HDR Photography
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
On the path to Mohonk’s Skytop, this gazebo hangs into empty space. The Bob-Rossian layers to this image make the uncanny perch even more dramatic.
An early-morning flight out of Palm Springs airport paints gentle hues onto the massive wall that is Mt. San Jacinto. The orderly, be-palm-tree’d grid of the valley floor runs so sharply into the mountainside that I was immediately reminded that a sea once occupied the valley.
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.
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.
While downstairs, guests of Mohonk Mountain House enjoy breakfast on the porch, the upstairs porch/balcony is a quiet place to take in the morning.
Atop forested cliffs, the view to the porch and dock of Mohonk Mountain House has a “child’s treehouse” quality that matches well with the magical feeling of the place.
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.
Dune’s naturally occurring “Shield Wall” always seemed a bit fictional to me—until I saw Denver’s metropolitan area from above. Look at that sharp divide between mountains and the valley floor!
Given their altitudes, I’m not surprised that clouds and mountains would be friends. I’m a little more interested that only a single set of peaks was deemed worthy of a cloud, while its nearby neighbors remain cloudless.
Dream-logic usually stays confined to dreams, but this swing in the Salton Sea appears fully isolated and separated from reality (while still existing within it); I’m reminded of an extremely low-rent version of Itsukushima Shrine.
I’ve shown you a far different view of the wind farms at the northern end of Coachella Valley, but an aerial view at dawn provides better documentation of the project’s true scale, and its place in the fascinating geological setting of the valley.
High above the desert of southeastern California, the expanses of sand and stone look more to me like the surface of Mars than anywhere on this planet.
Zoom waaaay in and you can see two bros, sitting on the front porch of this shell-of-a-cabin and relaxing by their truck full of mountain bikes.
Decaseconds 