The limits (practical, historical, and modern) on Parisian architecture make every street so dense with detail that glancing down one while passing left me moving on with a longing to explore.
Author: adohertyh
Rocks, Beach, Falls
The three sides of the pool at the base of Lampson Falls take on drastically different characters: to the north, the fluffy rapids of the falls themselves; to the west, the sandy beach, popular with campers; to the south, the rocky mini-cliff where hikers lay in the sun. A small cluster of people happened to be on each side when I took this picture, providing a sense of scale to the very 3-D space.
August at the Barn
Big green fields at the edge of a forest are perhaps not what I normally associate with a college campus, but St. Lawrence University’s barn (technically the Elsa Gunnison Appleton Riding Hall) is indeed on its campus. Though the main halls and dormitories are off in the distance at the right of the image, effectively this entire picture is St. Lawrence’s campus. The perks of being a rural college.
Rapids to the Sunset
The deep gouge in the landscape that is Stone Valley winds off into the post-sunset, on its way to meet the distant tiny tower.
Canton and St. Lawrence in the Fall
Rook-esque clouds pillaring the sky on a crisp fall afternoon are one of the treats of living in the northeast, and a drone panorama does a solid job of capturing the effect.
River Triangle
Stone Valley’s sharp river slicing through the fuzzy trees is a good reminder that there are forces far more powerful than photosynthesis sculpting the world we see each day.
Sun Column on the Rive Gauche
I took eight years of French classes as a middle- and high-school student, and those courses’ textbooks inevitably had charming pictures of Parisian locales throughout. In trying to cover a wide range of French experiences, those books tended to show “everyday” life alongside the expected pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, and so I came to associate all of these images with a sort of “imaginary,” idealized Paris.
Imagine my surprise when I arrived in France and found that it looks exactly like my books.
Trail to the Barn
St. Lawrence University’s enormous campus includes both the barn and horse fields in the middle-distance and the Kip Trail that leads to it. A stroll through the woods and grassy fields sounds pretty nice in the depths of February.
Shadow River
Flying a drone makes me think a lot about my xyz position in space. Dark stone and glossy water and fuzzy trees seem to occupy orthogonal dimensions: the trees point along the z-axis, the striations in the stone along the y-axis, and the ripples and rapids in the water along the x-axis.
Raether Library Well
The multistory lobby of Trinity College’s Raether Library was impressive and modern to me when I was a student, shortly after it was built… And I’m happy to report that it remains so to this day.
Avengers vs. King Kong
Manhattan has been the site of an unsurprisingly large number of climactic cinematic showdowns. In the dramatic golden light of an autumn sunset, this particular image contrasts two tall towers on the horizon: in the east, the Empire State Building, site of King Kong’s climb, and in the west, the new Hudson Yard buildings that bear a marked resemblance to Stark Tower from the Avengers.
Jarvis
Following on the dorm-based nostalgia I felt last week, this image of Trinity College’s Jarvis Hall (where I lived during my first year in college) hits even deeper into the I-recently-attended-my-10-year-college-reunion space.
Rapids at Dusk
Stone Valley is a hyperreal place at sunset; the effect is a bit different from above but no less magical. The rapids do, I’ll grant, look a bit less steep from up here.
Guest Post: St. Croix East End
Today’s guest post is by David Bain:
The eastern end of St. Croix, in the US Virgin Islands. The entire east end of the island is a protected area with a few trails, and I did a lot of exploring there back when my parents lived on the island. I’ve climbed to the top of Goat Hill in the right of the picture and snorkeled in Boiler Bay to the left.”
Herring-Cole at Midsummer
Last summer, Herring-Cole Hall in the foreground received a new roof. They say the building is haunted; I wonder if the ghost appreciated the upgrade?
Decaseconds 