HDR Photography
On a hike with my extended Decaseconds family to Laurel Falls, we paused by the flowing water to explore some strange arrangements of roots and rocks. Landscapes are so much more enticing to a human viewer when there are obviously human forms in the picture, they say, and this image definitely supports that thesis.
The hike to Laurel Falls brought a mix of sand and stone (and sandstone?) in its geology that differs from the Adirondack settings that I’m most used to. The mixture of geological features and stunted trees in the setting has a calming “natural equivalent of a Japanese garden” quality to it that I really appreciated.
Walking through the Great Smoky Mountains, I was astonished at the clarity of the water… Until I remembered that I was wearing polarized sunglasses that eliminated most of the surface light reflection.
Views like this one, capturing the marine layer rolling across the San Francisco Bay towards the Port of Oakland, are the kind that first attracted me to photography. I took this picture nearly four years ago, during my sabbatical to the Bay Area, when I was still shooting with my Nikon D7000 (already antiquated tech in 2017); I can’t want to be able to safely revisit Berkeley’s Grizzly Peak to capture more cityscapes with my new Sony a7R IV.
In the winding waters above Lampson Falls, slow currents make for a placid surface. On a still (yet much more wintery day), my mind has wandered back to warm spring evenings in places other than my office.
When pretty much everything else in this picture is newer than the Brooklyn Bridge, the beauty of the timeless design is effectively articulated.
Or its alternate title, “High above shallow water.” Near an oxbow in the Grasse River, shifting land is turning the pine forest into an area of swamp.
After a cloudy week in Prague, our final day brought an incredible sunset over the Vltava River.
Continuing on the juxtaposition theme from my last post, here we have the “BIGGEST MUSIC CLUB IN CENTRAL EUROPE” jammed into a tiny corner between buildings along Prague’s Vltava River.
This nineteenth-century water tower in the North Country hamlet of Heuvelton, New York is scheduled for demolition (or disassembly, really) to make way for its modern replacement. In the process of preparing the site, however, it was discovered that the original graveyard that was moved to make room for the tower was, uh, not so thoroughly moved as originally assumed. Now, biological anthropologist Prof. Mindy Pitre and her team are on site (beneath the oak tree) to properly finish the job. I joined her for an afternoon to photodocument the site and its tower before ongoing construction forever alters it.
Winding against the river current (or the prevailing wind, in my drone’s case), one rounds a bend to find a pool and Lampson Falls in their ring of sunbaked rock and aromatic pine needles.
This quiet winter evening (Christmas day, as it turns out) presented a delicate mirroring between sky and earth, broken by the presence of a single buoy.
I’ve looked across the Twin Lakes to this odd little stone tower for at least two decades, but have still never traveled over there to figure out what it is. Maybe it will stay mysterious forever.
When winter is temporarily interrupted (as it is today in Northern New York) by a sudden thaw and double aliquot of rain, the ice on the Grasse River breaks up and clusters around the rocks and islands. This path in Canton, New York has been rendered impassable by a pack of rogue ice forced between the two sets of stairs by the high water.
Decaseconds 