HDR Photography
As a child, I dreamed of flying over my home town—viewing all of the familiar paths from high above. Visiting that town last weekend, I was able to photographically make that dream a reality. The forests where I hiked and the town ski jump are all laid out before the drone’s lens.
Amongst the Thousand Islands, scattered between New York and Ontario, this island of fields and wind turbines seems to be astride the past and the future.
Childhood games of RollerCoaster Tycoon conditioned me to the experience of viewing theme parks from high above; passing Six Flags Great Adventure in a commercial airliner provided a remarkably similar vantage.
A drone shot of the Cascade Diner (and its subterranean partner, the Buccaneer Lounge) reveals the reason for the institution’s name.
As a child, I was deeply interested in the idea of islands—these isolated, well-defined chunks of land that were separated from everyone else. My favorite LEGO sets were those modeling pirates marooned on desert islands. I wonder what my childhood self would have thought of living in a town with an uninhabited island at its center?
We’re hitting maximum summer and (in the east) a bonkers explosion of photosynthesizing surfaces; the small, new leaves of spring seem sort of tasteful, by comparison.
“Camping” usually means being far from civilization, to me, but flying over Heritage Park in Canton revealed this tent pitched in the middle of town.
In this sunset drone image, you can clearly see the bridges that connect SUNY Canton to the rest of its namesake village.
From a less literal island in my last post to much more literal set on the other side of the country: this scattering of islands in the center of Canton, New York are equally their own little tree-clusters.
Perhaps it’s a childhood spent on the trails around Mohonk Mountain House, but whatever the reason, I’m a huge fan of stairs along trails. This drone’s-eye view of Heritage Park’s trail in Canton shares some similar trail architecture.
This uninhabited island sits at the center of Canton, New York. While it’s currently a park, the ruins on the island indicate its past as the site of water-powered mills that processed the products of the surrounding farmland. I’m still discovering more of its history, but I’m fascinated by the process that could lead an entire section of a town to be abandoned.
A trail, complete with cool stairs and abandoned ruins, on an island in the middle of town is something my childhood self would have been absolutely over the moon with. From a drone’s eye view, I think that sense of magic is effectively captured.
St. Lawrence’s campus emits white light at night, while Park Street uses orange sodium lamps.
The most senior faculty member in St. Lawrence University’s Department of Chemistry is preparing to retire and I selected this image to present to him. (Shhh, keep it a secret for a few more days.) He often looks out from Johnson Hall of Science, the building in the foreground, north towards the older parts of campus (like the chapel spire above the horizon.) In this image, I hopefully captured for him both where he stands and what he sees so that he can take them with him when he goes.
Warm weather is finally returning to the North Country, and “drone weather” with it.
Decaseconds 