Clement – Decaseconds

Clement, Raether, and the Hartford Skyline

2025-Jun-252025-Jun-26 adohertyhLeave a comment

The warm sodium glow of Trinity College’s campus by night—Clement Chemistry Building and Raether Library in the foreground, the chapel and the Hartford skyline in the background—highlights (in a literal, X-marks-the-spot manner) the contrast between being a student and a faculty member here. Though the same institution, the same general campus, I spend my time now in completely different places than I once did. A prime example is the X-marked courtyard between the two buildings—a place I walked through perhaps 10 times total as a student, but where I now pause for coffee with my colleagues nearly every morning.

Core Campus on a Summer Night

2025-Jun-16 adohertyhLeave a comment

Summer nights on Trinity College’s campus are quiet but the paths and buildings remain as effulgent as ever. There’s a luminous quality to this aerial view that really captures the sensory experience of exploring the quads by night.

Fall at the Red Brick Campus

2025-May-28 adohertyhLeave a comment

Red bricks match red leaves on every tree—except for those elms that stubbornly refuse to turn until months later.

Cork Drawer

2025-May-23 adohertyhLeave a comment

I was searching for a cork to fit an opening in a piece of old-school chemical glassware. In the farthest-away, most-remote corner of an old chemistry lab was simply a drawer labeled “corks”; inside, I found an expansive sea of every possible cork diameter. Nothing more, nothing less than every cork—I felt like I had cast some sort of obscure seeking spell that brought me a “be careful what you wish for” volume of results.

Clement on a Spring Morning

2025-Apr-23 adohertyhLeave a comment

Clement Chemistry Building is surrounded by flowering plants that complement its red stone structure on perfect spring morning.

Clement in Snow

2025-Mar-03 adohertyhLeave a comment

The bold gothic shapes of Clement Chemistry Building are extra-sharp beneath a layer of snow and scattered with golden sunset light.

A Spring Morning at Trinity College

2024-Apr-10 adohertyhLeave a comment

Perfect, breezy, warm, and effulgent spring days have sprawled across Trinity’s campus, rather like students on the quad. Grading papers in my office can at least be softened by an open window and the resulting smell of flowers.

Laser Table Delivery

2024-Feb-192024-Feb-18 adohertyhLeave a comment

As the culmination of efforts that began in July 2023, moving an 800-lbs optical table into a third-story window of Clement Chemistry Building via forklift was remarkably less dramatic than might be expected. Once the window was removed, the rigging company made short work of the move—and were nice enough to let me get some shots of them in action with my drone.

Sunset Light on Clement

2024-Feb-05 adohertyhLeave a comment

Warm golds and deep reds match autumn skies and Trinity’s neogothic architecture.

Evergreen Spikes

2023-Nov-22 adohertyhLeave a comment

Thanksgiving Break is upon us and Clement Chemistry Building is (mostly) quiet.

I Can See My House From Here

2023-Oct-272023-Oct-27 adohertyh1 Comment

Peak foliage on Trinity College’s campus looks as effulgent as always, but there’s an added perk in being able to see my downtown-Hartford home in the same shot. (It helps that the building is 27 stories tall, I’ll admit…)

Clement Academy of Chemistry

2020-Apr-08 adohertyhLeave a comment

Trinity College’s Chemistry Department, site of the invention of cyanoacrylate adhesives, still resides in the neo-gothic Clement Hall. During our time there in the early 2000s, the Harry-Potter-esque design combined with the “magical” reactions we ran made it easy to view the building as precisely the place real-world wizards would work.

Chemistry from the Library

2019-Sep-042019-Sep-03 adohertyhLeave a comment

One of Trinity College’s oldest buildings (Clement Hall, home to the Chemistry Department where I got my bachelor’s) is across from one of its newest (Raether Library and IT Center). From inside the modern surfaces and behind the modern windows, Clement looks even more Hogwartsian than it does typically.