Tag: Architecture

The San Francisco Transbay Terminal/Transit Center

Hannah Keene3 Comments

When I was a little girl in the early 50’s, and then later when my family returned to the Bay Area in the late 60’s, one of the constants was the San Francisco Transbay Terminal. Built in 1939 by the famous local architect Timothy L. Pflueger, it was a huge concrete building where the trains from East Bay and then in 1959 buses from the extended Bay Area would arrive. Even long distance transportation such as Greyhound busses and Amtrak trains would pull up at the terminal. Then all you had to do was walk outside, and climb aboard one of the various forms of public transit available in the City. The East Bay cities had their transit companies and S.F. had another. But all of them worked remarkably seamlessly together. Not flawlessly, mind you, but it was a piece of cake to transfer from one system to another.

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This image was copied from Wikipedia

My husband and I left the Bay Area for jobs when we got married at the end of 1974. 42 years later we returned (2016), only to visibly discover what we knew from the news: the 1939 Terminal had been demolished and the new San Francisco Transbay Transit Center had been built. This was a HUGE change as you can see below. I took this photo as friends and I were inching our way towards the on-ramp for the Bay Bridge about 2 months ago. We had gone into the City to see a play, and there seemed to be an accident blocking one access to the bridge. At one point it took us half an hour to advance 5 blocks, so it was a long trip home. We laughed, we joked, we carried on, and of course I used the opportunity to take photos by leaning out the window.

Here is one photograph of the new Transit Center taken just as we entered under the overpass, and looking behind us. (It’s now named the Sales Force Transit Center). Look for the garage entrance (Enter and Do Not Enter) in the lower right of the photograph, then follow upward on the slant toward the windows and you will see the steel grid of the canopy reflected.

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Hannah Keene 2019

Posted to the Ragtag Daily Prompt: Change

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Macro Monday

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Click (or tap) on each image to enlarge.

All Images: Hannah Keene 2019

Yellow dandelion flowers turn into these beautiful dandelion “puffs,” which are their seed stage. As children we used to pick these, make a wish, and then blow. Like birthday candles, we thought that if we could blow all the seeds off the puff in one blow, we would get our wish.

Reference Point

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Does this image make you a little dizzy? Or perhaps off balance? It should. Yet it is merely a photo of a wrought iron railing. The difference is the reference point. We are used to making solid, constant things our reference points. In this case you would probably not be at all uneasy if I had taken the photo with the building straight on the horizontal and thus made the railing diagonal. That is, after all, how we stand when we look at things. But by making the bottom of the railing horizontal to the bottom of the picture frame (even if it doesn’t appear that way because on the descent of the steps), it makes you feel rather topsy turvy.

I have taken photographs for years. Decades even. But I now find that I have the time and the energy to start learning the craft seriously. Even with much technical skill to learn, however, there is one thing I have always known: that photography, as is true of any art form, must elicit an emotional response from the viewer. It may be awe, discomfort, outrage, sorrow, amazement, a feeling of being drawn in to the photograph, or even that sharp intake of breath that signifies absolute wonder. But a feeling must exist in the viewer or otherwise to them, it is just a picture. Not everyone will necessarily react the same way to the same work of art, or even to the same artist. But if a photograph doesn’t move someone, then it remains an object, not art.

Painters, musicians, writers, potters, photographers, dancers – at a fundamental level, we are all trying to do the same thing. We are all trying to get good enough at our craft to convey what we feel when we encounter the world.

And that is a life long process.

Photography and Dogs in the Rain

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I am, perhaps, unusual in that I like taking pictures in the rain. The rain water on objects, in addition to the light that is peculiar to rain storms, seems to intensify the colors. More importantly, I suppose, is that I don’t mind going out in the rain. I have the necessary rain gear due to my love of hiking and the necessity of walking dogs, so I only get rather damp.

The dogs, however, have a different opinion of going out in the rain and of me stopping every minute or two to take a photo. They sit there, only somewhat patiently, with their heads down, sneaking a pleading look upwards every once in awhile that says, “Would you please, for God’s sake, take me home where it is warm and dry.

*Disclosure: I actually only own one dog, a Miniature Schnauzer. Good friends in the building own a Labradoodle. We share the walking of the dogs (three people, three walks/day = one walk per day per person). We also share the dogs in other respects, such as loving them both. And they behave as if they are littler mates. It’s a great system.

 

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A picture of Teddy, the Labradoodle. and Zoe, the Miniature Schnauzer. Teddy doesn’t actually like the rain, but he doesn’t mind it too much. Zoe, on the other hand definitely doesn’t not, I repeat, not, like rain. It probably has to do with the fact that Teddy has enough oil in his fur that the rain drops mostly sit on the surface of his coat and he simply shakes them off. Zoe, on the other hand. has hair, not fur, and the rain soaks immediately right down to her skin. She looks rather like a drowned rat and is about as cheerful as one as well.

*Further discloser: I did not have them with me the other day when I took these photos of an old lamp post on Piedmont Ave in Oakland. The lamp posts, by the way, are over 100 years old.

I especially love how the rust shows its colors where the paint has worn off.

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Images: Zebras Child 2019