HDR Photography
We may be deep within the glowing core of autumn in the Northeast at this moment, but I can’t escape the feeling that spring and its attendant graduation drama is fast approaching. If winter proves deep and dark, that may prove itself to be an illusion.
We returned to Trinity College in Hartford, CT, for Reunion this year. It was a classic reunion setting—back ‘neath the elms, on a perfect summer night. I’ve increasingly found that, rather than being an occasion for excess nostalgia, reunions are a tonic against over-romanticizing college. It takes actually visiting to realize that the location is different from the group of people who were once assembled there.
Following on the dorm-based nostalgia I felt last week, this image of Trinity College’s Jarvis Hall (where I lived during my first year in college) hits even deeper into the I-recently-attended-my-10-year-college-reunion space.
Universities think on long timescales (decades and centuries) and as a result, the oldest building on St. Lawrence’s campus (Richardson, on the right) overlooks the newest addition (the quad in front of Kirk Douglas Hall).
Summer made a perfect match of the elm leaves and Trinity College’s chapel. I wonder if the alignment looks as good with rime on the branches?
The quad between St. Lawrence University’s Gunnison Memorial Chapel and Kirk Douglas Hall is a center of activity after 4:00. That also often coincides with the drone photographer’s favorite moment when only the treetops remain bright, while the pathways and grassy places fall into cool shadows.
This quad isn’t very much of a quardrangle, from a geometric standpoint, but that doesn’t stop students and visiting campers from having an absolutely delightful afternoon there.
The long winter seems long behind us and campus is lush with flowering trees and grass carpets. Brush Quad, situated between St. Lawrence University’s oldest building (Richardson Hall) and its newest (Kirk Douglas Hall), looks particularly welcoming.
This weekend marked the first truly warm days (i.e. spring) after a long winter, and there’s not long now until St. Lawrence’s students graduate on that sunset-lit quad at the center of the image.
Summer on a college campus (with all of the energy of a reunion weekend) buzzes and burbles with the remembered excitement of perfect afternoons. On the quad of Trinity College, in the shadow of elm trees and the enormous Neo-Gothic chapel, this reaches its apex. I particularly enjoy the father and son talking on the bench in the foreground, adding a touch of the intimate to an otherwise crowded scene.
Procrastinating a proposal is a great time for a quick drone flight. Though the camera quality is still around “potato,” the sight of St. Lawrence’s campus as autumn colors seep in, with foothills in the background, was too good to pass up.
If you’d like to watch the full flight (complete with overly trippy guitar music in place of screaming drone prop noise), I uploaded it to YouTube. The need for a gimbal on the camera is evident.
The last golden photons, their combination of diffuse and specular reflections bouncing from the windows of Trinity College’s Long Walk, are the perfect additions to the final moments of a crisp winter afternoon. This photo captures only a small section of the full stretch of Long Walk, which I still find rather astonishing.
From the crust of winter, looking back to summer and reunions and picnics on the quad brings that inner warmth.
My new academic home at St. Lawrence University has involved a serious shift from Berkeley’s urban campus to the bucolic surroundings of New York’s North Country. The gentle flower-and-grass smells waft through the campus in place of petrochemical fumes, and an the evening sun provides just the right bit of warmth.
Today’s photograph was taken by Piper Klemm (who has previously been on the other side of the camera), and really conveys the way quads and paths carved into the trees of Berkeley’s campus. The flow of students between classes gives the image the “campus” feel.
