HDR Photography
AI-generated images have perhaps made us so inured to impossible images as to dilute the shocking impact of the truly surreal. Bombay Beach’s sculptures, planted in the shores of the Salton Sea, “floating” in the sky, truly look like nothing else I’ve ever seen.
A big panorama of Empire Polo Club helps one to understand a bit how this site can hold both Coachella and Stagecoach.
A human-made building-cliff faces a glacier-made cliff; when the sun sets, one glows and the other reflects the light.
The first weeks of school during my senior year at Trinity College, all the way back in 2007, were memorable to me for a lot of reasons; one of those was because it was just unbearably hot for a couple of weeks. Now, having returned to campus as a faculty member, I’ve apparently brought this weather back with me. The mostly-un-air-conditioned Clement Chemistry Building is once again my home—but this time, my office has a window unit.
For something termed a “hazard,” this body of water looks pretty placid in the evening light.
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.
A cliff face may not seem the optimal spot for a tree, but there will always be specimens that go against the grain. (I couldn’t help myself.) The lights of the granary barbecue across the lake almost makes me think that this particular tree is pining (again, I’m sorry) to pick up its roots and go join the party.
“Coachella Valley was just battered by Hurricane Hilary.” — What an odd sentence to write. Today, we’re looking back to times when the idea of this dry lake bed being hit by a hurricane sounded like science fiction.
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Rather than a fortress in a forest, this is a fortress composed of forest—or at least, it feels that way. While the far-off mountains and the lights of Palm Springs may be visible from the air, the ground-level setting is far more constrained and cozy.
P.S. Can you spot your humble photographer in this shot?
A big dramatic sunset sky and lake reflections provide great context to the wall of stone that is both Mohonk Mountain House itself, as well as the cliffs on which it rests.
Holiday gatherings with palms in place of pines are out of the ordinary to this northeasterner, but the strangest modification remains the outdoor dining.
I’m not sure that it’s great for the Kia, but watching a Bay Area sunset from the roof of a car gives “classic California” vibes that make for a great picture.
Conserved spaces above the noisy East Bay grid make for this incredible reprieve. Though the street lights may shine up here, the sounds are damped over the distance. Lawrence Hall of Science is a popular spot to experience this; I like the contrast in this image between the humans and the city.
For the past decade (nearly, anyway), I’ve been bringing you pictures from St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. With my move to Trinity, I’m running through my final stock of my favorite images. I suspect these will be the last images of St. Lawrence I post (no promises), so it seems fitting that they capture the campus at its most St.-Lawrence-y: crisp autumn evening, foliage lit up by campus fixtures, with a big North Country sunset on the horizon.
The move to Hartford has offered me the opportunity to capture this time sequence (like the ones I took in Kentucky and the North Country) with a dramatic view of Travelers Tower over the course of a day. If the image appeals, it’s also available as a dynamic wallpaper for macOS that will change your desktop with the time of day.
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