College campuses have long, tree-lined walks; those are great places to find this “yellow leaf tunnel” effect.
Falls
Close of Business, Election Day
Even on Election Day, businesses are open and running and life continues in the North Country. At the grain elevator, farmers arrive and depart not just by truck, but also (in the case of our Amish neighbors) by horse-drawn buggy. At the end of the day, businesses quiet down but haven’t quite closed yet and everything becomes still.
Rocks
South on 11
Without a nearby Interstate, materials move through the North Country along Route 11 in much the same way I imagine they did pre-1956. The Cascade diner and the Buccaneer Lounge beneath it, glowing with neon lighting on the right side of the picture, date from the early Interstate era. When I visit them for a burger and I beer, my mind always wanders to Eisenhower and Kennedy and the other presidents who presided over the development of the Interstate system. Highway access remains on the mind, I’m sure, of ever person who commutes in and out of the North Country, too.
On the Tracks
Stick season has arrived, with orange everywhere. Holes in the trees have appeared and the optical topology has some new path options. Even the steel tracks now appear some copper other-metal.
From Above
Another view of Laurel Run Falls, this time from above.
Untitled
Lean
That was a nice day for a stroll in the woods.
Under the Sphere
Large-scale sculptures on college campuses set the tone of these places, focusing the on spaces for the mind to experiment and grow. I’ve always found it a bit ironic that the mind will grow to find these odd structures everyday and ordinary.
Welcoming
Admissions buildings are always charming, but the blue hour on a crisp fall afternoon creates optimal conditions for charm. Not a single leaf is out of place.
Corn Hill
Even the small local farms of the North Country can seem overwhelmingly huge, and viewing them from a quadcopter’s vantage point doesn’t mitigate the effect.
Milky Way
Looks so good you could eat it.
Another Husk of Winter
The North Country is an unforgiving place during most of the year, but never more than during the depths of winter. Our first snow arrived last week, and I looked back through my photographs from last winter. The transition from summer is renders the landscape nearly unrecognizable.
Towers and Farms
A central theme to my photography is visualizing the progressive gradient from dense urban areas to natural settings. Some of my favorite images are cases where that gradient is particularly abrupt or unexpected. Until I began flying quadcopters, I didn’t expect that I’d be able to find the same transitions in the North Country, with its much more homogeneous rural structure. Here in Canton, however, the juxtaposition of apartment towers, shops, and bridges with forests, islands, and farmland creates a similar effect. The North Country supports this cultural difference between folks who live “in the village” and those who live “out of the village”.
Decaseconds 