HDR Photography
I’ve always been fascinated by the American colloquialism of calling any feed store an elevator. (Though Canton does have a larger grain elevator of its own, as well.) When the sunset sky is at its most glorious, reality highlights the hyperutilitarian aesthetic of a working building: it has to be painted some color, so it might as well be post-war pastels.
David Lynch brings an edge of dark menace to his films; I can still remember the first time I saw Blue Velvet and felt the crisp edge of real and unreal disintegrating. In particular, the director’s visions of Small Town America and the underbelly of that beast (in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, particularly) felt notable in “downtown” Canton last week. With the sky aflame and neon lights in every window, the scene was about 15 minutes away from some Lynch-level insanity.
On the shores of the Indian Ocean, muddy with silt washed down by seasonal thunderstorms, locals fish and tourists stroll. The mist and fog and spray make the scene extra-mysterious, but my favorite part was the enormous, shrub-encrusted sand dunes. Think of it as “Arrakis after the God Emperor,” to borrow from the imagery of Frank Herbert.
On a chill and cloudy afternoon, the sky hangs low over Berkeley and Oakland. Highly textured red tile roofs, ionic columns, industrial air handlers, all separated from the “mundane world” by a wall of trees: are these the “layers” of the Berkeley experience?
Though it’s hours downstate from where George Lucas found his forest moon of Endor, Muir Woods packs the same enormous, wet redwood trees and lush vegetation that made the fictional planetoid so memorable. To have “spent” so much of my childhood wandering around on that other world (in my imagination), only to find myself really there, proved to be a spectacular treat at the end of my time in California.
In the rest of the world, it’s almost April, but in the North Country it still looks (and feels) like winter. The land and the people and the houses and the barns are battered by the weather, and when spring arrives we’ll repair and recover and regenerate.
At the end of May and beginning of June 2013, I left California and traveled east. Along the way, I photographed the journey—not beautifully composed DSLR images, but on-the-move fast snaps from my iPhone. This is the (rare) long-form story that those images tell:
The Great American Road Trip is a rite of passage (literally) and an occurrence woven deep into the psyche of the twentieth century. The creation of the Interstate Highway System fundamentally changed travel in North America (and lead to numerous fantastic movies in the second half of the century.) Here is my own experience of a just such a road trip.
We got a late start out of Berkeley, and climbed up to the chain-scarred roads of I-80 around Tahoe. Rolling mountains, oddly bare of snow, and curving roads of long shadows.
Between the mountains were the broad fields of scrub brush that survive the winters here. The sky was Norman-Rockwell-esque blue (not that he painted landscapes, but in the sense of being all-American) and the clouds were perfect.
As night fell, blues dominated the sweep of the highway and we headed for the Nevada border.
In Nevada, without as many hills to block the sunlight, time seemed to move backwards for a moment. We raced a train and basked in the last glow of Pacific-time-zone light.
The hills kept rolling in the distance, but the high forests transitioned into real desert. The highway straightened out, we had another caffeinated beverage, and marveled at the sheer number of insects that left their marks on the windscreen. The effect was something like an evil, exoskeletal rain.
I hadn’t appreciated how far removed we were from civilization in just half a day’s travel until I saw this particular sign. Note again the grotesque bug strikes decorating the image, for the full effect.
The next morning, we covered the deserted deserts of eastern Nevada, marveling at the Atomic-age, Tatooine-esque landscape. Along the way, we drove side-by-side with a fellow red car: this fantastic truck—Old Red. The V8 rumble became part of the landscape while we were together.
Crossing the hills, we found ourselves in western Utah, the site of the famous Bonneville Salt Flats. Flat, white salt, laid out to the rough crumbs of hills at the horizon, were only interrupted by the occasionally man-made perturbation.
I have no words to describe the emptiness and brightness of the place; I’ll let this image convey some degree of the alienness:
As we got closer to Salt Lake City, however, the hills became greener and the salt flats flooded. Life seemed to have returned, and our insane trip across the desert tapered back into civilization.
Passing through Salt Lake City was the familiar combination of ramps and interchanges that decorates the exurbs of any major metropolitan area. Before we knew it, we were passing through more hills and into the hugeness of Wyoming. Piper was at the wheel, and the optical ouroboros of reflection between mirrorshades and horizon exaggerated the landscape into new projections.
Particularly coming from the empty forever-blue skies of California in the summer, we were astonished to see clouds. They made the sky seem taller an bigger and more of an infinite dome than we had ever before realized. The landscape returned to empty desert from the green hills of eastern Utah. Despite being close to Salt Lake City, Wyoming had its own aesthetic identity.
As the day wore on, the clouds continued to gather. The dome became a flat ceiling.
Along the way, we marveled at the snow fences, designed to prevent runaway snow drifts in the winter, and signs warning us of turnaround points. It all seemed to surreal in the summer, but when the rain arrived later, we could imagine the ferocity that an equivalent blizzard would bring.
To appreciate the scale of Wyoming: day has passed into night, and we’d traveled no farther from the hill in the image above; now, we saw it from the other side. Spots of snow still hid in the June shade.
Every ten minutes, the clouds changed again. Sprawling settlements dotted the horizon, but they were generally too far off to be anything more than minor flavor to the landscape. They were never part of the world of the highway.
At the end of the night, we crossed the border into Nebraska and stayed in a tiny motel plucked straight out of 1956. We spent almost the entire next day in the flat, bland state of Nebraska. That’s not a fair analysis of a state that has some very positive aspects, but as I looked back through the photographs I took of the trip, the only remotely interesting shot I found from the entire state was this one:
The fields of Nebraska gave way to the fields and hills of Iowa, and though both states have many things in common, the feeling was thoroughly different. Not only did the topography vary more, but the whole environment seemed to shift from “alien agrocorp” to “mom-and-pop hometown good times farm.” Far-off houses seemed charming and cozy instead of crass and isolated.
Once again, I loved the chrome and mirrored surfaces of other vehicles, and the way the expanses of road and sky were reflected in them. I took advantage of this particular truck to grab an automotive self portrait (not show here—but it may appear later.)
I struggle to describe Iowa without resorting to cliché; it is the most American place I’ve ever visited. Every image of apple pie and baseball and muscle cars and baby boomers was emulated and amplified by this state, but with a degree of genuine charm that was hard to resist.
From there, the photographs slow down. We spent time in Chicago for a week, recuperating from the journey (and visiting the lamplight horseshow and other Chicagoland sights that I’ve shown on Decaseconds in the past), and when we started back on the road to head to the east coast, the magic was gone. The road lacked the same empty deserts and crazy clouds of the west. Though the east has many things to recommend it, it doesn’t quite offer the same variety of imposing environment.
On the way to give a talk in Pittsburg, the Mini broke down (and was repaired), and when it returned to life I took this shot of it. (Note the Cathedral of Learning in the background.) The journey was nearing its end, and the industrial, old, stony cities of the eastern seaboard were the perfect contrast to the west.
Finally, we rolled into Salisbury, Connecticut: comfort and home and quiet and safety after the road. In a way, this was coming back to my beginning. Not only had I been a boy here, but I also learned that I got the job that brought me to New York in this house. The impetus for my journey had brought be back to its origin. Though we still had much more to do to finish our move and establish our new home, just being in one place was enough for this moment. The day ended and that rocking chair on the porch was calling my name.
Today’s post comes courtesy of Piper J. Klemm:
In Zulu Nyala reserve in South Africa, the sky is always dramatic and the hills roll on forever. The feeling is primal, that this place has been wild forever. (And hopefully always will be.)
As a spectroscopist and inorganic chemist, I’m constantly encountering symmetry and its effects. From the balanced shapes of molecules to the bilateral formation of our own bodies, nature is full of symmetry that informs its function and behavior. In addition to symmetry in physical space, the kind with which we are most familiar, there is also symmetry in the dimension of time. Some examples are rather uninteresting from an “elegant universe” perspective: the cycles of alternating current exhibit high symmetry, but hide under the surface of our everyday electronics.
The cycles of seasons, on the other hand, have been on my mind lately as the North Country oscillates rapidly between spring and winter. (One day on, one day off.) In those cycles, I’ve found a strange symmetry. Though most of the year lacks reflection symmetry (autumn is obviously different from spring), there’s a point where late fall lines up perfectly with early spring—the world is cold and still and brown, and I can pretend for a moment that the winter never happened.
San Francisco at the end of Saturday: to paraphrase the Hold Steady, the lines of the city are awash in hot, soft light. I’ve rambled in the past on the gradient between nature and dense urbanization, and the special anomaly that the San Francisco Bay Area represents in its gentle juxtaposition of wood and concrete (buildings). This particular photograph from Telegraph Hill tells the story: the towering, mythical shape of the Transamerica Pyramid and a hill of grasses, with less than a half-a-mile walk separating them.
Trips through Zulu Nyala went out morning and evening, and as such we experienced some fantastic late-morning and early-evening scenes. (Particularly if, as on this afternoon, a massive rainstorm had just occurred.) This particular vista includes the mysterious aloe hill, where the other savannah foliage is mysteriously absent, with only the alien aloes remaining. An invasion? Could be.
A Saturday special: it’s still winter in the North Country (basically). Though I took this shot a couple of weeks ago (during the true depths of North Country Winter), it still surprisingly evocative of the current climate. Those first hints of light (and spring to come) are just starting to force their way through!
This was a sight, descending the steps to the courtyard of Latimer Hall, that was once everyday and pedantic to me. Now, the sight of it is a powerfully nostalgic mix of strange perspectives and a dozen mishmashed textures and patterns: tiles and bricks and precast and cast-in-place and trees and bushes. In the long run, that red-green-and-gray color scheme means a lot more to me than I thought it did.
Through the long North Country winter (my favorite theme, of late), there are few activities more fun than bombing along empty back roads in my Mini. Camera on the seat next to me, tripod in the back, and gnarly snow tires beneath me. Adventure and strangeness and exploration: there’s always another road I’ve never before ventured down. In this photograph, I capture the experience: crusty Mini, open field, and the beginning of a lovely sunset.
Decaseconds 