HDR Photography
Arriving at St. Lawrence’s campus, I was amazed at all of the space between the buildings: tree-lined paths, broad quads, and extra fields. Having spent my education on urban campuses with buildings packed in tightly together, I was used to a height and compact structure.
In the past, I’ve photographed several Japanese gardens, and even St. Lawrence University’s own North Country Japanese Garden, but I’ve never been able to capture it like this before. From my quadcopter’s vantage point, I captured the geometry of Sykes Hall and the North Country Japanese Garden in the grids of streets and campus paths.
Though St. Lawrence has its share of modern buildings (including my own), it’s the old part of campus (buildings like Piskor and Sykes Halls) that best captures the Harry Potter vibe of small liberal arts colleges in the Northeast.
With the passing of the Solstice, my sabbatical in Berkeley is coming to an end. My softly nostalgia-tinted reminiscences of the Bay Area are now doubly-glazed: the refried beans, twice-baked potatoes, or biscotti of memory. All three options sound delicious.
Commencement ceremonies have ended and the campus is quieting down to a mostly graduate-student-based buzz. The Campanile stands tall and mostly quiet—except, of course, for when the bells are ringing.
Monster-smash rain storms the night before left me surprised when this Sunday morning broad blue skies and linear sunlight to reflect from every surface in Berkeley. The Campanile (a.k.a. Sather Tower) was looking particularly proud of itself.
The Bay Area seems to experience seasons at a different pace from much of the rest of the country. Summer is a month-long period from mid-August through mid-September, fall lasts from October through March, and the summer goes from April until August. Winter (as the East Coast understands it) isn’t a part of the equation. Being back in fall, then, has me reminiscing about fall in the North Country, with leaves starting to dot the ground and the Blue Hour arriving sooner.
Berkeley’s undergraduate student population is still mostly gone for winter break, leaving UCB’s campus to resemble St. Lawrence’s during Fall Break in October. The empty-ish parking lots might be bleak, but at least it’s easy to get a table at lunch time.
And one final bonus from that fall weekend: a most dramatic and exciting picture of a most unexciting car. I present to you: the World’s Most Interesting Toyota RAV-4.
The overnight low was –16ºF, meaning that my robotic exploration of the skies has been put on pause for the moment. Back on those crisp fall days, though, there was nothing better than putting up the quadcopter and surveying St. Lawrence’s facilities. The riding stables and fields are one of the best places to spend a Friday afternoon, whether on the ground or in the air.
Decaseconds turns five years old just about this week, and today I’m turning 30. “Now” is a good time to think about age and the passage of time, I suppose, but I’d rather focus on something else: achievement. We’ve gotten a lot done in the past years—and there’s a lot more to come. Looking back on my early photographs on places like Berkeley’s Campanile, I can see all of the steps that led me to now. On to the next year!
College campuses have long, tree-lined walks; those are great places to find this “yellow leaf tunnel” effect.
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.
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.
When St. Lawrence’s newest dorm, Kirk Douglas Hall, was designed, its dramatic glass bridge was brought into alignment with the Avenue of the Elms and gap between Richardson Hall and Gunnison Chapel. When the sun rises over the North Country landscape, I am drawn to the focused geometry of the landscape. (And glad I awoke to fly my quadcopter.)
The rise of an almost-full moon, framed between branches. Autumn arrives early in the North Country.
Decaseconds 