Rows and rows and rows of folding chairs bookend the school year: once in the fall for matriculation, and once in the spring for commencement. Their symmetry overlaps the now-permanent paths that once began as desire paths across the quad.
Tag: Canton
The Hoot Owl and Canton
In the foreground, the Hoot Owl bar sits near Canton’s railroad tracks. Though it used to be the train station, it’s now one of the main student bars. I like to think of it as the guard house between town and the domain of the undergraduates.
Things to Come
I’ve taken many pictures of St. Lawrence University’s Johnson Hall, particularly at night—its sheer glass face looks particularly stunning when fully illuminated. After years at the school, I’ve realized the degree to which those pictures have aged; the trees outside no longer take the same form and the whole setting of the structure is now. After more than five years at St. Lawrence, perhaps I need to begin revisiting other structures, too.
Southwest from Northeast
Where sunset tapers into the rest of the sky—or when a sunset is so complete and overwhelming that the whole sky is transformed—there are interesting patterns to be found in the northwestern and southwestern edge. The evening of this image over Canton, New York, the result seemed particularly reminiscent of some Renaissance painting.
Village Services
Yesterday, a Canton native unironically told me, “Winter is coming.” When it arrives, the town works team will deploy from this location to tackle snow with special forces precision. Northern New York does not mess around.
Glow on Park Street
Park Street is the residential/academic (i.e. St.-Lawrence-housing) street orthogonal to Canton, New York’s Main Street. As night falls, the cozy pinpoint lights of individual homes is contrasted by the broad glow of the streetlights on those biggest avenues.
Campus Is Ready
Though we may officially have a couple more weeks, summer has practically ended when schools resume. St. Lawrence University’s campus is buzzing with students and faculty at all hours of the day and night.
Now can we please be done with the summer weather? Bring on fall.
South to the Adirondacks
After a day of rain, the clouds peeled back around sunset to reveal the foothills of the Adirondacks to the south. This bucolic landscape (on the right side of the image) is actually the eastern reach of St. Lawrence University’s 1,000-acre campus.
Summer Bridge Construction
Heavy traffic isn’t restricted to city centers! This summer, Canton’s bridge over the Grasse river is being repaired, cutting it from four lanes to two. Around 8:00, 12:00, and 4:00, traffic backs up for half a mile down Main Street. (But I’d rather the traffic than skipping the bridge repairs…)
Flying on a Midsummer’s Evening
Soft evening light scattering through the trees of town brings out a dreamlike quality in Canton. Though it may be filled with humans, my imagination adds in a few nymphs, wood elves, pixies, and miscellaneous spirits.
On the Quad
This quad isn’t very much of a quardrangle, from a geometric standpoint, but that doesn’t stop students and visiting campers from having an absolutely delightful afternoon there.
Above St. Lawrence’s Campus
I’ve often commented to curious colleagues that the benefit of drone photography is the ability to get images from that “impossible” space: lower than a helicopter or other light aircraft might dare fly, but higher than a photographer could reach with a cherry picker. Those are views that can only be had from building height, and so a drone let’s one (metaphorically) put a temporary building wherever they’d like, at least for photographic purposes.
I’m evidently not obeying that rule here, nearly 400 feet above St. Lawrence University’s sylvan campus. It’s from this height where the taper of from larger halls down to smaller dorms and townhouses, and then ultimately to wooded space at the eastern edge of campus, is visible.
Spectroscopy Lab
Approaching the summer solstice, the start of fall-semester classes and their attendant labs seems far away, but a new class of St. Lawrence first-year students will be here before I know it.
This was one of the light sources students were interrogating: a sodium lamp, like the ones used in street lights (at least in the twentieth century—LED street lamps are becoming increasingly dominant now.)
Lush Campus
The long winter seems long behind us and campus is lush with flowering trees and grass carpets. Brush Quad, situated between St. Lawrence University’s oldest building (Richardson Hall) and its newest (Kirk Douglas Hall), looks particularly welcoming.
Lynchian Town II
David Lynch’s projects have documented the (sometimes sinister) weirdness underlying small-town life, and I think I’ve occasionally captured a hint of that in my pictures of Canton. High above the town after an August storm, the clouds impart a definitely Lynchian vibe.
Decaseconds 