Late spring on college campuses around the country presents perhaps the loveliest views to the fewest people—students have graduated and perhaps a few reunioners are the only audience.
Category: New York
Wick’s New York
I caught John Wick Chapter 3 in theaters this weekend; that movie’s take on New York City inspired me to finish processing my RAWs from my October 2018 trip to photograph its downtown skyline. Perhaps that sense of a hidden world lurking around every corner is captured in the details along the shore.
Abandoned Fishing Shack
Spring marks the return of leaves to the trees around the North Country; in the tiny window between snow-covered and leaf-obscured, I get to imagine the story behind this long-abandoned and island-isolated shack. Was it a weekend fishing spot? Was the construction of the nearby bridge what caused it to be abandoned?
Waterfall Around the Corner
Winding against the river current (or the prevailing wind, in my drone’s case), one rounds a bend to find a pool and Lampson Falls in their ring of sunbaked rock and aromatic pine needles.
Swiss Army City
New York has something for everyone (perhaps even the nature lover in Central Park); it feels at times like a Swiss Army knife of a city. When I took this panorama originally, it was so large that it didn’t fit well as a single image. Collapsing the picture to a “tiny planet” stereographic projection, the image now looks literally like those images of a Swiss Army knife, opened to show all of its different components.
Manhattan: Band of Gold
Midtown Manhattan’s golden skyline during the blue hour seems to stretch on “forever”; why not introduce some periodic boundary conditions and make the effect literal?
Walk in the Park
The density of Manhattan’s skyline makes me appreciate the political will required to preserve public open spaces in urban areas. A visit to Liberty State Park makes for a delightful break from the “concrete jungle”.
Sailors Who Brave the Seasons
I have to admire the sailors who are out on their boats at the beginning and end of a season. The water is cold, the air is cold, and I’m sure the wet lines are cold, too, but still they persist.
Mogul
The sunset reflected off downtown Manhattan’s towers is the perfect background for a portrait of a mogul.
Moon Over Brooklyn
Downtown Manhattan eventually ends, giving way to Brooklyn in the distance under the rising moon. I took this picture at the end of a weekend trip, just before heading back home; there was an appropriate symmetry to a sunset skyline marking the finale of a New York trip.
Curve in Route 11
Strip shopping centers, golf courses, and a Best Western: this stretch of NY Rt. 11 outside Canton differs little from other blocks of America. Still, this road is special… The North Country lacks an interstates whatsoever, so this two-lane blacktop is the only major path through the region. Though the general west-southwest direction of the road wavers little, this particular intersection is a place where it temporarily swings north to pass through town.
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.
Decaseconds 
