A quiet morning between father and son, fishing from a rowboat on a placid mountain lake: does it get more classically summer than this?
Tag: travel
Mohonk Nightwall
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.
Irish Balcony
Bright end-of-the-day sunlight adds some brightness to a damp November evening in Dublin.
Dublin Street Corner
Dublin in late autumn has a damp energy that I found unquestionably intriguing; the optical artifacts from shooting into the setting sun do a fair job of approximating the feeling that every bit of asphalt and brick have some eerie effect taking place beneath them.
And a bonus Piper shot from just about the same moment as we explored the city.
Tree Outlier
A cliff face may not seem the optimal spot for a tree, but there will always be specimens that go against the grain. (I couldn’t help myself.) The lights of the granary barbecue across the lake almost makes me think that this particular tree is pining (again, I’m sorry) to pick up its roots and go join the party.
Forest Fortress
Rather than a fortress in a forest, this is a fortress composed of forest—or at least, it feels that way. While the far-off mountains and the lights of Palm Springs may be visible from the air, the ground-level setting is far more constrained and cozy.
P.S. Can you spot your humble photographer in this shot?
From the Beaches of Florianopolis, Brazil
The beach pictures from La Jolla Shores inspired me to revisit some of my other past beach shots—but these are from a bit farther away: Florianopolis, Brazil.
Applying the same low-contrast processing really revealed a lot more of the details on the clifftop figures. I’m amazed when I compare these shots with similar ones I processed years ago. It’s amazing what a decade of practice can do!
Cliffs and Sky: Mohonk
A big dramatic sunset sky and lake reflections provide great context to the wall of stone that is both Mohonk Mountain House itself, as well as the cliffs on which it rests.
Storm Rolls in View
The two people looking over the idyllic setting of Mohonk Mountain House from a clifftop gazebo makes this an official entrant in my “the view and the viewer” (alongside this one, this one, probably this one, and definitely this one.)
Garden Beyond the Gates
Much like another shot from Mohonk that I recently shared, the constructed-yet-natural space of Mohonk Mountain House makes finding these kinds of framed images a treat.
Afternoon on the Lake
Like a less-pointillist “Un dimanche après-midi à l’Île de la Grande Jatte“, a flat body of water covered in boaters on a sunny afternoon conveys placid vibes.
Campanile Symmetry
Trinity College Dublin’s Campanile forms a center of reflection symmetry on campus—one broken, in this case, by pedestrians, clouds, and construction equipment.
Mohonk and Its Fire Suppression System
After a teaser from the climb up on Friday, here is the full view from the top of Mohonk’s Skytop. This high-resolution panorama is definitely worth clicking through to Flickr for the full-sized version. There’s a lot here: the hotel and its namesake lake, but also the trails and conserved forest space around it. The water retention pond in the foreground is the semi-secret reason for Mohonk’s continued existence: though there were a variety of all-wood structures like Mohonk in the past, most have burned down over the years. This is the water source for the Mountain House’s fire suppression system, which was installed early and has preserved the structure through tribulations.
Keyhole View from Skytop
If that picture of Skytop from last week sparked the question, “What does the view look like from the top?” I’ll meet you halfway; this is the view from the climb up. (The rest of the view will come Monday.)
That cliff face exploding from the trees is part of the Shawangunk Range of mountains, home of Mohonk Mountain House.
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
Decaseconds 