road – Page 2 – Decaseconds

House on the Frozen Lake

2017-Dec-292017-Dec-29 adohertyhLeave a comment

The northeastern US has been gripped by severe and hardened cold. Consider, for a moment, how much colder 20 ºF feels than 60 ºF. Imagine that difference projected past its original low point, out the other side to -20 ºF. After past winter temperatures like these, I can attest that the return to “normal” winter really does feel 40 ºF warmer. The rivers and lakes are freezing. The snow is a dry powder, dozens of degrees below its melting point. A warm home above the frozen waters sounds pretty inviting.

Finally Green

2016-Jun-202016-Jun-20 adohertyhLeave a comment

Summer is here! Chlorophyll-generation reactions abound in leaf and stem; the summer solstice is grand. In a countryside that seems forbidding during the winter months, warm weather changes the attitude of the land. Get out and explore!

Road in the Hillside

2016-Apr-13 adohertyhLeave a comment

This highway in the hillside makes the mountain look rather smug, I think. This is the Han Solo of rocky formations.

Ice World I

2016-Mar-11 adohertyh3 Comments

Even at the end of this winter-that-wasn’t, the North Country wouldn’t let us get away without gorgeous glaze ice and snow-packed roads. Is any day crisper than the one after an epic storm?

Road Before the Snow

2016-Feb-222016-Feb-22 adohertyh3 Comments

Ice and snow and real winter have locked down the countryside, but I still have the photographic evidence of our ultra-mild, el-Niño-powered January.

North Country Gateway

2016-Feb-12 adohertyh7 Comments

Away from the village centers, the North Country is frozen at an odd point in development. The original farms of early settlers haven’t been completely removed, but not much development has continued past that point. Trailers were installed by the sides of hot-mix roads and everything stopped there. I’m fascinated to think what this area must have been like during the late 1940s—population returning as the nation demobilized, and those people changing things in the North Country. Things don’t seem to change as much now.

Finally Winter

2016-Jan-01 adohertyh3 Comments

The New Year is here, and real winter has arrived along with it! Snow flies through the air and ice clings to the branches and sticks of the North Country.

Escape the Suburbs

2015-Nov-20 adohertyhLeave a comment

The gradient from dense, urban (and suburban) areas to rural and natural settings is one of my favorite photographic subjects—and the subject of most of my favorite photographs. In this particular aerial shot from the in-between area over Pennsylvania, the sun has mostly set, leaving shadows and a few orange reflections in the overly ordered geometry of subdivisions. Down the winding highway, beyond the hills, in the less-dense and more agrarian land, the sun still casts a warm glow.

Country Road

2015-Oct-06 emceehammrLeave a comment

There’s something very midwestern about the narrow, poorly marked roads that weave in and out of plots of farm. Mostly straight but somehow you can’t always see the horizon, dotted with the occasional farm house or barn.

Ram on Bridge

2015-Sep-162015-Sep-17 adohertyh3 Comments

There’s fundamental power in the laminated wood structure of this through-arch bridge (which I’ve photographed before), and I love the way it’s enhanced by the imposing pickup truck and the dramatic sky.

Strange Village

2015-Sep-112015-Sep-17 adohertyhLeave a comment

Photo nostalgia for the day: the strange, flat light of the marine layer burning off the Bay. The mix of architectural styles from the early twentieth century makes Berkeley, on a day like this one was, seem like a scale model of itself.

Waking Up Seattle

2015-Aug-172015-Aug-17 adohertyhLeave a comment

My co-author is the true Seattleite, and I began to understand the appeal of the place when I spent time there for a wedding this weekend. From atop the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, the view of uncanny Rainier Tower complements the wee cars in the streets below. Dawn is the time to gaze down the canyons.

Luxury/War Vehicles

2015-Jun-15 adohertyhLeave a comment

Advertisements for luxury products have a heavy dose of the preposterous. “When would I possibly find myself driving my Range Rover through a recreated Civil War campground, complete with observation balloon, on my way home from a Hunter Derby?” What a juxtaposition!

I also rather like the idea that lots of luxurious products (like Range Rovers and hot air balloons) are the descendants of military-issue equipment (like this observation balloon, or the original Land Rover—a vehicle heavily inspired by the Willys Jeep.)

Leaving Canton

2015-May-18 adohertyh2 Comments

So this is it: Commencement was yesterday, the graduated seniors are gone off to their lives, and my miniature project to document the end of the school year is coming to an end, as well. The seniors graduated, packed, and evacuated in a single hectic afternoon. The strange calm when the dorms are emptied and the cars hit the road and vanish into the distance is what really gets me. (Though, of course, I’m very proud of my students, going out to begin their “real world”/grad school lives.) Over the course of this week, I’m going to translate those thoughts on “moving on” to a few other pictures of cars and trucks that I’ve taken—recently, and in the past. Consider this shot of my Mini as the first in the series.

Behind that car, positioned at the edge of Canton, is a view across the valley—a view of my surroundings that (in its own minor way) mirrors the equivalent shot I took two years ago of my surroundings from that time period. Though less dramatic, the North Country has its own summer vibe going.

Edge of Zulu Nyala

2015-Jan-14 adohertyh2 Comments

It’s the first day of class for St. Lawrence today, so I’m getting ready and looking towards the future and so forth, but it’s also a great time to look back on the past. It’s been more than a year since I visited South Africa, and when it’s -15ºF on the walk to work, thinking about the Zulu Nyala game reserve can bring back some pleasant memories. It’s the details that stick with me: the fences made from whole sticks of wood, rather than boards, and that particular red color of the soil.