Lighted Spaces and Landscapes

Excerpts from a Geographer's Photo Archive

recent posts

  • It was Cheating, but Still Good

    I’ve climbed a short distance up a glacier and it is no small task. The helicopter ride might have been an easy way to get here, but well worth the trip and the view. (Mendenhall Glacier, 2012)

  • Good Architects Mess with Your Mind

    I.M. Pei is one of those architects that makes you feel a space differently even when it is highly functional. The atrium of the Museum of Islamic Art has an open air feel before you move into the exhibit wings. (Doha, Qatar, 2016)

  • Halfway

    Sometimes you just have to stop for the photo op. (US 31, Western Michigan, 2013)

  • The View from Hoboken

    Skyline views of Manhattan are always better from across the East River or the Hudson River. This day I was cooling my heels in the early morning waiting to meet a friend for breakfast at the place across the street. (Hoboken, New Jersey, 2019)

  • One of the Lesser Bridges

    This is a workhorse of a bridge carrying 7 lanes of traffic, 4 subway tracks, a bike lane, and a pedestrian lane. Originally named “Bridge Number 3,” the Manhattan Bridge sits just to the east of the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River. (New York, New York, 2000)

  • Where is the Crummy Hotel?

    I love Washington Square Park. It’s a place for people. This was a cold day in February, but the sun was out and so were people. However every time I’m there I hear the song that references the “crummy hotel over Washington Square. (New York, New York, 2019)

  • Ten Years Later

    Changes in the urban landscape are often subtle–but look for them. The street is more defined as the city has worked to control and slow traffic. There is also a stand of rented bikes as the transportation culture changes. There are more taxi cabs than the 2009 photo (I have no explanation for that). (New York, New York, 2019)

  • It was a Chelsea Morning

    This was a “throwaway shot” that hung on my office wall for years. I was on the High Line in New York shortly after it opened. I was just shooting randomly from the elevated park. (New York, New York, 2009)

  • Wells Street Bridge

    Although still a drawbridge, the Wells street bridge doesn’t see the kind of commercial traffic it used to. These days it lifts for tour boats and large pleasure boats. (Milwaukee, 2001)

  • Houses Below the Concrete River

    When I was doing work on “Water and the West,” a colleague and I traveled down the Owens River Valley following the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Here the aqueduct runs above and alongside a housing development. (California, 2005)