HDR Photography
A perfect late-summer morning at Mohonk Mountain House holds the promise of a day spent outside. While this image may be a sequel to last week’s post, I think this other angle reveals a far different view of the possibilities a day can hold when experiencing vacation.
A quiet early morning at Mohonk Mountain House’s dock has a place for every boat and every boat in its place. I like the way the path of the dock mirrors the path of the mountaintop in the distance. This calm-before-a-busy-day setting is also a metaphor for Decaseconds: I finished processing all of my pictures from a trip to Mohonk at the end of last summer. Like the boats, my work is organized and ready to be shared.
Reflections from the surface of Lake Michigan place fireworks on the same scale with the 80-year-old tug boat William C. Selvick. I particularly like the way the small buoy/float in the foreground is placed within the fireworks’ reflection.
Autumn may not be peak tourist season in Prague, but the remaining foliage makes for an effective supplement to the red and white that otherwise dominate the city’s color palette.
I like the way this picture captures the inviting calm of sleepy boats and an open boathouse in the evening. Perhaps it reminds me of a castle with a moat, but I find an odd sense of safety in buildings built over water.
The “S.L.U.” on this life preserver is a good reminder that St. Lawrence University runs Camp Canaras. Still, I’m not sure it was too necessary on this chilly spring night—Lake Saranac was not overly populated.
The little sailboats might have been in the water of Saranac Lake in the late spring, but the Adirondack weather was not convincing anyone to head out into the evening with one.
I’m back from a week in Prague, and it’s time to roll out some serious Bohemian photography. To start off the week, check out this night shot across the Vltava River to Charles Bridge, Prague Castle, and the St. Vitus Cathedral.
Far, far out, under the span of the Golden Gate Bridge, boats move through the haze. The extreme distance compression of this 500 mm lens puts the end of the old Berkeley Peer practically beneath the bridge, despite them being on opposite sides of the Bay. Optics are fascinating.
Paris is a city where relics of many eras coexist together: Notre Dame from 1345 above the Pont au Double from 1883 and the futuristic light streaks of a twentieth-century riverboat. Perhaps that’s why the city makes such an excellent setting for cyberpunk fiction like William Gibson’s Neuromancer.
November afternoons end quickly—close to the winter solstice, the sun disappears while the day is still “young”. Notre Dame’s pre-fire spire looks so calm next to the pastel clouds.
The architectural grandeur of Paris makes even utilitarian buildings, like the State Police headquarters in the distance beyond the bridge, are marvels.
On the other hand, the shadows and mysterious doors along the Seine itself look more like the setting for a Cold War spy thriller…
There are many ways to define the seasons, with varying degrees of usefulness. (Solstices and equinoxes seem to have only the thinnest connection with the weather.) Perhaps the most valuable differentiation between times of the year is when one can reasonably be out on the water: “Spring” is that first moment when an afternoon in a canoe doesn’t sound miserable.
The northeastern US has been gripped by severe and hardened cold. Consider, for a moment, how much colder 20 ºF feels than 60 ºF. Imagine that difference projected past its original low point, out the other side to -20 ºF. After past winter temperatures like these, I can attest that the return to “normal” winter really does feel 40 ºF warmer. The rivers and lakes are freezing. The snow is a dry powder, dozens of degrees below its melting point. A warm home above the frozen waters sounds pretty inviting.
Decaseconds 