High Structure; San Francisco, April 2017
On cloudless days, a vast dome of bright Mediterranean light seems to wash over San Francisco and its growing forest of high structures. This enveloping light brightly reveals the variety and power -- and structure -- of these towering buildings. These images were all taken with a short (70-200mm) telephoto lens to isolate and compress the buildings' elements. The resulting images optically collage the structural surfaces.
The sun is an active participant. But it can light a building in different ways; sometimes it floods the building's surfaces with direct light; other times, its direct light bounces off neighboring buildings, and is much altered by the reflecting surfaces. Windows have an essential role in this play of light by offering contrasts of both value and color, and also by reflecting in altered form nearby walls of glass, stone, and metal, as well as the sky.
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After a lifetime of mainly expressing myself with words, my postings here will mainly rely on images. They will speak for themselves to some extent, but I'll usually add a few comments of explanation. I've taken photographs for decades, since the 1950's, inspired in part by my father's photographic skill. Four years of photo assignments and quality darkroom time eventually gave way to decades of casual and family picture-taking. I re-immersed myself when I left film and turned to digital.