HDR Photography
Shipping containers are ubiquitous yet mysterious. Because they’re used to transport almost everything, they could contain almost anything—and that has been used to great effect by a variety of my favorite authors. There’s little doubt over what these particular containers are holding—mostly supplies left in dorm rooms by St. Lawrence students at the end of the year—but there’s still a healthy dose of mystery in their juxtaposition with the regular structures of a college campus.
St. Lawrence’s campus includes far more natural settings (and transitions far more quickly to them) than any place I’ve previously experienced. The Wachtmeister Field Station is a field laboratory that feels like a “candle in the wilderness,” despite being within (drone) sight of campus.
On a clear summer night, with the campus quiet and mostly studentless, St. Lawrence’s Japanese zen garden reaches its most silent and, well, zen.
Coming to St. Lawrence, I was not prepared for the amount of forest space on the school’s 1000-acre campus. Flying above the Grasse River, campus looks wild and vaguely Nordic. I’ve never run into a frost giant on the way to work, but now I’m sort of wondering whether I need to prepare for that, too.
The roars and gasps of the crowd could be heard all over town: Friday night football in the North Country of New York. St. Lawrence’s Saints dominated Morrisville to the tune of 28–0. From quadcopter, the action on the field is just a bit out of range. One of the recurring themes of my work is the civilization gradient between densely human areas and wilderness; I view this picture as another interpretation of that theme. There’s perhaps no urban center in Canton, but there are quaint homes and university buildings giving way to farmland and, eventually, the foothills of the Adirondacks in the distance where the Earth begins to curve.
Night-flying for long-exposure photography seems to rely a lot on luck: How’s the wind? How’s the weather? That’s a lot to consider, but the superhuman perspective (even if it is occasionally a bit blurry) is worth it. I love the times of day when the brightness of building lights and the brightness of the setting sun match each other in intensity.
Heating up and then slowly cooling a material anneals it, softening the material by allowing the crystal structure to reform to an optimal geometry. Annealing at the correct temperature for a metal produces a characteristic color—often a dull, cherry red like the edges of this sunset. After baking in the hot sun all day, the St. Lawrence University and the North Country are probably feeling lower in energy and ready to relax their geometries, too.
After playing at low altitudes, I upgraded to a DJI Phantom 3 Advanced last week. This quadcopter can stay stationary in the night sky—like, “long exposures look good” stationary. I’m looking forward to exploring what the little flying robot can do.
Captured in one image: St. Lawrence’s oldest building, Richardson Hall, and its newest, Kirk Douglas Hall.
Having lived in dorms with entrances under archways myself, I’ve always found them friendly and inviting places. Perhaps that effect stems from the Batcave effect of having a “secret” entrance in a cave-like stone structure. Good place to store the batmobile.
After what was (I imagine) quite a battle in previous decades, St. Lawrence has only a couple of fraternities remaining. The Beta house is visible in the background, rather mundane and unassuming in comparison with its pearly temple building. Bracketed by trees, the building does a pretty good job of proclaiming its importance in the classical tradition.
I know the fundamental constants governing physical interactions remain the same (within experimental error). Precipitation isn’t changing the Planck Constant. In spite of that, reality seems subtly tweaked and upgraded on a drizzle-coated evening and shot through a wide-aperture prime lens. I’m sure glad the books in the Brewer Bookstore aren’t being “upgraded” by the rain.
Urban campuses are folded up and compact, an array of buildings and narrow pathways between them. Quads are a sacrifice on the order of placing Central Park in the middle of Manhattan. St. Lawrence’s campus is literally thousands of acres, much of which is still fields or forests. College is a different experience for students who can go for a hike or hop in a canoe for the afternoon without leaving campus.
Commencement was yesterday, and I’m proud to see my students move beyond college—but the quiet, empty campus starts to resemble a Zen garden more than a school.
There are a lot of small, rural towns with the odd culture bloom of colleges planted in their cores. I think it’s the ancillary buildings, the old fraternities and club houses with their mix of higher grandeur and shabbier paint, that most signal one of these villages
That extra school year energy of students wandering the campus at all hours provides an extra energy to a sleepy place. I miss it in the summer.
Decaseconds 