HDR Photography
The DJI Phantom 3 quadcopter is giving me a new appreciation for Canton’s “small town America” landmarks, like the Appleton Arena. The way oblique solar rays reflect from its arcing roof puts the ice rink and the Grasse River in a reflective class of their own; nothing else in town is reflecting the sunset in the same way. Perhaps it’s appropriate that the ice rink and the flowing river, both full of water (though covered, in Appleton’s case) are the most reflective moieties.
The lights mark the border between forest and manicured athletic fields. In real life, crossing the border means risking ticks and perhaps a run-in with a deer; in the realm of science fiction, I can imagine much more terrifying consequences from crossing the border from light into darkness as the sun sets.
Shipping containers are ubiquitous yet mysterious. Because they’re used to transport almost everything, they could contain almost anything—and that has been used to great effect by a variety of my favorite authors. There’s little doubt over what these particular containers are holding—mostly supplies left in dorm rooms by St. Lawrence students at the end of the year—but there’s still a healthy dose of mystery in their juxtaposition with the regular structures of a college campus.
St. Lawrence’s campus includes far more natural settings (and transitions far more quickly to them) than any place I’ve previously experienced. The Wachtmeister Field Station is a field laboratory that feels like a “candle in the wilderness,” despite being within (drone) sight of campus.
On a clear summer night, with the campus quiet and mostly studentless, St. Lawrence’s Japanese zen garden reaches its most silent and, well, zen.
Coming to St. Lawrence, I was not prepared for the amount of forest space on the school’s 1000-acre campus. Flying above the Grasse River, campus looks wild and vaguely Nordic. I’ve never run into a frost giant on the way to work, but now I’m sort of wondering whether I need to prepare for that, too.
The roars and gasps of the crowd could be heard all over town: Friday night football in the North Country of New York. St. Lawrence’s Saints dominated Morrisville to the tune of 28–0. From quadcopter, the action on the field is just a bit out of range. One of the recurring themes of my work is the civilization gradient between densely human areas and wilderness; I view this picture as another interpretation of that theme. There’s perhaps no urban center in Canton, but there are quaint homes and university buildings giving way to farmland and, eventually, the foothills of the Adirondacks in the distance where the Earth begins to curve.
Structures along the Hudson River mark eras of American practicality and industrial life. There’s a great combination of aesthetics and practicality.
The mid-century (1955) Tappan Zee Bridge is from a different era from the lighthouse above, but it also represents this aesthetic/industrial impact on the Hudson River.
Night-flying for long-exposure photography seems to rely a lot on luck: How’s the wind? How’s the weather? That’s a lot to consider, but the superhuman perspective (even if it is occasionally a bit blurry) is worth it. I love the times of day when the brightness of building lights and the brightness of the setting sun match each other in intensity.
Heating up and then slowly cooling a material anneals it, softening the material by allowing the crystal structure to reform to an optimal geometry. Annealing at the correct temperature for a metal produces a characteristic color—often a dull, cherry red like the edges of this sunset. After baking in the hot sun all day, the St. Lawrence University and the North Country are probably feeling lower in energy and ready to relax their geometries, too.
I’ve shown you St. Lawrence University’s zen garden in the past, but never from above. Down in the middle of Sykes Hall, in front of the clock tower, you can see a hint of raked gravel and carefully cut grass. I’m not sure I ever appreciated how many trees we have until I started flying.
After playing at low altitudes, I upgraded to a DJI Phantom 3 Advanced last week. This quadcopter can stay stationary in the night sky—like, “long exposures look good” stationary. I’m looking forward to exploring what the little flying robot can do.
New York’s is a collision of infrastructure from past, present, and future. That’s a cliché by now, but I still enjoy experiencing it firsthand. Here are all three eras connected in one image:
Captured in one image: St. Lawrence’s oldest building, Richardson Hall, and its newest, Kirk Douglas Hall.
Decaseconds 