rapids – Decaseconds

Two Views on Final Views

2023-Aug-30 adohertyhLeave a comment

A couple of months ago, I published what I anticipate will be my final pictures of St. Lawrence University, and with this post, I believe I’m releasing my final pictures from St. Lawrence County more generally. They’re an interesting pair, because I feel they capture the dichotomy of the area.

The first image is a high, dramatic drone shot into the Adirondacks, taken near Colton. Nature! Topology! Wilderness! (Clicking through to Flickr, you can see this shot was even featured in their Explore page.) This was perhaps what I was expecting when I moved to the North Country. This was the last such picture I captured on a rare quiet weekend while preparing to move out.

The second picture is one I took on the last day of classes at St. Lawrence. A charming view of our small town, I suppose, but also a vast, flat landscape with a few too many parking lots and strip shopping centers to quite constitute rural life. This was perhaps a better depiction of everyday life in the North Country, and a strong contrast with the drone views that I get now.

Colton’s Dam

2023-Aug-21 adohertyhLeave a comment

Every town between the high peaks of the Adirondacks and the low point of the St. Lawrence River seems to have its own modest hydroelectric dam to capture their slice of the accrued aqueous kinetic energy.

Rapid Patterns

2023-Aug-022023-Aug-02 adohertyhLeave a comment

Though there’s chaos in the turbulent flows of rapids through Stone Valley, I like the rhythm in the repeated lengthscale between crests. The long exposure smooths out the water, but the trees remain sharp and spiky.

Torrent Below the Dam

2023-Jul-26 adohertyhLeave a comment

Movies are filled with imagery of high castle walls holding off hordes of attackers. I suppose this picture of Colton, New York’s dam is a bit of the opposite: the chaos is caused by the wall, rather than the wall being constructed to protect from the chaos.

Cascade at Sunset

2021-Jul-232021-Jul-22 adohertyhLeave a comment

A drone shot of the Cascade Diner (and its subterranean partner, the Buccaneer Lounge) reveals the reason for the institution’s name.

Dusty and Polarized Lenses

2021-Jul-142021-Jul-13 adohertyhLeave a comment

Walking through the Great Smoky Mountains, I was astonished at the clarity of the water… Until I remembered that I was wearing polarized sunglasses that eliminated most of the surface light reflection.

Rapids on the Grasse River in Spring

2021-Apr-302021-Apr-29 adohertyhLeave a comment

This image is my submission to the Spring Photo Contest being run by Grasse River Heritage; the river and its associated park are its subject. I delight in being asked to work under requirements—in this case, both a subject and a time of year—because I feel it focuses me. I get to achieve something specific, which adds some delightful pressure to flying my quadcopter around the island.

Rapids at Dusk

2019-Feb-082019-Feb-07 adohertyhLeave a comment

Stone Valley is a hyperreal place at sunset; the effect is a bit different from above but no less magical. The rapids do, I’ll grant, look a bit less steep from up here.

Stone Valley: Reflective Triangle

2018-Jun-11 adohertyh2 Comments

The rapids of Stone Valley diverge and reunite numerous times throughout their journey, and the spray that accompanies them turns the everyday rocks into smoothed, shiny, reflective triangles.

Stone Valley: Rapid Stairs

2018-May-30 adohertyh2 Comments

The rapids of Stone Valley in Colton, New York have a certain stair-like repeating quality to them (at least for the 363-ish days/year during which the dam above keeps its spillway gates closed).

Farther along the river, the effect again repeats: stone ledges turn the rushing water into less-metallic slinky.

This isn’t a mere trompe-l’œil where a particular angle makes stair-like shapes appear in the stones and moving water. A view shifted by 90º confirms the structure.

Exploring Stone Valley

2016-Jul-27 adohertyh2 Comments

If the weather is just right and recent rain has the Raquette River running high through Stone Valley, a summer hike is just the thing. A geologist would have the technical explanation of the valley’s odd geometry. The hydroelectric dam secretly controls the scene (or the water release, anyway).

The scale of the setting doesn’t really become apparent until you try to spot the tiny people (chemists and physicists, in this case) on the rocks. Bob Ross would be proud.

My Favorite Bar Has Rapids

2016-Jun-03 adohertyhLeave a comment

The North Country, like many rural places in America, has rugged expanses of nature abutting everyday locations. Example: the Buccaneer Lounge has this marvelous array of rapids just past its charming array of picnic tables.