Tilden's Animal Farm and Nature Area
One of my favorite places in Berkeley to go for a walk is the Wildcat Creek Trail at the Tilden Little Farm, it isn’t the most exciting hike in the Berkeley hills, but it so easily and conveniently accessible that I find myself frequently taking friends and family there. The little farm is a great place to take small children, and I always look for interesting images amongst the animals.
I am absolutely fascinated by leading lines and geometric symmetry in architecture, but I didn’t expect to find it in a park at the petting zoo. After visiting one of my favorite parks for probably the hundredth time I saw this windmill and knew I needed an image of it. I tried different compositions from close and far before settling on this one.
Looking up at the spinning blades created a fascinating image where the beams of the windmill almost looked like they were roads disappearing into the distance and acted as leading lines drawing the eye to the top. The picture also has a sort of broken symmetry, the lines are equally spaced and angled, but the colors of the steel and the angle of the blades breaks that symmetry giving the image additional visual interest. Perfect symmetry can be boring, so sometimes the image actually looks better if you break the perfection. The image would only be improved with a bluer sky, the upper third is lacking in contrast, as the sails don’t differ enough from the grey of the clouds to really pop.
After walking around the little farm I generally head down the trail, frequently deviating from the main path to take a walk along the wooden walkways through the small marsh that runs parallel to the Wildcat Creek Trail. These walkways feel so far away from the rest of the world, the way the dense foliage presses in on all sides creates a very soothing feeling of isolation.
