HDR Photography
This uninhabited island sits at the center of Canton, New York. While it’s currently a park, the ruins on the island indicate its past as the site of water-powered mills that processed the products of the surrounding farmland. I’m still discovering more of its history, but I’m fascinated by the process that could lead an entire section of a town to be abandoned.
A trail, complete with cool stairs and abandoned ruins, on an island in the middle of town is something my childhood self would have been absolutely over the moon with. From a drone’s eye view, I think that sense of magic is effectively captured.
This image is my submission to the Spring Photo Contest being run by Grasse River Heritage; the river and its associated park are its subject. I delight in being asked to work under requirements—in this case, both a subject and a time of year—because I feel it focuses me. I get to achieve something specific, which adds some delightful pressure to flying my quadcopter around the island.
St. Lawrence’s campus emits white light at night, while Park Street uses orange sodium lamps.
The most senior faculty member in St. Lawrence University’s Department of Chemistry is preparing to retire and I selected this image to present to him. (Shhh, keep it a secret for a few more days.) He often looks out from Johnson Hall of Science, the building in the foreground, north towards the older parts of campus (like the chapel spire above the horizon.) In this image, I hopefully captured for him both where he stands and what he sees so that he can take them with him when he goes.
Warm weather is finally returning to the North Country, and “drone weather” with it.
There are plenty of historical reasons (including the original St. Lawrence University’s acquisition of the adjacent agricultural college), but the clustering of the school’s STEM-focused buildings on one side of campus—the arts/humanities at the other extreme and most of the social sciences in the middle—has resulted in a literal mapping of the academic spectrum onto physical space.
When an autumn day at St. Lawrence University ends with a storm above the Adirondacks, those horizon raindrops scatter warm hues back to the quadcopter camera.
One of my favorite shots of 2020 is this quadcopter-captured image of a thunderstorm on the horizon chasing the setting sun, with the village of Canton’s public works in the foreground.
In the winding waters above Lampson Falls, slow currents make for a placid surface. On a still (yet much more wintery day), my mind has wandered back to warm spring evenings in places other than my office.
Today’s image falls into the category “How have I not posted this already?” This image of a supermoon aligning with the Route 11 principal axis of Canton, New York has been used in the table of contents of St. Lawrence University’s magazine, as well as in several blog posts. In spite of that, I’ve apparently (according to Flickr’s camera roll feature) never shared it to Decaseconds.
Flying again in the spring means a special view of the Adirondack foothills, particularly in areas like this: Lampson Falls in Clare, New York.
I often show what I think of as the front of Johnson Hall of Science, but inspection of this image (particularly the top of the brick wing on the left) shows that the building’s name, and thus its front, are on this side. The dramatic glass structures extending between and out from the wings lend credence to the idea.
St. Lawrence University’s Saddlemire Trail (just to the right of the creek) runs through the wilder parts of our campus. A sunset stroll along it (and its twin, the Kip Trail) makes for a perfect early-June evening.
Battling the breezes of late summer above the fallow fields of the North Country, this image might appear to be capturing the edge of a farm. In fact, this is the southeastern reach of St. Lawrence University’s rural campus. The stables, home of our IHSA riding team, are off in the distance.
Decaseconds 