HDR Photography
The overwhelming Adirondack puissance of the St. Lawrence Outing Club has produced a sprawling compound of housing and storage and additions and canoes and bikes and skis. I imagine the building as an outdoorsy batcave: behind every door is gear for another activity.
On the tiny, summer-camp-esque beach beneath Lampson Falls, the detritus of the falls washes up on the sand and makes for the most pleasing geometry alongside the stratified rock and the “pointy” trees.
A photograph should “work,” should have meaning, in isolation. I suppose that really means that it should work without any context other than shared culture. Without my words, you can know that this is a Japanese Garden (though perhaps not in Oregon), know that it’s an artificial simulacrum of some elegant natural setting—but can the sense of calm in being in that place be conveyed by the image? (I suspect that this aspect might be the easiest to convey.)
In the past week, I’ve explored the Adirondacks in autumn. This particular setting (just across the street from last week’s sea plane) is another irreducible representation of the glassy water, expansive sky, and intimate beaches of the region. Though we’re officially into fall, I’m pretty confident that these canoes and kayaks are going to see at least a few more weeks’ use. (Will they be dodging icebergs eventually?)
I want to contrast the bright fall colors from my last post with the broad spectrum of colors that can originate from different types of light sources used by humans every day. Where better than the neutral-colored stone of the Cathedral of Learning? Magentas, greens, warm yellows: emission and reflection can both offer a rich array of photons.
Ready to launch those kayaks and disturb the chilly mirror of a fall river in the Adirondacks? Me, neither. (Too cold and too placid.)
Driving through the Adirondacks during these first few weekends of fall, the summer vacationers are in full retreat. The rear guard hangs on for a few more weeks as the trees turn to oranges and reds, but the end is near. Even if I know rationally that the sea plane is grounded (watered?) for the night, I can’t help but imagine the plane waiting to carry away the summer’s strong survivors.
I can’t decide if the title is a play on “Manifest Destiny” or a command in the style of Magic: the Gathering (“Manifest: Land Use!”). Either way, this shot from high above the American Midwest conveys the limitless (if bland) expanse of the region.
A spooky edge creeps into the mood and the lighting of laboratory spaces when the lights are off and the everyday staff have gone.
I photographed a zen garden in the Northeast, and now I’ve photographed this one in the Northwest, as well. The Portland Japanese Garden and its spectrum of gold-through-green-to-blue conveys its own “calm drama” in a way much separated from the North Country equivalent.
A beautiful new dorm with geothermal heat, a fleet of bicycles, and the reflections of a spectacular sunset in the windows: this must be St. Lawrence.
The last supermoon of the summer (such as it is) was hovering over the Adirondacks and over St. Lawrence’s sylvan campus. The interplay with the science buildings seemed appropriate.
Even better, though, was the alignment of the moon directly over the tiny tower in the Adirondacks (cell, I’m guessing?). Maybe it’s innocuous, or maybe it’s part of a plan by a mad scientist to finally control the Moon!
In the distance land of Portland, Oregon, urban renewal has transformed the rail yards of the Pearl District into galleries and shops and condos in towering new buildings. Doesn’t this scene look like a futuristic utopia? (Hopefully it’s not moments away from the shattering realization that it’s all built on some “Soylent Green”/”The Giver”/”Equilibrium”-esque lie.)
St. Lawrence is an amazing place to spend time in mid-September: the lushness of summer is just barely beginning to crisp into fall, an autumn chill creeps into the evening air, and students (and faculty) have settled into the rhythms of another year.
The arrangement of tiny plants and epic trees and enormous boulders that makes up a Japanese garden is calm and beautiful, but to see the inspirations for those geometries “in the wild,” so to speak, is so much more impressive. Big falls and gnarly roots and little streams make the “real” world just as poetic.
Decaseconds 