Smooth, gentle, green hills cover layers of limestone beneath; trees mark the grooves where creeks cut through the soft stone.
Tag: Sunset
Too Many Ponies at Sunset
“Too many” may be an exaggeration, but a field full of ponies on a Kentucky evening sure feels like it’s pushing the limit.
Old and New Kentucky
While the Interstate system feels like an ingrained part of American culture at this point, its presence (in the Eastern U.S., anyway) is revealed as a late addition from a drone’s eye view: the original patterns of farms and country roads has this massive strip of highway laid atop it.
Rays from the Barn
Drones open up all kinds of new perspectives, but these vantages don’t always have to be extreme or dramatic. The equivalent height of an aerial work platform presents just the correct geometry to get these rays from the setting sun to explode from the roof of a recently renovated barn outside Lexington, Kentucky.
Bridge Between Counties
Bridges between counties in the approximately southern United States mostly remind me of Smokey and the Bandit, but this one between Woodford and Scott counties in Kentucky differs both in that (1) it’s not currently out, necessitating a dramatic jump, and (2) it’s experiencing a far more peaceful evening.
Dry Paths and Trails
Rain brings spontaneous desert symmetry breaking: some areas become rivers and streams, while others stay high and dry. La Quinta Cove brings hiking trails into this equation. Looking high over the landscape, those trails and dry streambeds may be hard to distinguish—until the rain comes. In the distance, just above the tan tanks on the left of the image, the Salton Sea serves as a reminder of how water and the desert interact.
Desert Until the Valley Floor
Mountains and hillsides in Coachella Valley are a rocky, scrubby desert so long as they stay sufficiently sloped; the moment they reach the flat ex-lake valley floor, the housing developments begin.
One Horse Spices Up the Whole Scene
Radiant summer sunset light showered over a rustic farm is all well and good, but a relaxed pony munching grass in the foreground really draws the eye to what matters.
Flying is Easier Than Hiking
The path at right is a fairly treacherous, dusty way up to the top of this hill; it’s the one I took last year to capture images like this one. Flying to the top with my drone is, by comparison, a bit less strenuous.
Horses at Home
Our summer rental cottage in rural(ish) Kentucky provides my wife’s favorite benefit: waking up to horses in the back yard. There’s no better coffee companion than an equine friend.
Hill Structure
My trips to this hill last year were constrained by the limitations of gravity; bringing my drone with me this year opened up whole new vistas and geometries. The artificial nature of this water retention area is far more apparent when view from the air.
Unexpected Finds Around the Kentucky Paddock
A lot happens around the Kentucky cottage when we’re home from a show, but I have to admit that a pair of vultures drying out after a sudden thunderstorm in the top of a tree with a rainbow behind them isn’t what I was expecting…
This look from Papaya through the trees was pretty profound but still not really what I was expecting…
Quiet grazing in a sunset-lit paddock is perhaps closer to expectations, but this idyllic, Miyazaki-esque view still surprised me with the sense of warm summer calm.
Christmas Sunset Together
Today marks the start of the spring semester at many colleges and universities. A wistful look back at winter break and its associated festivities seemed appropriate.
Trio vs. Trio
I found myself returning to one of my earliest Decaseconds posts (almost exactly 11 years ago) as I updated my Top 32 album on Flickr—the digital portfolio where I display my best (or simply favorite) photographs. Finding “Waves and Rocks Dwarf Man” in that set, I saw both the excellent light and composition that my old Nikon had captured in 2011, as well as all of the places where my choices in processing the original image now left my unsatisfied. Rather than simply reprocessing that original image, I went back to the folder of camera raws from that day and selected an image I took just moments later to tackle. (Always keep save those raw files!) I not only like this composition better than the older one, but I also feel that I have brought something new out here, rather than simply reprocessing something old.
Hills Beyond
This grand desert setting has a tiny bonus: can you spot the tiny walker in the foreground?
Decaseconds 