
