On a day much like today, ready for rain but without any guarantees, a hint of blue sky is an eyeball magnet.
Tag: HDR
Walking on Rideau
Standing on the thick ice of the Rideau Canal in the winter, in the same place where I could be underwater in the summer and in view of the Capital, makes for quite the juxtaposition.
Golden Gate Rocks
There is something very dramatic about the rocky beaches around the San Francisco bay area.
Behind Bars
There’s an elegant symmetry to the bars and netting against the larger, wooden structure of Appleton Arena (home of the Skating Saints).
Ramsey Cascades
Spring is in the air in the Smokies and the rivers are flowing.
Circles of Life
From the human-scale intimacy of family life yesterday, I wanted to contrast at the other extreme: the irrigation-induced circles of the central United States in an otherwise barren landscape. Particularly as spring (and photosynthetic life) begin to dominate the countryside, I wanted to reflect on the role of humans in that transformation.
Edge of the Big Forest
In this particular corner of Connecticut in early spring, the rain and snow combined to make the perfect storybook fog. This image is so quaint and charming, I could swear I’d seen it somewhere before.
But this brings me to another idea: those particular locations in landscape photography so scenic that they are literally ubiquitous. Take the tunnel view in Yosemite, or shots of the Golden Gate Bridge from the Marin Headlands, or downtown Manhattan as seen from the top of Rockafeller Center as examples: is it even possible to make an original composition from such a photographically saturated place? But these places are also photographically saturated for a reason: they’re really, really pretty. Where does that trade-off between originality and beauty fall?
Fire Trail and Fire Sky
Fire trails seem like a friendly, common, down-to-earth feature of many California hillsides. There’s a strange context alongside the blazing sky and the busy city in the distance. When I look farther off and see the Golden Gate Bridge and Angel Island, the juxtaposition feels only more emphasized.
But perhaps I like that vision. We build things both grand and humble.
End of the Season
When the perfect blanket of snow is gone and mid-spring is grimy and gritty, I kind of miss the winter.
Visit the Sheep
A bucolic vision of the North country: a field of munching sheep, a barn and silo in the distance, a stand of trees, a simple fence, and a gentle brook. Spring is charming when it finally arrives.
Knight
This frozen moment of energy and will and concentration captures Lillie Keenan in the Grand Prix at the 2013 Fairfield County Hunt Club June Benefit Horse Show. Though it’s the incredible 2-meter jumps that really capture the attention in these events, for my moment, it’s the rocket acceleration leading up to a jump that makes for far more drama.
Come On, Street!
Having been outside the crazy-sphere of city life for a year now, I like looking back on the outrageous geometries that San Francisco calls reasonable. (I’m guessing the number of patches are repairs to that very steep street is a testament that road crews are just as uninterested in climbing it as the average pedestrian.) It’s really not surprising that so many classic movies take place in San Francisco: drama and strangeness is built right into its structure.
New England Summer
The passage of time and the seasons is a common theme on Decaseconds. As the Northeast struggles out of winter and into spring, I wanted to spotlight some fundamentally “summer in New England”-ish images.
Boston in early summer hasn’t yet become miserable and sweaty yet, and is instead a sea of crisp flags and bright flowers and blue skies. At Longwood Cricket Club, the New England of the twentieth century is preserved.
Inside that club, on the porch above the immaculate grass tennis courts, is the perfect place for a frosty chocolate milkshake and a buttery roll filled with lobster meat. New England prep at its finest.
And just outside Boston is Humarock, this charming seaside community of even more flags and sea grasses and ocean-smoothed rocks. The American flag has never looked so good.
Winter Ninjas
Spring may be here, but it was still 7ºF when I awoke this morning. Thinking back to the coldest I’ve ever been (and the appropriately Canadian/ninja response), this image seemed appropriate to convey the feeling of “spring” in the north.
Helping Out on the Farm
The narrow depth of field exaggerates an image that flashed past me in an instant while we traveled: a few children, playing in the crunchy remains of winter outside a barn. Ignoring the safety orange hat and the electrical conduit traveling up the side of the barn, and this seems like an image that could have come from any point in the past 150 years.
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