HDR Photography
If “Dark Academia” has become a fairly well-worn genre with familiar tropes, I can’t say I’d mind finding a more optimistic and friendly version—less secret knowledge driving cults towards madness, more dragging indoor furniture into the sunshine to produce a comfy afternoon study spot.
With Hartford’s skyline looking on in the background, the brutalist facade of Trinity College’s LSC matches the carefully graded dirt of its adjacent quad before a thick layer of new sod was applied.
Clement Chemistry Building is surrounded by flowering plants that complement its red stone structure on perfect spring morning.
From a circa-2008 view to the present day—just before the construction fences came down—we see the progression of LSC through time.
New drone-facilitated angles and new views combine sights, like Northam Hall and Hartford beyond it, that I never thought I’d be able to combine in a single image.
The facade of Northam Hall has become an iconic symbol of Trinity College, and when surrounded by summer foliage and nearly silhouetted by the summer sun, I can understand why.
Bright spring light graces the rooftops and treetops of Trinity College, even at the end of the day.
Perfect, breezy, warm, and effulgent spring days have sprawled across Trinity’s campus, rather like students on the quad. Grading papers in my office can at least be softened by an open window and the resulting smell of flowers.
Thanksgiving Break is upon us and Clement Chemistry Building is (mostly) quiet.
Scenery of Berkeley’s campus from Oppenheimer had me looking back again to my RAW files (as I’ve done recently) and finding exceptional images that benefited from my evolution in processing skills over the past decade. This particular December 2012 day marked my first walk to work with my then-new Nikon D7000, and so it was a moment in which I was viewing my quotidian surroundings through a literal new lens.
The light shining down on the little bridge over Strawberry Creek to the Faculty Club, for example, is a far more interesting image to me as a memory than it was at the moment I first processed these in 2012.
Quiet monuments, dappled by sunshine, feel different from a decade away.
Big, dramatic, and green are the themes of this bridge.
I was struck by how many portrait-orientation shots I had initially bypassed. The curving stairs in front of Latimer Hall always looked charming beneath late-autumn foliage.
These stairs down to Hildebrand Hall’s D Level were my typical path to my office. They were about as intimidating in real life as they look in this picture—squeeze between the edges of different intersecting buildings and utilities pass-throughs.
Leaving again at the end of the day, the afternoon sun on Latimer’s facade is starting to shift to an oranger hue.
The trip past the architecture school wasn’t one I typically made by 2012 (I moved from an apartment south of campus to one on the west side), but the light on its concrete architecture wasn’t to be missed.
These bright oranges around the quad last fall marked the formal inauguration of St. Lawrence’s latest president, Kathryn A. Morris.
I upload pictures to be future Decaseconds posts as I find images I think are worthy. (Only the best for my readers.) During most of the year, a three-photographs-per-week pace keeps up with my new acquisitions. This fall, however, was a time of plenty, powered by my DJI Mini 3 Pro’s incredible range and low-light image quality. To keep up with demand necessitates a triple-play today.
Three views of Canton, New York begin with this image over the Grasse River, with islands in the foreground and SUNY Canton in the distance.
Farther south, St. Lawrence University’s campus is lit up for the evening.
And the quad by Kirk Douglas Hall looks warm and inviting. (It’s currently beneath a layer snow.)
Park Street might have been named for a different park (the one up the street), but the glow of St. Lawrence’s campus at night (the reverse view of this shot) has a delightful Central Park vibe that matches the street name well.
I’ll be teaching my first class of the Fall 2022 semester tomorrow morning, so today seemed like the perfect day to reflect on the campus to which I’m returning. The structures amidst the trees sure look good from 100 meters up.
This image also brings up an interesting note on aspect ratios: Since the start of Decaseconds, I’ve largely been formatting my very favorite images in a 1.6:1 (i.e., 16:10) aspect ratio, such that they’d function well as desktops for my various MacBook Pro laptops. The advent of the “notch” and associated added screen real estate means that new MBPs have a 1.547:1 ratio—and thus my favorite images (like this one) are arriving with a new aspect ratio.
Decaseconds 