HDR – Page 64 – Decaseconds

Road by the Fever Tree

2014-Jan-172014-Jan-17 adohertyh4 Comments

African savannah isn’t the homogenous, steady monotony that it appears on the Discovery Channel. (Well, back when the discovery channel showed nature documentaries, anyway.) Dirt roads and hills criss-cross it, and fever trees like this one grow where more water is available. The yellow-green bark comes from photosynthetically active cells. The name comes from an interesting illustration of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy: when early European settlers went near water, they tended to contract malaria (thus the fever). They incorrectly attributed this to the trees, rather than the mosquitos breeding in the water.

Spring Blossoms

2014-Jan-162014-Jan-14 emceehammr6 Comments

One of the undeniably good things about the bay area is the unwaveringly pleasant weather we experience here. Since it’s been so nice outside recently I felt compelled to post this shot I captured last spring.

Natural Pool

2014-Jan-15 adohertyhLeave a comment

In the Twainesque memories of childhood in northwestern Connecticut, cannonballing into this naturally formed pool at the foot of a waterfall stands out:

The stone is hard and slippery. The water is transparent and glacially cold. The my feet touch a soft bed of fallen needles at the bottom. And when I finally climb out, the moss is soft and the sunlight warms me.

Pacific Overlook

2014-Jan-14 emceehammrLeave a comment

Without being able to see the ocean below, it’s easy to forget how precarious this path is.

Snow-Stone-Zen

2014-Jan-13 adohertyh4 Comments

Taking a temporary aside from Africa (and the warm/rainy weather of weird northern New York), here’s an image from the Zen garden just after the most recent blizzard. I haven’t done much work in black and white photography since high school, but this was a case of contrasting textures and tones that just demanded it. The rough, dark brick and stone dressed by puffy snow seemed poetic almost to the point of (again) cliché—so I went with it.

African Quarry

2014-Jan-102014-Jan-10 adohertyhLeave a comment

Atop the hills of South Africa, I was reminded of the composition of one of my favorite pictures (of the Bay Area), and the vast changes that I’ve experienced in the seven months since I took that picture. There I was, on the other side of the planet, looking across a veritable (pardon the cliché) Garden of Eden and the little quarry used to build the lovely structures of the adjacent game lodge.

Discovery Sunset

2014-Jan-092014-Jan-06 emceehammrLeave a comment

Another spectacular Seattle sunset over Puget Sound and the Olympics, this time from Magnolia’s Discovery Park. This made more spectacular by the fact that it was the dead of winter and the vista was only marred by some wispy clouds and just the lightest of hazes.

Watching the Hluhluwe Giraffes

2014-Jan-08 adohertyh1 Comment

A couple of hours of sleep following intercontinental travel will never be enough to prepare for a herd (or “tower,” technically) of giraffes in the dawn light. From the back of the Millenium Falcon of off-roading Toyotas, the majesty and immediacy were perfectly balanced.

Fauntleroy Ferry Terminal

2014-Jan-072014-Jan-06 emceehammrLeave a comment

It was a typical PNW overcast winter day when I took this shot of the Fauntleroy ferry terminal from Lincoln park in west Seattle. There’s something very characteristically “Seattle” about this whole scene for me, stirring up old happy memories for me.

Seattle Radar

2014-Jan-02 emceehammrLeave a comment

In Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood lies Seattle’s Discovery Park, formerly Fort Lawton. The park still contains the vestiges of the old military installation including this radar dome, which looks sort of out of place in a municipal park. This was taken just after one of Seattle’s characteristic spectacularly colorful sunsets.

Last Sun of Autumn

2013-Dec-20 adohertyh1 Comment

Today has been swamped under constant, freezing barrage of rain that carries dreariness in every drop. I prefer to remember the campus as it was in the last moments of aumtun, when one last sunset blazed through the crisp air.

Quiet Kill

2013-Dec-18 adohertyhLeave a comment

The “real-world Zen garden” effect of northwestern Connecticut at the end of November was just the calming experience I needed: after a busy semester, stopping for a moment by the edge of slow stream, standing among the red, crinkly fallen leaves and short grasses, and feeling the wind lift puffs of snow from the rocks to my face.

Snow in the Zen Garden

2013-Dec-16 adohertyh2 Comments

A “casual blizzard” hit the North Country this weekend, and after I excavated around the house, I went exploring. St. Lawrence’s Zen garden was looking particularly peaceful under its (pardon the cliché) blanket of snow. The tiny structures seem to amplify the effect.

Ghostavator

2013-Dec-13 adohertyh2 Comments

Sometimes, ghosting is a gross byproduct of taking HDR brackets in an imperfect world. Other times, it can be used to create a ghostly Schrödinger’s Cat elevator door, neither closed nor open, forever in flux. Different moments in time and space, overlapped, with brain-twisting results.

By the Banks

2013-Dec-11 adohertyhLeave a comment

Winter crisps and desaturates the landscape, and draws the eye from the Northeast to places more southern, where I wonder if, “the grass is greener on the other side.” That might sometimes be an illusion, but then there are cases like this one: the grass is literally greener on the other side.