HDR Photography
Moving to downtown Hartford, Connecticut placed this view just outside my window. I used to look across the city to Travelers Tower (the illuminated building at right) from my dorm room at Trinity College; 15 years later, I realize it shone like a beacon because it was being actively lit from nearby rooftops. Perhaps that’s a good lesson for life: the achievements that stand out don’t do so by accident, but because of conscious effort.
Big changes are coming to the world of Decaseconds: Next fall, I’ll be returning to Trinity College (my alma mater) as their newest physical chemistry professor.
I took this picture of Trinity’s chapel, framed by foliage, as I packed up my car to leave at the end of my interview. Though I didn’t yet know what I do now (I’m going back there!), the warm breeze and familiar smells and satisfaction of a successful interview left me with a sense of calm, comfort, and peace.
Bright Saturday morning sunshine warms Salisbury, Connecticut and make the town ski jump flash in the distance at the left of the image.
Neal Stephenson’s “Fall” suggests that that pattern of one’s childhood hometown is patterned deeply into the brain. This picture captures pretty much everywhere I could get to on my own (i.e., on my bike) when I was seven years old—so, basically my whole world at that point.
This particular acute crossroads in Salisbury, Connecticut is home to the White Hart Inn, and it turns out that it’s photogenic in just about every season.
The building density of an urban campus like Trinity College’s makes for lots of retaining walls and stairs and additional structure. A well-designed campus is a delightful place to explore.
Trinity College’s “concrete jungle” of dorms have some surprisingly cool architecture for utilitarian dorm buildings.
Though much of Trinity College’s campus has switched to white LED lights, this section still has the orange sodium lights I remember from my days as a student.
Jarvis B was my dormitory during my freshman year at Trinity College. Before it was renovated into quads, it was once a block-long hallway of architectural weirdness.
The first warm days of the spring immediately put me in mind of summer nights.
Trinity College’s Long Walk was my home for four years, and I still find its warm evening glow to be comforting.
At the northern end of Trinity College’s Long Walk is the Dean’s Office. On a warm summer evening ‘neath the elms, however, it’s less an intimidation and more a charmer alongside the rest of the red stone structure.
There’s a bit of irony that a 10-year reunion, an opportunity to wander around campus and feel nostalgia, occurs during the summer—a season when I never experienced campus when actually a student.
My favorite little detail of this image is the airplane contrail just past the crescent moon.
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.
The admissions building at Trinity College is now more than ten years old, but its stark stone structures still look mostly new. There’s a timeless Avalon quality to the setting, and the addition of a round table completes the picture.
Decaseconds 