HDR Photography
I’ve been on a serious St. Lawrence-in-the-snow photography kick lately, but pictures like this shot of Kirk Douglas Hall (the campus’s newest dorm) really justify the trend. Framed by trees and isolated in the snow, the idyllic nature of the place is enhanced.
From the crust of winter, looking back to summer and reunions and picnics on the quad brings that inner warmth.
When denser, darker, smoother clouds than have ever been seen before appear over a science building (even if it’s MY science building), I find myself wondering if some mad science is afoot.
The overwhelming Adirondack puissance of the St. Lawrence Outing Club has produced a sprawling compound of housing and storage and additions and canoes and bikes and skis. I imagine the building as an outdoorsy batcave: behind every door is gear for another activity.
A spooky edge creeps into the mood and the lighting of laboratory spaces when the lights are off and the everyday staff have gone.
“Lights so bright they turn night into day!” Vernon Street, home of the Greek organizations of Trinity College, is a place where the time and the activities rarely seem correlated. On a night during the summer, however, the world was quiet and empty.
Sports! America! Red white and blue (uniform colors)! (And the reflection of a crowd full of families, watching the action.)
My last visit to Trinity was a great chance to see all of the Harry-Potter-esque buildings on campus. Their mass and majesty can be a bit overwhelming—so impacting the senses that I wouldn’t be surprised if I perceived a boy flying past on a broomstick.
After a trip back to my alma mater, Trinity College, for reunion weekend (but not my reunion), I’ve had some time to process both my photographs and my feelings from the trip. Standard touchy/feely closure stuff—appreciating my time there, but recognizing that I’m glad I’ve moved on. (If you can call teaching at a different small liberal arts college moving on…) This image of Trinity’s awesome Neo-Gothic chapel is reflective of two things: first, of the imposing nature of the structure, and second, the way in which its white stone can take on many colors depending on the available light. Perhaps that flexibility is an overly-obvious symbol of how feelings for a place can shift with time.
On Mother’s Day, the North Country feels alive and warm and breezy. Smells of vegetation and fresh earth and coniferous trees flood the air. A panorama of life restored to campus (even as it quiets down for the end of the school year) seemed highly appropriate.
Having recently finished the fantastic Bioshock Infinite, I’ve had images of early-twentieth-century American exceptionalism floating through my brain. No matter what you think of the (sometimes questionable) policy decisions based on such a policy, the iconography is undeniably seductive. Neoclassical design features and waving flags on a crisp Sunday afternoon! Though this moment on St. Lawrence’s campus might not be literally of that time, the spirit of it was overwhelming.
A “casual blizzard” hit the North Country this weekend, and after I excavated around the house, I went exploring. St. Lawrence’s Zen garden was looking particularly peaceful under its (pardon the cliché) blanket of snow. The tiny structures seem to amplify the effect.
November snow can’t hold the title “unseasonable” in Canton, New York, but it adds a gentle blanket to the campus, just the same. The soft dusk ceiling of pastel clouds and the quiet campus converge at the end of the day.
With dusk arriving earlier and earlier each day, I feel that the time is right to extoll the glory of clouds stretching off to an infinite (or at least periodic) horizon and the first hints of yellows and oranges in the sky matching the hues of the trees.
Snow comes early to the North Country. Nothing quite justifies a cold morning more than waking up to a lovely dusting of snow and flakes in the air. The oak trees are still stubbornly holding onto their leaves, and thus there was a cozy snow-free zone (and a welcoming bench) from which to watch the snow this morning. Johnson Hall of Science looks friendly in all seasons.
Decaseconds 