HDR Photography
Route 11, the main road connecting the whole North Country (we don’t have any Interstates), runs through a series of quaint downtowns, where it temporarily becomes Main St. The impressive stability of the DJI Mini 3 Pro meant that I could capture long, smooth light trails from headlights and taillights representing the evening’s traffic.
“Camping” usually means being far from civilization, to me, but flying over Heritage Park in Canton revealed this tent pitched in the middle of town.
In this sunset drone image, you can clearly see the bridges that connect SUNY Canton to the rest of its namesake village.
From a less literal island in my last post to much more literal set on the other side of the country: this scattering of islands in the center of Canton, New York are equally their own little tree-clusters.
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.
A consistent theme in my posts over the past few weeks has been “reflection,” raising the question: Am I feeling particularly introspective, or have I just been finding great views with water ?
The little islands in Canton’s stretch of the Grasse River make me think of Huckleberry Finn’s stops along the Mississippi but, you know, scaled down.
Using a fisheye lens to photography water is a little too on the nose, but I love seeing the colors and patterns in the Grasse river along with so much of the rocks and the bank and the other bank, too.
As frozen rain bounces off the roadways of northern New York, I’m reminded that our town works truly do battle with the elements each winter. Floating high over their facilities when spring finally arrives, I feel like I’m looking over the encampment of a victorious army.
Spring marks the return of leaves to the trees around the North Country; in the tiny window between snow-covered and leaf-obscured, I get to imagine the story behind this long-abandoned and island-isolated shack. Was it a weekend fishing spot? Was the construction of the nearby bridge what caused it to be abandoned?
Sunsets might be a cliché subject for a landscape photograph, but the North Country’s specimens offer such glowing, striated features with such regularity that the truly exceptional examples can strain my belief in atmospheric models of cloud formation and light scattering.
Winter’s lockdown continues (it might warm up above -10ºF today!), but spring will eventually return. The footbridge to SUNY Canton will eventually be free of ice and the smallest hints of leaves will peak out from the tree branches.
Between these two shots, the sunset light over Canton, New York changed very suddenly. Rain arrived within the hour.
Decaseconds 