HDR Photography
In in the instant before the train passed under the George Washington Bridge, I took this picture, distorted by motion and extreme angle, of a lone man standing on the hillside above the train. That silhouette, isolated against the sky and near the framework of the bridge, is the stuff of conspiracy theories. In this case, of course, it would be the most mundane theory.
Bannerman’s Castle on Pollepel Island in the Hudson River was once an arsenal, and then a tourist destination, before it burned down in 1969 and the island was closed to the public. Now the fortified silhouette of the ruins apparently inspires an incredible amount of use as a hideout for the supernatural in fantasy fiction. Though I didn’t know it at the time I took this picture, this island is one of the major inspirations for Lev Grossman’s Brakebills College. A sunset train ride down the Hudson River is the perfect occasion to stumble on a structure like this.
There’s no better place to see the abrupt transition from the semi-“undeveloped” to the densely urban than the edge of Central Park. Trees give way directly to the new generation of “needle buildings,” these spiky skyscrapers that have attracted: (1) big money from Russian kleptocrats and (2) complaints from fans of New York’s traditional architecture. I might be sold on the futuristic spires for their sci-fi appeal.
Glaze ice really makes an incredible sight in full sunlight.
St. Lawrence’s Geology Department faculty take students out of their everyday dorm-gym-class world and bring them to the nature surrounding our campus. When winter locks down the Adirondacks, those adventures can’t happen as frequently. I imagine they must be looking forward to the end of winter more than most.
Even at the end of this winter-that-wasn’t, the North Country wouldn’t let us get away without gorgeous glaze ice and snow-packed roads. Is any day crisper than the one after an epic storm?
If only the title of this post had proven true. On a warm September day, I was ready to soar over the North Country aboard a hot air balloon! Going up a few stories and returning to earth was charming in its own way (and other people needed their turn), but I had been expecting so much more.
I’ve continued experimenting with Aurora HDR software, and I’ve confirmed my earlier opinion that it is an excellent tool for surreal, enticing night shots and cases where the noise would be too high for any other HDR technique. For realistic HDR with natural lighting, however, Photomatix remains the king.
When I’m in the first row, inches from the action of St. Lawrence’s DIV I women’s hockey, there’s no better lens than my 35 mm prime. That lens let me capture this Last-Supper-esque shot of six players all chasing the puck; they’re all roughly equidistant from me, making the shot slightly flat and surreal, like a splash page in a comic book.
This picture comes with added good new: the women’s team won their first playoff game this weekend!
Glaze ice entombs the branches of trees in the courtyard of St. Lawrence University’s Johnson Hall of Science in the aftermath of last weeks. The view out my office window is much improved.
The regular ice hockey season has ended (and the playoffs are ahead!), but it went out on a great note: St. Lawrence crushed Brown 3–0. The very similar nature of the school colors helped the aesthetics. Then there was the actual play: the three Brown players against one St. Lawrence player about measured the balance of power. It made for some odd and dynamic hockey.
Ice and snow and real winter have locked down the countryside, but I still have the photographic evidence of our ultra-mild, el-Niño-powered January.
An ice storm has transformed campus; I’ve never seen it this beautiful. For the folks in admissions (like the tour guide and family in this photograph), that must be a boon!
St. Lawrence’s campus becomes extra strange and ski-resort-esque when a fresh layer of snow is cleared by night. When morning arrives, paths are “magically” clear.
Real winter arrived with a horrible stillness. When the temperature is -25ºF, nothing moves and nothing melts and every bit of solid water stays just where you leave it. Even the tiny twigs and branches were stuck in its embrace.
I wanted to look back briefly on the structures of St. Lawrence University’s campus under lockdown from heavy snow. The oldest buildings, like Herring-Cole Hall, are naturals.
This little shed is in odd scale with the buildings around it, but its little puddle of light fits perfectly with the evening.
I’ve always grown to love the mid-twentieth-century buildings like the ODY Library. The lights, snow, and scaffolding among the trees put me in mind of Soviet science fiction.
Here is another example from around the same time period, Bewkes Science Hall. In my mind, authors of speculative fiction must be hiding behind the drawn blinds and imagining snowy, cyberpunk futures of the late 1990s.
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