HDR Photography
When I wonder if I’ve grown as a photographer, I look at how I tackle processing a picture like this landscape from Stone Valley.
And here is how I processed the picture originally, 10 years ago:
The shift to a more naturalistic style—and once that better respects color temperature and saturation—feels like a positive one to me.
I’ll spoil the double meaning of this title: On the one hand, very literally the waterfall in Stone Valley is ending on the left side of the image and smoother water is in the river’s future. But in a photographic sense, this is an image that I couldn’t previously share because the mist from the waterfalls spotted the lens so badly that the image was hidden behind a layer of dark spots. The improved spot removal tools in present-day Adobe Camera Raw have finally allowed me to effectively get rid of those spots (and I’ve learned some other photographic tricks in the meantime), so this image is ready to face the light of day.
From “open for business” to “sleeping on the dock,” Mohonk Mountain House’s boats present lovely repeating patterns.
As summer jobs go, lifeguarding on Lake Mohonk seems like a pretty good one.
Boaters can’t swim across the lake (without checking with a guard first) and boaters can’t enter the swimming area, but they interact across a thin membrane of ropes and floats. Look at that log, moored perpendicular to the floating platform on the right; it splits the difference between the boat/swim categories.
Glaciers carved deep between stones to create the lake on which Mohonk Mountain House appears to float, but I feel like those glaciers left behind a little bit of their cold blue thermodynamic impact in the colors (and temperature) of the water.
Since leaving the North Country, I haven’t frequently looked back, but this drone image of the expansive garden of a Miner Street homestead stood out in ways that made me surprised I hadn’t shared it years ago.
Our stay at Mohonk Mountain House last fall produced so many images I loved. I posted the first of them last October, and today (more than a year later) I post the last. This nook between glacial cliffs is simultaneously private and yet offers an exceptional view of the lake and Skytop perched on the cliff in the distance. This is the perfect place to spend an afternoon reading a book.
In the cracks between the glacier-carved cliffs above Lake Mohonk, hidden platforms make the perfect spot to read a good book on a truly relaxing afternoon.
A clifftop view of Mohonk Mountain House’s swimming hole shows the impact of last summer’s drought: sections of beach that would be deep underwater are instead showing green sprouts of grasses. Even with that minor asterisk, the setting is idyllic and captures the late-summer pleasures of a little escape well.
A quiet morning between father and son, fishing from a rowboat on a placid mountain lake: does it get more classically summer than this?
Mohonk’s gazebos are iconic, but in my childhood, they vanished into the woods as night fell. The addition of strings of lights to them means that they stand out more without the sunlight.
Warm, welcoming, and… monolithic? Though Mohonk is a huge, castle-esque structure, the hotel nonetheless feels deeply cozy in the evening. Perhaps it’s the sense of life about it. Zoom all the way in and people are visible, enjoying the warm air on the many balconies.
A human-made building-cliff faces a glacier-made cliff; when the sun sets, one glows and the other reflects the light.
