HDR Photography
On National Connecticut Day (apparently a Real Thing since 2017), I wanted to show these three views from around our state capital. They’re united by a strategy of processing the images darker in exposure than I might normally, producing deep, dark tones and highlights safe from being blown out.
Bushnell Tower was originally intended to have a twin rising next to it. Though the cost of the first tower ultimately scuttled plants for the second, echoes of the goal remain in the design. It wouldn’t have done to have windows looking directly into one’s neighbors, so the side of the building originally designed to face its partner was constructed with very few windows. My personal stance is to enjoy the little bit of strangeness in a world that threatens to become a bit more smoothed-down and homogenous.
The lights of the Hartford Public Library in the foreground provide a safer, more orderly home for the eye than the highly abnormal weather feature expanding forth around Travelers Tower like some portal to an evil dimension.
Hartford was thrown into an apocalyptic atmospheric condition this week, and while wildfire smoke is terrible for our community’s health, it makes for some bonkers pictures. At 1:00 PM, we were thrown into orange shade.
Even sheltering indoors, the seeping yellow light was inescapable through skylights and windows.
Though science-themed photography isn’t my primary focus, moments of entrancing light emission from novel molecules are going to make the cut.
Rain at sunset leaves behind a Hartford looking exactly like I always hoped my city-home would. The smaller buildings in the foreground and the taller structures in the distance have a perfect coincidence to make layer after layer of space vanishing into the golden sky.
That light in the sky is some strange and eerie scattering during a storm over the city that brought to mind nothing more than the sorts of occult summonings found in films like “Ghostbusters” or “To Cast a Deadly Spell.” Perhaps I’ve been playing too much Deadlock lately.
Beyond Hartford’s Town Hall in the foreground are city landmarks like the State capitol, Bushnell Tower, and Travelers Tower. The sunset is not an official Hartford landmark but it should be a skymark.
I.M. Pei’s Bushnell Tower is a palette for late-spring sunsets and clear skies in downtown Hartford.
A mixture of wide-angle lens distortion and “impossible” aerial drone viewpoint make for brain-twisting images of already strange and transient phenomena, like the chairs and stage of Trinity College’s Commencement Ceremony arrayed on the quad.
Trinity sings of being “‘Neath the Elms” for our alma mater, but I haven’t been able to capture that experience at Commencement quite so literally prior to now.
From every angle, Trinity College’s Clement Chemistry Building has been surrounded by flowering trees. Great for photography… But not so much for people with a pollen allergy.
A springtime stroll along Trinity’s Long Walk has more leaf-generated shade every day.
Final exam week is winding down, which means we can finally emerge from our Neo-Gothic cocoons and enjoy Trinity’s perfect spring campus.
After a 2025 spent with construction fencing and destroyed surfaces, Bushnell Park in downtown Hartford is back and better than ever.
Decaseconds 