Campanile under repair, a photo from California, Ouest

Photographer's Note

The University of California was established by charter in 1868. Its flagship campus was established a year later in Berkeley, across the bay from San Francisco. Today, the UC system has ten campuses serving more than 220,000 students. There are more than 1.5 million living alumni.

UC Berkeley ("Cal") has 35,000 students of whom 25,000 are undergraduates and 10,000 are graduate students. In the US, Cal has the highest number of graduate programs that are ranked in the top 10 nationally.

This photo shows a view of the central part of the campus, looking south. The viewpoint is from a balcony on the 10th floor of Evans Hall. To avoid shooting through a window, I had to stand on a chair and hold the camera up over my head.

The tower on the left is known as the Campanile. It stands 94 m tall. Construction was completed in 1914. The design was influenced by the Campanile di San Marco in Venice. The architect was John Galen Howard.

Other buildings that can be seen in the photo include the Bancroft Library (far right), which houses special archive collections. The brick building just to the right of the Campanile is South Hall, dating from 1873.

In the distance is the downtown area of Oakland, the city that adjoins Berkeley to the south.

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Longroute (19600) 2009-08-29 12:11

Long ago I met a girl from Berkeley, she invited me to visit her city, but in my only travel to America I could only see the east coast of the States and California remained a dream...

With this photo I can see what I missed: an almost European city, at least in this area. It's a classical composition which I call an "L" composition where the campanile is the taller vertical line of the "L" and the city below the other line... a very personal interpretation or way of calling it but surely a common one.

The cloudy sky deprived you of a decent light but nonetheless the pictures has a good contrast and fine saturated colors (maybe thanks to pp).
Where've all the flowers gone?

Ciao,
Donato

jhm (203003) 2009-08-30 4:24

Hello William,

Berkeley, a city that I not know, perhaps an breach in my culture.
Sharpness and clarity are superb.
Very well captured and good composed.

Have a nice sunday,
John.

Waylim (25436) 2009-09-03 13:58

Maybe 8 or so years ago I visited a friend from Swizerland who was attending and doing research at UC Berkeley. Sadly I don't remember much of what it looks like. This kind of bring some of it back.
I think you really got this one just right with the tower off to the left for a good to perfect composition. There is just enough breathing room top and bottom for the tower, which is your main subject, Dispite the hazy day, you got some good and rich colors, very vivid yet still very natural. Good light and contrast overall, shadow not too dark and not overly bright spot. If not that the Campenile is under construction, you could have use it for the school catalogue. Have a good day William. Thanks.
Way

sanjibandey (386) 2010-01-21 21:36

Impressive how you have captured the monument totally off-centre to emerge from the building city.
Nice Composition, natural colour, An eye catching photo.
Regards,
sanjiban Dey