Lake Mohonk in the Clouds

The line where the crown of trees around Lake Mohonk gives way to the much-farther-away trees of the valley beyond looks like the sort of trompe-l’œil that might, these days, be generated by a glitchy machine learning algorithm. In this case, however, it’s just down to the unique mountaintop-lake location of Mohonk Mountain House

Lake Mohonk in the Clouds

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Boat Dock Before It Opens

A quiet early morning at Mohonk Mountain House’s dock has a place for every boat and every boat in its place. I like the way the path of the dock mirrors the path of the mountaintop in the distance. This calm-before-a-busy-day setting is also a metaphor for Decaseconds: I finished processing all of my pictures from a trip to Mohonk at the end of last summer. Like the boats, my work is organized and ready to be shared.

Boat Dock Before It Opens

Tiny Figures and Big Rocks

Can you spot the tiny figures at the top of the hill? I’m confident that tiny figures produce a sense of grand scale in images—particular desert shots, like this one, where the inhuman nature of the place can make understanding the sizes of objects difficult. Nonetheless, I find myself wondering how small the figures in an image can be before the viewer loses the ability to recognize them as human.

Tiny Figures and Big Rocks

Mohonk, Year 152

This visit to Mohonk Mountain House, in its 152th year of operation, comes six years after my last stay. In the time since, I’ve upgraded my kit (and my skills) and put both to use to get this stacked-exposure (i.e. “fake long exposure”) view of the hotel’s face on Labor Day weekend.

Mohonk Year 152

Stuck in the Salton Sea

Even might Jeep Life™ has its limits, as this Wrangler found at Bombay Beach. The Salton Sea is an artificial body of water in a valley that was once home to an ancient ocean, and the result includes these large flats made from the calcium carbonate skeletons of long-dead sea creatures. Though the outer surface may look like a desert—and the dry surroundings might support the assumption—this is really just a thin crust, below which is a lot of mud.

I’m guessing this kind of thing happens regularly, because the entrance ramp to the beach included multiple signs with telephone numbers of locals offering to pull people out if they get stuck—for a fee, of course.

Stuck in the Salton Sea