HDR Photography
I’ve been on a serious St. Lawrence-in-the-snow photography kick lately, but pictures like this shot of Kirk Douglas Hall (the campus’s newest dorm) really justify the trend. Framed by trees and isolated in the snow, the idyllic nature of the place is enhanced.
In case you were wondering where I get the expression that St. Lawrence University looks like “a ski resort without the ski slopes,” last weekend provided some pretty good evidence. The modern-but-slightly-Nordic buildtings, the oft-cleared pathways, and the gates with reflective tape on them all remind me of ski lodges. Perhaps the best way to describe the school during winter break is a ski lodge for cross-country skiers?
No cropping, no HDR, and only minimal post-processing were applied to this image. Wandering in a snowstorm with a prime lens felt, well, primal, and I wanted an image that captured that. I know that there’s no such thing as the “true” photograph of a place or a moment, but at the edge of St. Lawrence’s campus, at this particular blue hour, the magic needed no adulteration.
This is the kind of image that I look back on the most: the ones with the strongest sense of place, the most obvious path to escape into the image. As we start a new year, I’d like to think that it’s a mark of my increased confidence as a photographer that I can make more with less. (Though don’t get me wrong—there are times when I’m glad to be able to make something out of nothing.)
Pardon my sappy cliché for the moment: a brand new year and a perfect, untouched field with interesting features in the distance. Here we go!
Late fall doesn’t mean rich, verdant scenes or flame-colored leaves. In the North Country, late fall really means early winter. The fields are brown, the trees are bare, and the scene is dusted with snow. Other than the greens of the pines, the world hibernates. The birds scattering to the air are the only signs of life, but the scene has a sort of cliché, stark beauty.
My trip to Chicagoland meant a pilgrimage to Stonewall Farm in Ixonia, Wisconsin, where the ponies had shaggy winter coats that matched the landscape perfectly.
Driving through Buffalo in the snow-entombed aftermath of the recent blizzard meant sliding our car between snow drifts and abandoned vehicles, all brutally carved out of the way by earthmoving equipment. Though I’m used to seeing a cut in an earthen hillside, it’s quite different to see cuts as necessary to open a snowy highway. Given the way this storm will stick in folks’ minds, I like the idea of a fuzed, muted scene that already seems placed in memory.
Having spent almost the entire fall in the St. Lawrence County, having the opportunity to travel and change my scenery is welcome. Even as I contemplate the Chicago skyline, the North Country says goodbye with this pastoral sunrise
I often find myself using a timer in place of a cable release to remove camera shake on long-exposure shots—why not use that time for a bit of a “landscape self-portrait,” too? At the end of a long winter, in the dark of night, when it seemed that cold and precipitation dominate forever, my own presence in the environment and in reality is ghostly and insubstantial.
When my brother was in kindergarten, he made his fort in a small section of densely wooded area on our property. He called it, as any five-year-old would, “The Spooky Wood.” When the leaves fell, it lived up to its name. The tangle of fallen limbs and scarred trunks was impenetrable to all but him; he know the way through the cellulosic maze. Finding this mysterious shed with its epic light amid a North Country tangle, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my brother’s long-abandoned hideout.
In the rest of the world, it’s almost April, but in the North Country it still looks (and feels) like winter. The land and the people and the houses and the barns are battered by the weather, and when spring arrives we’ll repair and recover and regenerate.
A Saturday special: it’s still winter in the North Country (basically). Though I took this shot a couple of weeks ago (during the true depths of North Country Winter), it still surprisingly evocative of the current climate. Those first hints of light (and spring to come) are just starting to force their way through!
Having recently finished the fantastic Bioshock Infinite, I’ve had images of early-twentieth-century American exceptionalism floating through my brain. No matter what you think of the (sometimes questionable) policy decisions based on such a policy, the iconography is undeniably seductive. Neoclassical design features and waving flags on a crisp Sunday afternoon! Though this moment on St. Lawrence’s campus might not be literally of that time, the spirit of it was overwhelming.
Through the long North Country winter (my favorite theme, of late), there are few activities more fun than bombing along empty back roads in my Mini. Camera on the seat next to me, tripod in the back, and gnarly snow tires beneath me. Adventure and strangeness and exploration: there’s always another road I’ve never before ventured down. In this photograph, I capture the experience: crusty Mini, open field, and the beginning of a lovely sunset.
Taking a temporary aside from Africa (and the warm/rainy weather of weird northern New York), here’s an image from the Zen garden just after the most recent blizzard. I haven’t done much work in black and white photography since high school, but this was a case of contrasting textures and tones that just demanded it. The rough, dark brick and stone dressed by puffy snow seemed poetic almost to the point of (again) cliché—so I went with it.
Decaseconds 