HDR Photography
Colton, New York’s hydroelectric dam brings together dark, deep, deceptively passive water on one side and a raging torrent on the other. It’s perhaps a useful metaphor for the experience of preparing to leave a place one has lived for a decade. Visiting sites like this is also a reminder that sometimes I avoid exploring the interesting places near me until I’m preparing to leave the area; something analogous happened near the end of my sabbatical.
Though it may lack the verticality of Blade Runner’s Los Angeles in 2019, the cloudy skies and slightly sinister oranges put me in mind of the film’s iconic imagery.
While the L.A. River might be better known as the site of chase scenes in action movies when dry, the wet winter in California has turned it into a reflective ribbon through the grid.
High above the hills and mountains of Southern California, there is a moment, right around dawn, when the dark hues of earth and the reflected light from the lakes lets one image what the area looked like before human structures sprawled through the valleys.
A dawn flight from Palm Springs to Los Angeles (long story) passed over land that looked like potting soil—so muddy and fertile.
An early-morning flight out of Palm Springs airport paints gentle hues onto the massive wall that is Mt. San Jacinto. The orderly, be-palm-tree’d grid of the valley floor runs so sharply into the mountainside that I was immediately reminded that a sea once occupied the valley.
Smooth, gentle, green hills cover layers of limestone beneath; trees mark the grooves where creeks cut through the soft stone.
“Too many” may be an exaggeration, but a field full of ponies on a Kentucky evening sure feels like it’s pushing the limit.
Bridges between counties in the approximately southern United States mostly remind me of Smokey and the Bandit, but this one between Woodford and Scott counties in Kentucky differs both in that (1) it’s not currently out, necessitating a dramatic jump, and (2) it’s experiencing a far more peaceful evening.
Rain brings spontaneous desert symmetry breaking: some areas become rivers and streams, while others stay high and dry. La Quinta Cove brings hiking trails into this equation. Looking high over the landscape, those trails and dry streambeds may be hard to distinguish—until the rain comes. In the distance, just above the tan tanks on the left of the image, the Salton Sea serves as a reminder of how water and the desert interact.
Mountains and hillsides in Coachella Valley are a rocky, scrubby desert so long as they stay sufficiently sloped; the moment they reach the flat ex-lake valley floor, the housing developments begin.
Radiant summer sunset light showered over a rustic farm is all well and good, but a relaxed pony munching grass in the foreground really draws the eye to what matters.
The path at right is a fairly treacherous, dusty way up to the top of this hill; it’s the one I took last year to capture images like this one. Flying to the top with my drone is, by comparison, a bit less strenuous.
Summer dawns are calm, gentle times in Midway, Kentucky—and when we’re in town for horse shows, you can bet we see a lot of them. I find it satisfying that the aerial view is just as relaxing and bucolic.
Our summer rental cottage in rural(ish) Kentucky provides my wife’s favorite benefit: waking up to horses in the back yard. There’s no better coffee companion than an equine friend.
Decaseconds 