HDR Photography
Light trails from (a) vehicles leaving a concert at Equus Run Vineyards and (b) cruising along the nearby highway might imply some connection between the two, but years of renting the summer cottage at the left side of this picture has taught us the truth: it’s a surprisingly long drive down back-country roads to reach that interstate.
Interstates may seem a natural part of the American landscape, but the drone’s-eye view reveals the truth of how highways were laid atop the earlier landscape. I like the convergence of the headlights along both the country road and I-64, like two different eras running to a shared future.
Last Wednesday, I showed you the light trails of concertgoers leaving Equus Run Vineyards. Today, I bring you a bird’s eye view of the same moments. In the distance, Margaux is quiet for the evening; in the midground, car headlights bounce off the grapes; in the foreground, light trails highlight the bridge and the road through the trees.
Equus Run Vineyard holds summer concerts, using the ample space available among the vines.
Our little cottage is across the street; after listening to the concert, we got a secondary show watching concertgoers depart.
Legend Mary Chapin Carpenter was playing, so the line continued for quite a while.
Tranquil summer fields beneath a vividly hued sky make for a perfect Kentucky landscape.
Smooth, gentle, green hills cover layers of limestone beneath; trees mark the grooves where creeks cut through the soft stone.
“Too many” may be an exaggeration, but a field full of ponies on a Kentucky evening sure feels like it’s pushing the limit.
While the Interstate system feels like an ingrained part of American culture at this point, its presence (in the Eastern U.S., anyway) is revealed as a late addition from a drone’s eye view: the original patterns of farms and country roads has this massive strip of highway laid atop it.
Drones open up all kinds of new perspectives, but these vantages don’t always have to be extreme or dramatic. The equivalent height of an aerial work platform presents just the correct geometry to get these rays from the setting sun to explode from the roof of a recently renovated barn outside Lexington, Kentucky.
Bridges between counties in the approximately southern United States mostly remind me of Smokey and the Bandit, but this one between Woodford and Scott counties in Kentucky differs both in that (1) it’s not currently out, necessitating a dramatic jump, and (2) it’s experiencing a far more peaceful evening.
Radiant summer sunset light showered over a rustic farm is all well and good, but a relaxed pony munching grass in the foreground really draws the eye to what matters.
Summer dawns are calm, gentle times in Midway, Kentucky—and when we’re in town for horse shows, you can bet we see a lot of them. I find it satisfying that the aerial view is just as relaxing and bucolic.
Our summer rental cottage in rural(ish) Kentucky provides my wife’s favorite benefit: waking up to horses in the back yard. There’s no better coffee companion than an equine friend.
A lot happens around the Kentucky cottage when we’re home from a show, but I have to admit that a pair of vultures drying out after a sudden thunderstorm in the top of a tree with a rainbow behind them isn’t what I was expecting…
This look from Papaya through the trees was pretty profound but still not really what I was expecting…
Quiet grazing in a sunset-lit paddock is perhaps closer to expectations, but this idyllic, Miyazaki-esque view still surprised me with the sense of warm summer calm.
The bucolic setting of Equus Run is so charming and quaint (and well-shielded by trees and hillside) that I can easily forget the Interstate runnin’ through the yard.
Decaseconds 