Nature – Page 16 – 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.

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.

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.

Foggy Ascent

2013-Dec-09 adohertyh4 Comments

Early morning fog clings to the rocky-yet-verdant hills and cliffs of Muir Overlook, just north of San Francisco. Lichen-encrusted rocks and eerie, hanging trees capture moisture from the air. It’s not raining, but everything is “drippy.”

Silo and Tree

2013-Dec-06 adohertyh1 Comment

The rolling, bucolic hills of the Connecticut-New York border are one of my favorite places. The foothills of the Berkshires roll along under the late-autumn reds and browns, the clouds pucker towards rain overhead, and the decrepit skeletons of agriculture linger among the charming homes that now dominate the landscape.

Snow on Salmon Kill

2013-Nov-27 adohertyhLeave a comment

Thanksgiving is around the corner, and New England has equilibrated to early-winter leafless distributions. On a morning coffee-and-breakfast-sandwich run, snow encrusted rocks form the boundaries of a real-world Zen garden.

Foothills

2013-Nov-11 adohertyh1 Comment

Where earth meets sky at the edge of the horizon, the foothills of the Adirondacks oscillate under the autumn colors and I use increasingly baroque adjectives to describe the North Country.

Mist in the Clearing

2013-Nov-06 adohertyh9 Comments

The stunning, overwhelming, almost-heartbreaking Muir Woods National Monument in California has become a photographic cliché. (Thanks, Ansel Adams.) That doesn’t prevent me from discovering something new in every corner and every moment. The incredible contrast of scale between ferns and sequoias twists the mind, and the quiet, misty paths (early in the morning anyway) transport you to an overwhelming alternate world.

Winter Comes to the Adirondacks

2013-Oct-282013-Oct-28 adohertyh4 Comments

On my way back from my conference in Connecticut, I drove through the Adirondacks, where winter is arriving fast. The hills were dusted with snow and all but the most tenacious leaves were carpeting the forest floor. I pulled off the road for this shot in Tupper Lake, where the grasses, placid waters, and stubbly hills matched perfectly with the dense clouds and the random distribution of sunlight. The moment felt chaotic, strange—just a bit primeval. I had a chance to do landscape photography that truly excluded any human intrusion (save the eye of the photographer himself.)

Saturday Morning in the North Country

2013-Oct-23 adohertyh1 Comment

When I have to be up early to shoot a horse show, I make certain to take advantage of the occasion. In looking across the autumn North Country fields, I was amused by the “chronological asymmetry” between the looming living tree and the stump of “tree-past.”

Fall on the Avenue of the Elms

2013-Oct-13 adohertyh4 Comments

I’ll sneak in one more unscheduled weekend post with this photograph from St. Lawrence University’s Avenue of the Elms. Some fall afternoons are so perfect that they must be shared.

Snowsuit

2013-Oct-02 adohertyhLeave a comment

Perhaps my last post in the cozy, wood-lined chambers of Timberline Lodge put me in mind of winter excursions. From the windy top of Lion’s Head in northwestern Connecticut, the view of three states is incredible. The snow clings to branches from a recent storm, and a few wisps of cloud mark the horizon in an otherwise azure sky. This snowsuit caught my eye, and I particularly liked the way only a single hand of human being is visible, poking out from the bundled layers.

Shoshone Falls

2013-Aug-20 emceehammr4 Comments

On my recent trip I had an occasion to stop at Shoshone falls, near Twin Falls, Idaho. Sometimes nature is amazing.

Forest Walkway

2013-Jul-11 emceehammrLeave a comment

Another one from Muir woods. Teeming with life, this shot pretty well sums up why I like walking through the forest, even on a grey day.

Happy 4th! Pitcher Plant

2013-Jul-042013-Aug-16 emceehammrLeave a comment

I haven’t been posting as regularly as I’d like to recently (grad school has caught up with me recently) but since I have some time today I’ve got a double feature. This image was captured during the same outing to the UC botanical garden at Berkeley, this time in the orchid, fern, and carnivorous plant house. Keeping with the theme of the day, this also looks like some sort of crazy creature from a scifi movie.