HDR Photography
Looking back through years of photographs, I find that my late-winter/early-spring seasonal photos are nearly empty. The bland pre-bloom colors have a lot to do with that, so I thought I would lean into it with a B&W approach that says, “You didn’t want to see the colors, anyway.”
Cool Rayleigh-scattered blue light, warm also-Rayleigh-scattered sunset light, clean white LEDs reflecting off of snow, deep orange sodium lights—there’s every option visible from above Trinity College’s campus.
Like most infrastructure, a roof is something one generally ignores so long as it is functioning as expected. A heavy melt of snow, however, might call all of that into question. At least the view is good from up here.
White covers Trinity’s campus and accents the Neo-Gothic architecture, but the modernist skyline of Hartford in the distance perpetually suggests what else might architecturally be. Though I love twentieth century architecture, there’s little argument that it would have been the wrong choice for a small liberal arts college. It wasn’t until recently that I came to realize that many of these old-looking buildings are less than 100 years old; in essence, they were built to be old-fashioned from the start. Most east-coast schools are a sort of academic Disneyland—one constructed long enough ago that we forgot about the artifice and now see only authenticity.
Snow swept in over the weekend, accompanying the final exam preparations with a highly distracting winter aesthetic.
When peak foliage arrives at Trinity, there’s a perfect moment to capture it and I’m happy to say that I think I timed it perfectly in this particular case.
The warm sodium glow of Trinity College’s campus by night—Clement Chemistry Building and Raether Library in the foreground, the chapel and the Hartford skyline in the background—highlights (in a literal, X-marks-the-spot manner) the contrast between being a student and a faculty member here. Though the same institution, the same general campus, I spend my time now in completely different places than I once did. A prime example is the X-marked courtyard between the two buildings—a place I walked through perhaps 10 times total as a student, but where I now pause for coffee with my colleagues nearly every morning.
Summer nights on Trinity College’s campus are quiet but the paths and buildings remain as effulgent as ever. There’s a luminous quality to this aerial view that really captures the sensory experience of exploring the quads by night.
After the stress of final exams tapers away, seniors have a week to kill time before graduating—and where better to spend it than catching rays on the quad?
Red bricks match red leaves on every tree—except for those elms that stubbornly refuse to turn until months later.
Continuing my recent display of discoveries from my college camera rolls, this picture of a friend reading in the open window of my dorm is fairly perfect. The motion blue of passing students outside further highlights her stillness and the open quad highlights the profile.
The end of the semester (and some final-exam stress) nears but for now, relaxing on the quad on a warm and sunny spring day could be the move.
Though I have my fair share of images that were only possible with the full capabilities of my best camera (just wait for Monday’s post), I’ve been experiencing the impact of Chase Jarvis’s famous quotation lately: “The best camera is the one you have with you.” This perfect warm spring afternoon moment on Trinity College’s main quad was one I serendipitously passed and the image that resulted wasn’t one I would have missed for not having the “perfect” camera.
Looking back for images of Trinity’s Life Science Center (LSC) prior to some recent renovations in the area, I found a set of early digital camera pictures I’d taken that happened to form the components for a panorama. The idea of compositing images to a panorama wasn’t one that entered my brain back in 2008, and yet I had chanced into capturing just the right combination to do so 16 years later.
Another June brings another set of reunions to Trinity’s campus, but the experience is notably different now that I’m a faculty member who walks across this quad every weekday on my way to the office.
Decaseconds 