An Atavistic Collection

This weekend, I finally conquered a serious challenge: organizing my ancient photo collection. As I went through it, I found some photographs from almost a decade ago. Unfortunately, they weren’t taken with a DSLR, but I’m presenting them here as a taste of compositions, colors, and places that aren’t otherwise found on Decaseconds that frequently. With no further ado:

This is the creek, behind my childhood home, where I spent countless hours building castles, bridges, and walls from sticks and stones. The water comes from the top of nearby Mt. Riga, and is icy cold through most of the year. Somehow, we still managed to handle swimming in it during the summer.

Salisbury Creek

This picture shows the Long Walk of Trinity College in Hartford, CT. This is the oldest part of the school, built when the campus moved to its current location in 1863. This particular day at the end of November was the first snow of the year. Everyone is just a bit surprised, the leaves are still on the trees, and the snow seems wetter than at any other time.

First Snow

This photograph was taken at the top of Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire. Though the top of the mountain is barren but for a few shrubs, it turns out that this isn’t because of being above the tree line. Over the course of centuries, the mountain was repeatedly burned, both to make room for livestock and because wolves were living in its caves. Now, just a handful of berry bushes and grasses crust the smooth, ancient stone of the mountain. Some have called it, “the Most Hiked Mountain in America.”

Monadnock

Finally, I have a picture from Key West, Florida. The sunsets and the enormous thunderheads there make for some lovely pictures, but my favorite detail is at the horizon: the poles supporting power lines, alone in the water, bringing electricity from key to key.

Sun Between the Keys

No Dark on the Beach

The beach at Costão do Santinho is as bright as day, 24/7. In the winter, it was eerily empty (save for a few roaming packs of wild dogs, later on…) I’d like to imagine that the warmer weather brings all-night volleyball tournaments.

Either way, the mist-capped waves, black rocks, and bright bits of algae make the lonely beach even more alien.

No Dark on the Beach

Rain and Roots

Little pockets of calm exist all over Berkeley’s hustling campus, but Strawberry Creek on a rainy day is a particularly superlative example. The leaves and water take on this lovely green that perfectly offsets the red needles from the Redwoods above. Against this palette, the textures of the mud and roots are all the more striking.

Rain and Roots

Surf: Brazil

Saturday isn’t a normal posting day, but I was so excited by this shot that I thought I’d bring you guys a bonus. I’m currently in Florianopolis, Brazil, home of (they claim) the best surfing in the world. The waves weren’t quite that impressive yesterday, but they were pretty close. The blue green-ocean, black rocks, and golden barnacles make for the perfect “Royal Surf.”

Surf: Brazil

Kami’s Rock

An enormous, moss-covered stone mediates the meeting between pathway and stream, deep within the Nitobe Memorial Gardens at the University of British Columbia. Though the calm pond and the massive entrance have given a broader idea of the Gardens’ feel, I really like the calmer, more compact corners. These little areas seem like the perfect place for a kami to live.

Kami's Rock