HDR Photography
Sunsets might be a cliché subject for a landscape photograph, but the North Country’s specimens offer such glowing, striated features with such regularity that the truly exceptional examples can strain my belief in atmospheric models of cloud formation and light scattering.
Winter’s lockdown continues (it might warm up above -10ºF today!), but spring will eventually return. The footbridge to SUNY Canton will eventually be free of ice and the smallest hints of leaves will peak out from the tree branches.
Next week marks the beginning of the Spring 2019 semester. I’m shocked that it has arrived so quickly, and sure that I’ll be equally shocked when the end arrives in May; that was definitely the case last year.
On a chunky rock in the middle of the Grasse River through Canton, New York, the lack of good soil has kept the trees small and bonsai-esque.
St. Lawrence University’s campus is quiet for the moment; athletes have returned early from break but pretty much everyone else is still on winter vacation. The snow adds an extra layer of dampening.
When they return, the school will once again take on its weird ski lodge vibe.
When winter is temporarily interrupted (as it is today in Northern New York) by a sudden thaw and double aliquot of rain, the ice on the Grasse River breaks up and clusters around the rocks and islands. This path in Canton, New York has been rendered impassable by a pack of rogue ice forced between the two sets of stairs by the high water.
The tiny people at the left side of the image provide a sense of the scale for the wide face of Clare, New York’s Lampson Falls. In spite of the frothy surface, the river is placid and friendly before and after the discontinuity.
Even as deciduous trees enter their period of dormancy, a bright blue river winding its way through a wetland area can’t help but look rich and fertile. Just down stream, Lampson Falls change things up a bit.
Between these two shots, the sunset light over Canton, New York changed very suddenly. Rain arrived within the hour.
Here I am, perched on a rock in 2018.
Like family members showing up with big station wagons to pick up their students for Thanksgiving Break, snow dumped onto St. Lawrence University today. The look is charming, but the timing could have been better…
Weekend wind banished the last of the leaves from the trees and brought us fully into Stick Season. During this worst of all possible seasons, I appreciate looking back to the pictures I took when the world was a bit more vibrant. On the second day of this summer, the sunset hid behind the big leaves of the trees—the leaves that now coat my lawn.
Un-fall has included a disappointing lack of brightly colored foliage and odd weather. I say: bring on winter.
Lampson Falls cuts through the woods where the St. Lawrence River Valley begins to transition into the Adirondacks. On this crisp fall afternoon, perfect weather accompanied the hikers exploring the groomed trails, campsites, and beach surrounding the falls.
Above a northern forest in the fall, the burst of foliage almost becomes an abstract explosion. Winding down on the forest floor is a neatly groomed path, adding just a tiny extra hint of possibility.
