St. Lawrence’s campus becomes extra strange and ski-resort-esque when a fresh layer of snow is cleared by night. When morning arrives, paths are “magically” clear.
Tag: Winter
Real Winter Arrives
Real winter arrived with a horrible stillness. When the temperature is -25ºF, nothing moves and nothing melts and every bit of solid water stays just where you leave it. Even the tiny twigs and branches were stuck in its embrace.
I wanted to look back briefly on the structures of St. Lawrence University’s campus under lockdown from heavy snow. The oldest buildings, like Herring-Cole Hall, are naturals.
This little shed is in odd scale with the buildings around it, but its little puddle of light fits perfectly with the evening.
I’ve always grown to love the mid-twentieth-century buildings like the ODY Library. The lights, snow, and scaffolding among the trees put me in mind of Soviet science fiction.
Here is another example from around the same time period, Bewkes Science Hall. In my mind, authors of speculative fiction must be hiding behind the drawn blinds and imagining snowy, cyberpunk futures of the late 1990s.
North Country Gateway
Away from the village centers, the North Country is frozen at an odd point in development. The original farms of early settlers haven’t been completely removed, but not much development has continued past that point. Trailers were installed by the sides of hot-mix roads and everything stopped there. I’m fascinated to think what this area must have been like during the late 1940s—population returning as the nation demobilized, and those people changing things in the North Country. Things don’t seem to change as much now.
Midwinter Llama
Livestock of the North Country are, well, lively, even in winter. The shaggy coat and the bright sky must help. On a night with a sunset like this one, I share the llama’s need to go out and investigate.
End View
At the far end of Johnson Hall, a tower of windows overlook the very pleasing shape of the circle in the setting sun. Leaning back in the chair, feet up, a glass of hot chocolate in hand: what better way to watch the day end?
Winter Moon and Lights
Stark winter nights, the kind with a handful of clouds and a lot of bright stars, seem to be when I spend the most time shoveling my driveway. Might as well do a long exposure or two while I work, right? I particularly like the tree in the center of the image that has been completely lit by the adjacent streetlight: it seems otherworldly and special when compared to the other silhouetted trees.
Snow Storm in the Backyard
Snow was falling last night. The small houses with highly peaked roofs and additions out back are a characteristic of this part of town, where the mill workers once lived. The wood sheds are another notable characteristic of an area where many people use only wood stoves to heat their homes in the winter.
Winter Street
Photographs with late-model cars and trucks have always been an odd challenge to my photography; they tend to appear as ugly, pedestrian chunks that I try to avoid in otherwise charming scenes. (The world has enough documentation of Toyota Corollas and Ford F-150s.) However, when I look back on old photographs from the mid-twentieth century, it’s inevitably the cars and the clothes of the past that are the most charming aspects. The common-car-filled images that I capture in the present must be a sort of investment; the boring cars of today will make this image a classic document of everyday life in 30 years.
Finally Winter
The New Year is here, and real winter has arrived along with it! Snow flies through the air and ice clings to the branches and sticks of the North Country.
The Vernon Blur
Strange weather persisted, but living in the North Country, I always knew the truth: Winter is coming!
This photograph, from Thanksgiving 2014, looks far more like winter than anything I see out my window today.
Winter Light Cones
Information cannot move through the universe (as far as we know) any faster than the speed of light. In the hyperbolically shaped world of spacetime, all factors that could influence my current state are in the “light cone” behind me, and all factors that I can influence in the future are in the “light cone” ahead of me. This photograph, from during a particularly nasty winter storm, exhibits light cones of another variety.
Walking on Rideau
Standing on the thick ice of the Rideau Canal in the winter, in the same place where I could be underwater in the summer and in view of the Capital, makes for quite the juxtaposition.
Winter Ninjas
Spring may be here, but it was still 7ºF when I awoke this morning. Thinking back to the coldest I’ve ever been (and the appropriately Canadian/ninja response), this image seemed appropriate to convey the feeling of “spring” in the north.
Capital and Canal
The Canadian Capital has this charming, European flair to it in the winter. Between the stone walls, steep hills, and canal locks (not to mention the bridge), I’m left waiting for a sophisticated spy thriller to begin.
Ottawa Dredd
Continuing on the Ottawa theme, today’s image is much farther to the other end of the “clean——dirt” spectrum than my last. There’s something about the grimy copper colors of the bridge, the salty road, and the slushy sidewalk that speak to an alternate-reality, Judge-Dredd-esque, cyberpunky Canada.
Decaseconds 