HDR Photography
There are few natural features that look colder than a rushing blackwater river when the air temperature is below 0ºF. The convergence of this little reservoir to the far-off (and equally miniature) hydroelectric station neatly contrasts the frigid setting with the optimism of twentieth-century technocrats. (The Adirondacks are dotted with an improbable number of tiny hydroelectric stations.)
When red leaves are backlit, they seem to glow so unbelievably. HDR photography can turn this setting from charming to almost overwhelming.
In the past week, I’ve explored the Adirondacks in autumn. This particular setting (just across the street from last week’s sea plane) is another irreducible representation of the glassy water, expansive sky, and intimate beaches of the region. Though we’re officially into fall, I’m pretty confident that these canoes and kayaks are going to see at least a few more weeks’ use. (Will they be dodging icebergs eventually?)
Ready to launch those kayaks and disturb the chilly mirror of a fall river in the Adirondacks? Me, neither. (Too cold and too placid.)
When the waters come loose from the dam above and run through the trees, the fallen limbs and detritus arrange and align.
An example of Berkeley’s lush suburban vegetation.
On a chill and cloudy afternoon, the sky hangs low over Berkeley and Oakland. Highly textured red tile roofs, ionic columns, industrial air handlers, all separated from the “mundane world” by a wall of trees: are these the “layers” of the Berkeley experience?
Though it’s hours downstate from where George Lucas found his forest moon of Endor, Muir Woods packs the same enormous, wet redwood trees and lush vegetation that made the fictional planetoid so memorable. To have “spent” so much of my childhood wandering around on that other world (in my imagination), only to find myself really there, proved to be a spectacular treat at the end of my time in California.
Fauntleroy’s Lincoln park always brings back memories for me of the giants games of capture of flags I used to play in the park.
The “real-world Zen garden” effect of northwestern Connecticut at the end of November was just the calming experience I needed: after a busy semester, stopping for a moment by the edge of slow stream, standing among the red, crinkly fallen leaves and short grasses, and feeling the wind lift puffs of snow from the rocks to my face.
Where earth meets sky at the edge of the horizon, the foothills of the Adirondacks oscillate under the autumn colors and I use increasingly baroque adjectives to describe the North Country.
St. Lawrence University’s Avenue of the Elms is notable for being:
(1) Very lovely.
(2) Very long.
(3) Very colorful (at least when autumn arrives.)
The sense of space and hue and Alice-in-Wonderland surreality pervade the space. On the Avenue of the Elms, the “regular rules” don’t apply and crisp fall Saturdays are forever.
I’ll sneak in one more unscheduled weekend post with this photograph from St. Lawrence University’s Avenue of the Elms. Some fall afternoons are so perfect that they must be shared.
The benefit of teaching early morning classes: I’m finally (routinely) up for the sunrise. Even when the morning is cold and my fingers don’t want to be operating a camera, the fall and the clouds and the trees conspire to make Johnson Hall of Science (a frequent subject) look like paradise.
Perhaps my last post in the cozy, wood-lined chambers of Timberline Lodge put me in mind of winter excursions. From the windy top of Lion’s Head in northwestern Connecticut, the view of three states is incredible. The snow clings to branches from a recent storm, and a few wisps of cloud mark the horizon in an otherwise azure sky. This snowsuit caught my eye, and I particularly liked the way only a single hand of human being is visible, poking out from the bundled layers.
Decaseconds 