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.
Ice Tour
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!
Spring Falls
I sure am looking forward to getting back into spring when all the grey turns to green again.
Kingdom Night II
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.
Snoop Boggy Bog
Real Winter Arrives
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.
North Country Gateway
Away from the village centers, the North Country is frozen at an odd point in development. The original farms of early settlers haven’t been completely removed, but not much development has continued past that point. Trailers were installed by the sides of hot-mix roads and everything stopped there. I’m fascinated to think what this area must have been like during the late 1940s—population returning as the nation demobilized, and those people changing things in the North Country. Things don’t seem to change as much now.
Reflecting Rings
I love the way the rings and building reflect off the pool on quiet mornings like the one when I captured this shot.
Campanile Bars
Beyond Sather Tower’s bars and columns is Telegraph Ave. and the city of Oakland. I never forget that view, but I do somehow always forget the red tiles at the top of the campanile. I guess my brain abstracts away the details, even when they’re a major part of the scene.
Bay Bridged
It seemed crazy at the time but with some distance behind me, there are things about the bay area and grad school I miss. Chief among them are the views across the bay.
Midwinter Llama
Livestock of the North Country are, well, lively, even in winter. The shaggy coat and the bright sky must help. On a night with a sunset like this one, I share the llama’s need to go out and investigate.
Riding a Horse in Town
Warm weather and buzzing insects on a June afternoon are perhaps a distant memory come February; they feel as alien now as this pony and rider walking down the street of Genessee Country Village did. There’s an almost-juxtaposition there.
Spiral
I always found this random spiral staircase and the centered bamboo topiary to be an interesting fit for the otherwise sober-looking engineering building.
Summer Sunrise on Rainier Tower
Sunlight of late summer maneuvers through the Seattle skyline, and I can’t help but enjoy the way reflections and the impossible geometry (one of my favorite clichés) of Rainier Tower’s slender base stand out among the more “traditional” shapes of the surroundings buildings.
South side of campus to the Campanile
And here’s looking back up (on a different day and from a different direction). The Campanile also figured heavily into my morning (and afternoon) routines, being the signal that I was finally at work and also that I was ready to head home. It’s maybe the most recognizable thing about Berkeley.
Decaseconds 