HDR Photography
The overnight low was –16ºF, meaning that my robotic exploration of the skies has been put on pause for the moment. Back on those crisp fall days, though, there was nothing better than putting up the quadcopter and surveying St. Lawrence’s facilities. The riding stables and fields are one of the best places to spend a Friday afternoon, whether on the ground or in the air.
I’ve taken a few pictures around Salisbury, CT in a snow storm in previous years. When the snow is drifting down and the charming New England buildings look inviting, the setting is perfect for feelings of home.
Portraits in the style of intense indie rock album art have always been a favorite of mine. Evergreen branches and melting snow start the package, but it’s the tiny details in the far-off Mohonk Mountain House that really complete the mysterious setting.
Summer canoeing is months in the past at Mohonk Mountain House; snow and rime crust the boat dock. On the cliffs in the distance, the hotel’s signature gazebos are (mostly) unoccupied and winter is settling in.
Following Thanksgiving, all structures seems to sprout these luminescent, multicolored silica-and-copper growths. I’m sure the world’s building biologists are hard at work on a cure for “Christmas lights”, but in the mean time, they sure are pretty.
Decaseconds turns five years old just about this week, and today I’m turning 30. “Now” is a good time to think about age and the passage of time, I suppose, but I’d rather focus on something else: achievement. We’ve gotten a lot done in the past years—and there’s a lot more to come. Looking back on my early photographs on places like Berkeley’s Campanile, I can see all of the steps that led me to now. On to the next year!
Flying a quadcopter feels a heck of a lot like flying did in my childhood dreams. Nap-of-the-earth flying reveals new textures and geometries that were invisible from the group. I was perhaps most surprised to realize how bright a road can be, relative to dense summer foliage.
Mohonk Mountain House is a unique hotel in the hills above New Paltz, New York. Though I visited there during the summer as a youth (while reading Harry Potter, naturally), this was my first visit as an adult and during the winter. None of the magic has been lost during the seasons in between.
Random log geometries give every fire a unique geometry; I couldn’t avoid seeing eyes (and a face) in this particular conflagration.
Winter arrived in the Northeast with maximum attitude: from 66ºF on Saturday morning to a full-on blizzard by Sunday. In Salisbury, CT, home of ski jumps and wood-lined hotel bars, we got to experience the odd dynamic of watching Porsche and Mercedes SUVs claw through the snow. The classic White Hart hotel was looking its best.
I tested my DJI Phantom 3 Advanced in the post-storm conditions. Almost-freezing, windy conditions didn’t have an impact on its flight performance, but the gimbal didn’t seem too thrilled. Some of its smooth elegance was lost… Or maybe it was just the wind.
College campuses have long, tree-lined walks; those are great places to find this “yellow leaf tunnel” effect.
Even on Election Day, businesses are open and running and life continues in the North Country. At the grain elevator, farmers arrive and depart not just by truck, but also (in the case of our Amish neighbors) by horse-drawn buggy. At the end of the day, businesses quiet down but haven’t quite closed yet and everything becomes still.
Without a nearby Interstate, materials move through the North Country along Route 11 in much the same way I imagine they did pre-1956. The Cascade diner and the Buccaneer Lounge beneath it, glowing with neon lighting on the right side of the picture, date from the early Interstate era. When I visit them for a burger and I beer, my mind always wanders to Eisenhower and Kennedy and the other presidents who presided over the development of the Interstate system. Highway access remains on the mind, I’m sure, of ever person who commutes in and out of the North Country, too.
Stick season has arrived, with orange everywhere. Holes in the trees have appeared and the optical topology has some new path options. Even the steel tracks now appear some copper other-metal.
