HDR Photography
St. Lawrence University’s Herring-Cole Grove (a.k.a. the “Enchanted Forest”) in autumn is flush with golden leaves that carpet the ground and frame the sky; this makes the perfect compliment to the Gunnison Memorial Chapel from which these two just exited. I can’t help but be grandiose when remembering a day like this one.
Homes designed to weather the fierce winters of northern New England and the North Country have a particular structure: Something vaguely Scandinavian and reminiscent of a Viking longhouse. When the sun sets and the clouds gather for our (current) proper winter, I’m glad for the equivalence.
The New Year is here, and real winter has arrived along with it! Snow flies through the air and ice clings to the branches and sticks of the North Country.
Let’s usher out 2015 with this image of Buckeye Lake, may it finally be full in 2016.
The year has nearly come to an end, and winter has finally arrived in the North Country, but before I look to the future, I wanted to take another look back at my summer travels to the West Coast, and particularly to Seattle.
An early morning stroll brought almost-empty streets and golden hues.
The standard trappings of city life are a little surprising after a year spent in rural New York. Even this mild-mannered cab (particularly a Crown Victoria) looked like it had been placed by the crew of an about-to-begin film set.
The cheek-to-cheek connection of port and industry with everyday life surprised me the most. Ferris wheels and giant cranes share the water.
This winter that won’t begin has brought strange landscapes to New England. Along Little River through Stowe, VT, the environment is in a strange flux/limbo. Add the snow with imagination?
Across the cityscape of Portland, rays of morning light slash down from the clouds. The reflective surfaces make a compliment for the texture of the skyscape.
Strange weather persisted, but living in the North Country, I always knew the truth: Winter is coming!
This photograph, from Thanksgiving 2014, looks far more like winter than anything I see out my window today.
A quick Sunday bonus shot: an alternate view from my window in Columbus, where I also took this shot.
The Appalachians aren’t my favorite mountain range but they’re in the top 5. The vistas from the AT are pretty spectacular.
A driving range isn’t complete without a car husk at 200 yards. There’s some sort of great driving/driving range pun to be made here.
Northern Vermont is a magnificent place in the winter: skiing, hot cocoa, quaint inns, etc. This warm winter has left those skiers waiting for the actual snow to arrive, however.
Continuing my exploration of the capabilities of Aurora HDR from Wednesday, I processed this image from high above central Pennsylvania after sunset using that software and the Noiseless CK package to unbelievable results—that is, I literally could not have achieved this image with an acceptable level of noise using my earlier workflow. Though it’s still not perfect, I can’t stop examining the path of that river, lit by the last few photons of the day.
This is more than a vibrant, glowing, living moment of late-night city life from the Pearl District of Portland, Oregon; this picture is the first I’ve ever processed with a new piece of software, Aurora HDR. It was processed only with Aurora, with no other fiddling in other programs. (As you may know, I’m typically a die-hard Photomatix+Photoshop workflow guy.) I’m not sure what place Aurora will have in my workflow long-term, but I have to at least say this: its noise reduction algorithms are by far the best I’ve ever seen. (Noise is the main enemy of good HDR shots.) I’ll bring you a longer report when I’ve had more seat time with it.
Rainy nights make for the best hotel stays; when the city is a strange mix of old brick and modern blah* (hello, Columbus!), a cloudy sky lit by unnatural light matches the alienating mood.
*Where “blah” = solid but uninspired office buildings.
