Canton – Page 13 – Decaseconds

Above St. Lawrence’s Campus

2018-Jul-16 adohertyhLeave a comment

I’ve often commented to curious colleagues that the benefit of drone photography is the ability to get images from that “impossible” space: lower than a helicopter or other light aircraft might dare fly, but higher than a photographer could reach with a cherry picker. Those are views that can only be had from building height, and so a drone let’s one (metaphorically) put a temporary building wherever they’d like, at least for photographic purposes.

I’m evidently not obeying that rule here, nearly 400 feet above St. Lawrence University’s sylvan campus. It’s from this height where the taper of from larger halls down to smaller dorms and townhouses, and then ultimately to wooded space at the eastern edge of campus, is visible.

Halloween Rainbow

2018-Jun-29 adohertyhLeave a comment

Summer research students at St. Lawrence have reached the halfway point (chronologically) of their projects, and the wildest (read: hottest) weather of the summer is coming along with it. At times like that, looking back on (and forward to) the cooler fall weather is a respite.

Spectroscopy Lab

2018-Jun-20 adohertyhLeave a comment

Approaching the summer solstice, the start of fall-semester classes and their attendant labs seems far away, but a new class of St. Lawrence first-year students will be here before I know it.

This was one of the light sources students were interrogating: a sodium lamp, like the ones used in street lights (at least in the twentieth century—LED street lamps are becoming increasingly dominant now.)

Lush Campus

2018-Jun-13 adohertyhLeave a comment

The long winter seems long behind us and campus is lush with flowering trees and grass carpets. Brush Quad, situated between St. Lawrence University’s oldest building (Richardson Hall) and its newest (Kirk Douglas Hall), looks particularly welcoming.

Stone Valley: Reflective Triangle

2018-Jun-11 adohertyh2 Comments

The rapids of Stone Valley diverge and reunite numerous times throughout their journey, and the spray that accompanies them turns the everyday rocks into smoothed, shiny, reflective triangles.

Stone Valley: Rapid Stairs

2018-May-30 adohertyh2 Comments

The rapids of Stone Valley in Colton, New York have a certain stair-like repeating quality to them (at least for the 363-ish days/year during which the dam above keeps its spillway gates closed).

Farther along the river, the effect again repeats: stone ledges turn the rushing water into less-metallic slinky.

This isn’t a mere trompe-l’œil where a particular angle makes stair-like shapes appear in the stones and moving water. A view shifted by 90º confirms the structure.

Exploring

2018-May-04 adohertyhLeave a comment

The end of St. Lawrence’s school year means that the hikes through areas like nearby Colton’s Stone Valley will be coming to an end for many graduating seniors.

Living in this Adirondack-ish reality of the region presents opportunities to stand face-to-face with nature.

Quiet contemplation of the future is at the end of the trail.

Lynchian Town II

2018-Apr-30 adohertyhLeave a comment

David Lynch’s projects have documented the (sometimes sinister) weirdness underlying small-town life, and I think I’ve occasionally captured a hint of that in my pictures of Canton. High above the town after an August storm, the clouds impart a definitely Lynchian vibe.

Pestle Stone Sunset

2018-Apr-27 adohertyhLeave a comment

Summer hiking in nearby Colton’s Stone Valley is rapidly approaching, and with it, opportunities to see some of our odd (to me) local geology. Those enormous hollows are created by the movement of trapped pestle stones in the rapids water; the scattered evening light reveals their depths.

Above the Quad

2018-Apr-232018-Apr-23 adohertyhLeave a comment

This weekend marked the first truly warm days (i.e. spring) after a long winter, and there’s not long now until St. Lawrence’s students graduate on that sunset-lit quad at the center of the image.

Fall Visit

2018-Apr-13 adohertyhLeave a comment

Good landscape photography advice: take your pictures from the top of the second tallest structure (or drone) around and let the tallest structure (like St. Lawrence’s Gunnison Chapel) cross the horizon.

532 nm

2018-Apr-092018-Apr-09 adohertyh1 Comment

In St. Lawrence’s Raman spectroscopy and microscopy lab, the most potent laser illumination source comes from a neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet. This is a pretty ubiquitous laser source, but I happen to like it because it also demonstrates the value of nonlinear optics: though this laser is emitting light at 1064 nanometers (in the infrared), a suitable doubling crystal can combine two of those 1064 photons together to make a shiny new 532 nm photon.

Post-Storm Dorm

2018-Mar-21 adohertyh3 Comments

The oldest buildings on St. Lawrence’s campus have seen their share of winter storms (particularly these frustrating, wet-snow-in-March varieties), and always seem to be at their most comfortable under a coat of snow.

St. Lawrence Winter Flight

2018-Feb-072018-Feb-07 adohertyh1 Comment

I’ve previously compared the feel of St. Lawrence University’s campus in the winter to a ski resort missing its ski slopes; even from the air, the miniature snow city effect holds. Though I’m not sure I can explain the particular magic of this image, it currently holds the record has the most-liked picture on St. Lawrence’s Instagram. Perhaps it’s the glow of the setting sun on the buildings?

Frozen Retreat

2018-Jan-15 adohertyh3 Comments

North Country temperatures abruptly rose from 20ºF to nearly 60ºF before suddenly dropping to -20ºF—all in under 36 hours. The result was rain that completely melted almost all snow, followed by freezing rain that deposited a layer of ice, followed by a new 12″ of snow to replace what came before.

In the midst of that chaos, I visited the Grasse River through the center of Canton to see it rising above its banks and jamming the shores with ice.