Central Park is a classic—a place of almost incalculable value to literally millions of people. In that sense, it’s really surreal to find that there’s ever an empty place in it. Sunset on a windy, freezing night night is evidently the time.
Author: adohertyh
Bridges to the Golden City
Being back in the Bay Area for sabbatical, I need to take a proper picture of the great spans (Bay and Golden Gate) of the area. The absurd topology of San Francisco and the incredible architecture of this space is laid before the camera in the Marin Headlands.
Ghostly Neuron Lamp
Nothing like Nik’s Analog pseudo-vintage photoprocessing to produce the maximally creepy image. This particular lamp at St. Lawrence, ensconced in the boughs of a maple tree, creates the best patters at night. The tendrils extending from a central bulb remind me of the structure of a neuron.
Three Reminiscences of Fall in the North Country
The Bay Area seems to experience seasons at a different pace from much of the rest of the country. Summer is a month-long period from mid-August through mid-September, fall lasts from October through March, and the summer goes from April until August. Winter (as the East Coast understands it) isn’t a part of the equation. Being back in fall, then, has me reminiscing about fall in the North Country, with leaves starting to dot the ground and the Blue Hour arriving sooner.
Berkeley’s undergraduate student population is still mostly gone for winter break, leaving UCB’s campus to resemble St. Lawrence’s during Fall Break in October. The empty-ish parking lots might be bleak, but at least it’s easy to get a table at lunch time.
And one final bonus from that fall weekend: a most dramatic and exciting picture of a most unexciting car. I present to you: the World’s Most Interesting Toyota RAV-4.
Farm in the North
Across the reaches of North America scoured by glaciers, farms roll over hills atop rocky soil. This farm is on a hill, and its fields fall away in every direction.
Landing the Molecular Foundry
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory sits in the Berkeley Hills, so close to multiple centers of scientific and technological innovation; the intellectual climate on its campus is astonishing. One of the newer facilities on campus is the science-fiction-come-to-life Molecular Foundry. The most dramatic part of the building hangs in space above the bay. I can’t resist the image of a spacecraft coming in for a landing.
Mid-Show Snack
Flashing back to a St. Lawrence University IHSA show from last fall: between the big jumps and competition, sometimes a rider just needs an M&M break.
Angel Island Silhouette
Angel Island played a critical role in the history of immigration to the West Coast, but now it’s a nature preserve (free of invasive eucalyptus trees) with only a couple of light-emitting structures at night. This makes the island dark and mysterious at night, as it floats in front of the lights and civilization of Marin.
Two Views of Mohonk
Mohonk Mountain House has grown like lichen across its mountaintop, but its oldest core shapes much of the structure’s identity. Tea time happens at 4:00 PM each day, and guests sit in the array of front porch rocking chairs with their tea during the warmer months.
Just around the corner, gazebos crusted with snow dot the cliffs.
Grizzly Christmas
Christmas, back in the Bay Area! Up on Berkeley’s Grizzly Peak, alongside the tuners and drinkers and stoners, the clouds rolled over the hills and the whole bowl of the Bay lit up. This is a weird and special place.
Bonneville Salt Flats Flooded
Driving through the Bonneville Salt Flats, home of land speed records and long empty stretches, was a mirage-filled experience in the summer. Traversing the same alien landscape in the winter, following a series of major storms, is a brain-twisting exploration of optics: perfectly smooth surfaces (too shallow to support waves) make perfect clones of every hill and mountainside. This five-shot panorama captures the full scale of the space; I encourage you to click through to the full-size (32.1 MP) image on Flickr and see the detail for yourself.
Nebraska Cows
Road tripping across America an experience both dramatic and (in the age of Interstate highways) mundane. When I made this trip three years ago, I documented it in a photoessay. Traveling the reverse direction, from the sprawl of the East Coast to the wide-open West, has been a more dramatic experience. The downside? Making the trip at the Winter Solstice has meant much less time each day for capturing the experience.
Little Mill Houses
We’re on our way out of the North Country, headed for a sabbatical in California, but the little houses (first built for mill workers) of Canton, New York will be there to welcome us back.
We Prefer the Snow
Horses don’t seem to mind the snow. Wintery Vermont afternoons, with the appropriate amount of horse treats, are just their style.
Riding Facility in Fall
The overnight low was –16ºF, meaning that my robotic exploration of the skies has been put on pause for the moment. Back on those crisp fall days, though, there was nothing better than putting up the quadcopter and surveying St. Lawrence’s facilities. The riding stables and fields are one of the best places to spend a Friday afternoon, whether on the ground or in the air.
