Raquette – 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.

First to Turn

2022-Apr-08 adohertyhLeave a comment

The first organisms to shift and adapt to a new season have always seemed to me like its harbingers. Here in the North Country, I’m noticing the first buds appearing on the maple trees—several weeks after their sap was harvested to make some delicious New York maple syrup—but back in the autumn, those same trees were the first to display their autumn foliage.

Shades of Pestle Stones

2022-Mar-28 adohertyh1 Comment

Rough rocks, fuzzy trees, and long-exposure-smoothed water make this a North Country texture combo platter.

Rapids to the Sunset

2019-Mar-012019-Mar-13 adohertyhLeave a comment

The deep gouge in the landscape that is Stone Valley winds off into the post-sunset, on its way to meet the distant tiny tower.

River Triangle

2019-Feb-252019-Feb-24 adohertyhLeave a comment

Stone Valley’s sharp river slicing through the fuzzy trees is a good reminder that there are forces far more powerful than photosynthesis sculpting the world we see each day.

Shadow River

2019-Feb-182019-Feb-17 adohertyhLeave a comment

Flying a drone makes me think a lot about my xyz position in space. Dark stone and glossy water and fuzzy trees seem to occupy orthogonal dimensions: the trees point along the z-axis, the striations in the stone along the y-axis, and the ripples and rapids in the water along the x-axis.

Town by the Dam

2018-Aug-082018-Sep-14 adohertyh1 Comment

In the foothills of the Adirondacks, the Raquette River was dammed for hydroelectric power. The town of Colton, New York sits on the resulting reservoir; the rapids in the foreground are the beginning of Stone Valley, an area of trails that I’ve photographed extensively in the past. The contrast between placid reflections in the reservoir and the dark currents of the river proper stand out during the blue hour.

Pestle Stone Sunset

2018-Apr-27 adohertyhLeave a comment

Summer hiking in nearby Colton’s Stone Valley is rapidly approaching, and with it, opportunities to see some of our odd (to me) local geology. Those enormous hollows are created by the movement of trapped pestle stones in the rapids water; the scattered evening light reveals their depths.

Real-World Zen Garden

2016-Aug-17 adohertyhLeave a comment

The Japanese rock gardens that we’ve visited in the past were beautiful combinations of moss, stone, and trees. In Stone Valley, the same setting exists in the real world. (Just with more mosquitoes.)

“Secret” Island “Fort”

2016-Aug-12 adohertyhLeave a comment

An almost-island was hiding in the background of this photograph of Stone Valley. Most of my childhood adventures involved sorties from some kind of tree-based fortress; this formation silhouetted against the setting sun reminded me of those adventures. Or maybe just the fort from a particular film. (Even it’s neither truly secret, nor a fort.)

Kinds of Water

2016-Aug-082016-Aug-08 adohertyhLeave a comment

When chemists study water, the molecular-level view offers a lot to consider. Bulk water takes on two fluid phases and seventeen (depending on who you ask) solid phases, from a physical scientist’s perspective. That’s my normal mindset. Even when I see liquid water in a photography, however, I’m astonished to see wispy white tendrils and glassy surfaces that are all created by reflection and scattering from the same material.

Earth, Water, Fire, and Air

2016-Aug-05 adohertyh4 Comments

Classic Stone Valley! A few minutes and meters down the trail from Monday’s image, I caught my favorite part of the hike at a great time of day. Previous trips to this this spot turned into rehearsals for navigating slippery rocks. This has turned out to be one of my favorite pieces of nature photography, but there’s more to come next Monday.

Stone Valley Before Sunset

2016-Aug-01 adohertyh1 Comment

Except perhaps in winter, I’ve always hiked when the sun was high in the sky and settled in before sunset. I have always wanted, however, to capture some dramatic nature scenes with a crazy sky, so this weekend I went sunset hunting. This shot, appropriately, is from early in the night. Later in the week, I’ll be showing more of the shots as I hiked on and the sun disappeared.