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In Our Mountains
August 2006
For those of us who split our time between working in an urban environment and enjoying the Catskill Mountains, our time upstate is extraordinary and refreshing. We can sense this in our cover photograph by Anton de Flon, one of the striking entries for our 2006 photo contest. It is called “Steam Rising in Platte Clove,” and the strong green foliage, with the mountains in the distance, shows us how beautiful August can be in our mountains.
We see a very different view with the photograph “From Plateau Mountain” by Henning Vahlenkamp. The air is amazingly clear as we look over the pond to see the mountains in the distance and the clouds above. It has a remarkable play of color with the green hills, some of them lit by the sun, and the brown rocks around the pond with the reflections of the sky in the water.
We see another beautiful scene in “A Stand of Trees” by Richard Schepper, with all those white birches reaching upwards against the dark background. Each vertical line is different. Some are so thin that we can hardly see them, and others are strong and bright. The grass below and the leaves above create a strong frame for this lovely view.
Linda Ortega captured lovely greens in the hills lit by the sun under a strong blue sky in “Slide Mountain.” There are white clouds in the distance that almost seem to be mirror images of the fields below, while the trees in the foreground provide a frame for the distant view.
“Morning Dew” by Robert Near is a very different image. We come as close as we can to see those beautiful drops hanging on a stem, each one forming a world in itself. The bright highlights give impressive accents to the round forms, with the black background forming a frame for the sensitive images.
Once again we see birches in David Jeffery’s photograph called “Birch Stand.” This time we see a complex image, with tiny branches and dark foliage intermingling with the upright movements of the white trunks. It looks as if the photographer was in a deep forest, using his camera to show the depth of the trees around him.
In “After the Deluge” Richard Bruner shows us the rushing water with white foam as it passes over rocks and branches of trees. The composition includes a variety of forms, some sweeping along and others spraying in the air. We can feel the strength of the wind in the forms it creates in the raging stream.
Finally, it almost seems as if the storm has ended, the sun is shining again, and Loraine Arnold’s lovely image of “Morning Sun” welcomes the brightness of the day. The lovely pink and purple colors are like bright accents against the vivid greens. Once again we can enjoy all the beauty around of this lovely season.
We share these images with you as a preview of the many wonderful photos that were submitted to us in our 2006 photo contest. We plan to announce the contest winners in the fall, and will share more of these extraordinary photos in the months ahead.
-David Finn
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