Hiking the Raquette River made me constantly aware of the water that produced these geometries—and that was a bit intimidating. When the dam upstream opens, I would imagine that this is just about the “view” of that the enormous surge.
Tag: North Country
Torrent
This torrent of water is, if you can believe it, the Raquette river at a low point. (The gates of the dam up-river would be opened a week or so later, burying this area under an extra blast.) The primal force of a waterfall just calls for you to stick your hand in it—if you’re brave enough.
Resilient House
The North Country is green and lush at this moment, but it’s worthwhile to look back on the recently-thawed saltscape that was spring. I still feel a certain sense of amazement at the number of fierce winters homes like this have survived.
Morgan’s Ice House
Summer means ice cream! There’s no more fitting place for a crowd to be during the Dairy Princess Festival than crowded around the local ice cream stand. The contrast is strong and the setting is familiar in that “classic Americana” kind of way. Even the edge of the house next door adds that bit of small-town welcoming spirit. A scene of Norman-Rockwell-esque friendliness.
Morning Rain, Delicate Color
Up early in the morning (to photograph a horse show, naturally), I watched a storm brew over St. Lawrence’s fields. The model-railroad trees and fences and the morning colors scattered through the clouds made it worth being up at such an hour (almost).
July 4 Special: Muscle Cars and the Dairy Princess
Independence Day is a great time for an extra shot: down Park St. in Canton, NY on the first night of the Dairy Princess Festival. Ice cream and muscle cars and John Deere and music in the street. America!
Three Scenes from the Dairy Princess Festival
This weekend marked the crowning of a new Dairy Princess in Canton, New York, and with that crowning came a variety of festivities. A location scout for a charming movie about a small-town baseball team with moxie would have been hard-pressed to find a better vision of classic America. While eating an ice cream cone taller than my head and avoiding children running at full tilt, I had a chance to put my 35 mm prime lens to good use. I present three of my shots from the evening.
Ubiquitous food stands offer what you’re craving—as long as that includes sugar, salt, grease, potatoes, and caffeine.
There were also, of course, the quiet asides between family members in quasi-privacy. I really liked the way that this side-conversation was also physically away from the lights (and crowds), even if it did push my poor APS-C sensor to its limits.
And what kind of American festivities would be complete without some live music?
Old Barn, New Summer
When barns are no longer needed, they so rarely seem to be torn down. Rather, they sink slowly back into the earth, like tree stumps. New life is bursting forth around an old barn, and it does start to seem like just another feature of the natural landscape.
It’s been strange to see the degree to which the seasons and cycles of the Northeast have started to influence my photography. I don’t know that I thought as much about the passage of time and the seasons when I was in California with its nearly-unchanging conditions (pick between rainy or dry, but that’s about it.) Doing landscape photography in a place with drastic seasonal swings makes me more aware of them than ever before.
Deer Play
That perfect, after-dinner dusk moment: the deer (and the bugs) are out to play, and everything is quiet in the last un-Rayleigh-scattered rays of sunlight. Among the weathered fenceposts and glacier-carved rocks, deer are out to play. I’m interested by the idea that children play, and animals play, but the idea of “play” as something that adult humans do takes on a different meaning in the context of adult human culture. The concept of responsibility brings with it a parallel idea that to play is to behave irresponsibly, doesn’t it?
But don’t dwell on that. The sunset is enchanting and the deer are having fun. I will, too.
Sunset and Lazy River
When I discuss HDR photography, I usually borrow the words of Trey Ratcliff and the idea of better capturing a scene as the human mind perceives it. In the case of this particular sunset over the Grasse River (the North Country at its prettiest), however, I feel like HDR has captured even more than my eye could perceive at the moment I took the picture. This is not only because of the increased dynamic range, but also the resulting detail in the trees by the bank and in the wee islands and rocks. I was too distracted by the intensity of the sun when I took the original image to spend time on the details of the scene, but now I’m glad to be able to look back to those details to really place myself in that moment.
A Break for Infrastructure
Forests and farms and “small”/”close” settings seem so common in the North Country; when the landscape opens to reveal wide bands of high-voltage lines amid the trees and streams, I’m always a bit surprised.
Summer Sunset Farm
On the quiet and winter-crushed roads outside of town, the density of nuclear mosquitoes skyrockets when summer finally arrives. Standing on the edge of a glacier-scared field, under the dome of clouds, and watching the thermonuclear fireball of our star vanish over the horizon, it’s easy to feel small. But if science allows me to understand these phenomena and my place in the world, the nature of what an image of that world means changes.
Halloween in April
There’s something about a red sky and an abandoned house that seems creepy and Halloween-esque, even when it’s April. Maybe it’s another case of Canton’s Lynchian vibes.
Snow Is Gone
Spring is late to the North Country, and though the snow is gone and the homes have (mostly) survived, plant life hasn’t yet surpassed the “first hints of green grass” level. There’s nonetheless a certain crunchy, dusty beauty to the sunset now—one that is nicely offset by the glossy reflections from window panes.
Sun Pillar
On those special nights, when ice crystals align correctly in the atmosphere, atmospheric optics get a bit crazy and a sun pillar like the one here appears.
Though, to be honest, even the Rayleigh scattering that makes the sky blue is crazy to begin with. The strange behavior of light and matter (thanks, Richard Feynman!) never ceases to amaze me.
Decaseconds 