Bushnell Tower Watching Fireworks

Flying a drone in downtown Hartford requires some extra permissions, but they’re worth chasing for the opportunity to capture shots like this one: Bushnell Tower, the State Capitol, and a rain-checked fireworks display arrayed above Bushnell Park.

Bushnell Tower Watching Fireworks in the Park

How Did I Miss These?

A post came on social media from more than 11 years ago reminded me of trips around the Bay Area; comparing my RAW files with the images I ultimately posted to Decaseconds originally left me asking, “How did I miss these?”

In past cases of reprocessing pictures, I took another approach to images I already knew were solid. This first image today, boat sailing near Point Bonita lighthouse north of San Francisco, is in a whole different category: I hadn’t remember that I’d taken the image at all.

Two Sailboats and Point Bonita

The occasion was a trip to the Legion of Honor and Lincoln Park. Back then, not a single picture made it to Decaseconds. Many of the images from that day suffered from issues that I know how to correct now, but didn’t yet have the tools to conquer in early 2012.

New Year's Day in Lincoln Park

These pictures from a trip to Treasure Island to shoot the San Francisco skyline are likewise mystifying. I posted only a single picture from that trip.

Skyline as It Was

The old and new spans of the Bay Bridge, side-by-side, is a literally now-unseeable image.

When There Were Two

Though a lot of posts came of our trip to the Marin Headlands to shoot the Golden Gate Bridge, this more natural shot of the rocky coastline (those little black dots are sea birds) has its own kind of large-scale glory.

Pacific Hits the Headlands

Of course, a trip back through my photography in the Bay Area wouldn’t be complete without a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge that I previously ignored.

Untitled: Golden Gate Bridge

Bicentennial Fireworks

This weekend, my wife and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary alongside Trinity College‘s bicentennial. Given that we met at college, the symmetry felt impactful. Though the fireworks might not have been intended to be exclusively for us, they felt just a little extra special.

Bicentennial Fireworks

Time Series: Travelers Tower

The move to Hartford has offered me the opportunity to capture this time sequence (like the ones I took in Kentucky and the North Country) with a dramatic view of Travelers Tower over the course of a day. If the image appeals, it’s also available as a dynamic wallpaper for macOS that will change your desktop with the time of day.

04:30

Travelers Tower 04:30

04:52

Travelers Tower 04:52

05:10

Travelers Tower 05:10

11:32

Travelers Tower 11:32

14:11

Travelers Tower 14:11

16:33

Travelers Tower 16:33

17:31

Travelers Tower 17:31

18:51

Travelers Tower 18:51

19:25

Travelers Tower 19:25

19:40

Travelers Tower 19:40

20:00

Travelers Tower 20:00

20:36

Travelers Tower 20:36

23:46

Travelers Tower 23:46

Keyhole View from Skytop

If that picture of Skytop from last week sparked the question, “What does the view look like from the top?” I’ll meet you halfway; this is the view from the climb up. (The rest of the view will come Monday.)

That cliff face exploding from the trees is part of the Shawangunk Range of mountains, home of Mohonk Mountain House.

Keyhole View from Skytop

From the Vineyard to the Highway

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.

From the Vineyard to the Highway

Eucalyptus Trails

Why save RAW camera outputs from (in this case) six years ago? Digital photography is a rapidly advancing field, and the advent of machine-learning-based noise reduction techniques has completely changed what sorts of images are salvageable. This lovely shot of Berkeley’s fire trails and tall (but invasive) eucalyptus trees stayed in the “unusable” pile for half a decade because I took it freehand, just after sunset, before I deployed my tripod—resulting in an ISO 4500 image from my old D7000 that was just too noisy. Topaz’s latest filters solved that and now this photo can take me back to my California sabbatical.

Eucalyptus Trails

Riding Into the Sunset on Converging Paths

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.

Riding Into the Sunset on Converging Paths