HDR Photography
Though I have my fair share of images that were only possible with the full capabilities of my best camera (just wait for Monday’s post), I’ve been experiencing the impact of Chase Jarvis’s famous quotation lately: “The best camera is the one you have with you.” This perfect warm spring afternoon moment on Trinity College’s main quad was one I serendipitously passed and the image that resulted wasn’t one I would have missed for not having the “perfect” camera.
Clement Chemistry Building is surrounded by flowering plants that complement its red stone structure on perfect spring morning.
Trinity College’s Women’s Rowing Team, in the foreground here with the pink hats, just placed third in the nation! Way to go!
Though I missed it when I originally processed them, I was entertained to look back at this pair of shots from early spring in Salisbury, Connecticut—one pointing northeast and the other pointing southeast. The light of the rising sun is visible in the distance in both directions where the shadow of the mountain over town is absent.
Delicate, not-fully-chlorophyll’ed spring foliage may be bright on its own, but being the only objects still tall enough to catch the sunlight once Trinity’s Long Walk gets in the way really makes the campus’s trees stand out all the more.
An aerial view makes it even less surprising that Trinity College was recently classified as an arboretum. The warm spring evening air between their branches makes for perfect sensory inputs.
Though a city might not seem like the most obvious place to celebrate Earth Day, I’ve honestly been astonished since my move to Hartford just how many big old trees shelter the city. Between the greenery and the public transportation, this place gives me some optimism.
With the right perspective, this old elm can tower over even the top of the chapel on a just-post-storming spring evening.
Bright spring light graces the rooftops and treetops of Trinity College, even at the end of the day.
Perfect, breezy, warm, and effulgent spring days have sprawled across Trinity’s campus, rather like students on the quad. Grading papers in my office can at least be softened by an open window and the resulting smell of flowers.
Bright sunshine scatters from treetops and roof peaks in Hartford. Buds begin to swell on branches around Trinity’s campus. When the weather is warm, it’s easy to feel that spring is just around the corner.
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.
When the weather turns warm (in spring, as in this picture’s case, or in autumn, as in this week’s reality), St. Lawrence’s students do love their hammocks. I think this particular pair of trees may have reached maximum capacity.
Fireworks are lovely displays of chemistry and physics in action on their own, of course, but there’s an extra dimension of enjoyment from being part of a crowd and feeling the shared excitement.
Walking home through the blue hour at the height of spring, the momentarily deserted campus made me feel as though I’d passed into some alternate fey dimension—as though I might emerge at some radically different position in time or space.
Decaseconds 