HDR Photography
Snow comes early to the North Country. Nothing quite justifies a cold morning more than waking up to a lovely dusting of snow and flakes in the air. The oak trees are still stubbornly holding onto their leaves, and thus there was a cozy snow-free zone (and a welcoming bench) from which to watch the snow this morning. Johnson Hall of Science looks friendly in all seasons.
On my way back from my conference in Connecticut, I drove through the Adirondacks, where winter is arriving fast. The hills were dusted with snow and all but the most tenacious leaves were carpeting the forest floor. I pulled off the road for this shot in Tupper Lake, where the grasses, placid waters, and stubbly hills matched perfectly with the dense clouds and the random distribution of sunlight. The moment felt chaotic, strange—just a bit primeval. I had a chance to do landscape photography that truly excluded any human intrusion (save the eye of the photographer himself.)
I’m down in New Haven, CT for a conference—a great opportunity to shoot a classic American east-coast city, you say? But my camera is doing double duty shooting horses this weekend! What is a photographer without a camera (and with a lovely view of New Haven in the morning from the top of the Omni Hotel) to do? I’m not the biggest evangelist for iPhone photography, but in a pinch (and with the help of a handy bracketing app), it’s possible to account for a lot of the device’s shortcomings and produce photos that can transmit at least a degree of the desired effect. For the ubiquitous “multitool in your pocket,” that’s pretty good.
When I have to be up early to shoot a horse show, I make certain to take advantage of the occasion. In looking across the autumn North Country fields, I was amused by the “chronological asymmetry” between the looming living tree and the stump of “tree-past.”
A mid-winter shot down Telegraph Ave. to the heart of Oakland (from the top of Berkeley’s Campanile) is more nostalgia-tinged now than when I took it. And I do appreciate the way that this shot captures the Bay and the hills ringing it, the silvan suburbia of the East Bay, and even the oddly broad California streets.
Ultimately, even with the benefit of nostalgia, I still have mixed feelings about Oakland. In some ways, the existence of Oakland allows San Francisco to be an “unbalanced chemical equation,” pushing off many of its problems across the bay. Everything can still look peaceful from a distance.
In the dining hall of Timberline Lodge (just around the corner from the gorgeous main hall), the imposing wood and the elegant place settings seem immovable and eternal. The human beings floating through, blurry and insubstantial and fleeting, are as ghosts.
On the dawn of SLU’s homecoming weekend, the sky was filled with appropriately dramatic clouds and the campus was dotted with all sorts of exotic temporary structures. (Or really only one sort: tents.) The attraction of a liberal arts campus on a crisp autumn weekend jumps from the screen.
Waking up for Monday merits a pair of shots from my time at the Timberline Lodge in Oregon. Call it a before/after, if you’d like. The tiny (yet charming) bunkrooms were full of rustic furniture, but looked even more surreal in the glare of morning light the next day.
I’ll sneak in one more unscheduled weekend post with this photograph from St. Lawrence University’s Avenue of the Elms. Some fall afternoons are so perfect that they must be shared.
Rising before dawn (and posting shots of buildings taken from slightly below and to the right) seems to be a recent trend for me. When I struggled out of bed to shoot a Saturday morning horse show on St. Lawrence University’s campus, I had the opportunity to capture the predawn North Country roads. No HDR, no fancy post-processing here (beyond some simple noise reduction). I present a quiet Saturday morning moment that captures the whole “stuck in time” 1980’s vibe of northern New York. You can almost hear Bruce Springsteen tracks playing in the background.
The benefit of teaching early morning classes: I’m finally (routinely) up for the sunrise. Even when the morning is cold and my fingers don’t want to be operating a camera, the fall and the clouds and the trees conspire to make Johnson Hall of Science (a frequent subject) look like paradise.
Trinity College’s gargantuan Neo-Gothic chapel is never more intimidating than at early dusk in the winter. The pale stone and the snow on the ground exert a pressure in the brain of everyone around them. In capturing an image of the chapel, perhaps I can bottle some of that intensity.
(And I had the opportunity to continue my recent trend of 1:1 aspect ratio photographs, to boot!)
St. Lawrence University celebrated Parents’ Weekend on Saturday with a gorgeous fireworks display on the south side of campus. Conveniently, this is the sky above Johnson Hall of Science. The combination of architectural textures, floral fireworks patterns, and fall foliage make for an image that would be more at home in a video game than reality.
Running through the core of Oregon’s Timberline Lodge (last seen on Decaseconds Monday) is a chimney. The hexagonal and redwood-girthy chimney feeds multiple communal fireplaces at person-level, but up in the vaulted ceilings it takes on a wholly different Harry Potter charm. Wrought iron hardware and enormous beams bond the core to the rest of the lodge structure.
Perhaps my last post in the cozy, wood-lined chambers of Timberline Lodge put me in mind of winter excursions. From the windy top of Lion’s Head in northwestern Connecticut, the view of three states is incredible. The snow clings to branches from a recent storm, and a few wisps of cloud mark the horizon in an otherwise azure sky. This snowsuit caught my eye, and I particularly liked the way only a single hand of human being is visible, poking out from the bundled layers.
Decaseconds 