A Vincent Mounier Photography Blog
More Spring on Roosevelt Island
May 3, 2015
Our last visit two years ago was in later winter, traces of snow lingered on the ground and the air was bitingly crisp. This time around, blossoms and people competed for attention and a space which, as I have said before, is so insipid in a way that one seeks inspirational sights on the nearby shores of Manhattan and Queens.
Manhattan is saturated and only manages to grow upwards, a spiky architectural statement emerging from the foam of lower buildings now and then. I...
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Spring on Roosevelt Island
April 27, 2015
It is a strange place and I will post more about it soon. Here, for now, is a glimpse of one island through the blossoms of another.
Looking at the Upper East Side from Roosevelt Island
Bridge Over The River Hudson
April 18, 2015
They say time travel is still science-fiction. I beg to disagree. We have already invented it and use it on a daily basis. Sort of.
A few centuries past, leaving Cape Town bound for New York, one would have had to follow the clipper route to the east, going the long way, and the trip would have taken uncomfortable months, disease lurking, mutiny at hand and storms ruling randomly over the outcome of the journey.
More recently, a hundred years ago or so, a traveler wo...
A Train Up The Hudson
April 5, 2015
Like a giant - if anatomically incorrect - octopus, five main Metro-North railroad lines and their sub-routines spread from Manhattan and Jersey City, fanning up into the states of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. They constitute a commuter rail system with over one hundred and twenty stations, serving three states and reaching some ninety miles out of Penn, Grand Central and Hoboken in multiple directions.
Commuting here does not come cheap considering that the ma...
Chinatown Touch-And-Go
March 28, 2015
So I had a craving. The goods? Pork buns. The source? Chinatown. The catch? None, other then, well, an expedition out of Harlem boundaries and into Chinalem - the smells, the sights, the sounds being crystallized, as if heightened and enhanced by an almighty cynical hand, amplified and thrown back at me with a challenging smirk.
I grabbed a camera and lenses, put a backpack together, allowing for internal food-carrying space and plotting various heat escape vectors - le...
If It Is March, It Must Be Winter
March 20, 2015
I might have to panic. My instructions covered watering and spring rebirth, not snow plowing - new age composting, not thawing the yeti.
Oh well. At least the sourdough is safe in the fridge.
"Ya stopped on a fresh red light, ya moron! Five of us coulda' gotten through!"
The Simplest Things
March 16, 2015
Whether it is bubbly, salmon, bread and butter, milk tarts for dessert and a luxuriant garden all around for lunch, candlelit suppers, simple salads with a magic touch, or even an overlook of Kalk Bay's Olympia Cafe with creamy polenta on the way, these are the simple things I miss tonight, while broccoli steams dutifully and red wine tastes heavy on the heart and smoky on the palate.
Last lunch before the flight back, winter 2014
The good news is these are not lost fo...
Have Mercy, Pam
March 13, 2015
The chart below was issued by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) at 12:00Z which would be some 5 hours ago as I quickly post this on Friday afternoon lunch break. Category 5 cyclone Pam is charging through the Vanuatu islands on a south-southeast course.
The eye wall appears to have come some twenty miles from the capital Port Vila, with wind gusts of 325 km/h or 200mi/h! Maximum wave height, 45 feet.
Cyclone Pam
Now why would one care about a storm racing thro...
Airborne, YUL-LGA
March 7, 2015
Being more accustomed to transcontinental flights these days - the long-haul, settle-in, find your sweet spot and economize patience and energy, ocean-facing departures, high altitude cruise and straight-in approaches, much movie watching despite the small screens, LCD's reflecting the confinement, cabin crew diving in turns to their secret rest area below deck, flight crew doing the same below the cockpit, hours going by in slow motion while the world spins wildly below -...
Woodstock, Winter, White
March 1, 2015
So time has passed but the flame burns hot. Recently, a small celebration was in order after seven years of blaze. They decided to get out of the Big Apple for the allotted two days of a city-slave weekend. He rented, through a phone app, bits back and forth and no human contact, a Zipcar. Dwelling two blocks away in a dark multilevel parking lot, it was a red Jetta called Iberra. These have names, like pets.
Weekend unarguably including a night, accommodation was requi...
Kirstenbosch Flowers
February 24, 2015
These were taken last December, during a ritual visit to Kirstenbosch which is located just a stone's throw away when we are at home in Constantia, South Africa. In the background, Table Mountain's majestic cliffs.
Pincushion
Snake!
February 21, 2015
We spotted this impressively colored specimen of puff adder, called pofadder in Afrikaans, during a drive through Cape Point last December. Indiana Jones' heart would have skipped a bit. Marie stepped on the breaks and I ran out with the camera.
African puff adder - Bitis arietas
One of the most common venomous snakes in Africa, the puff adder is typically dully colored, except for this rare bright yellow and black variation of males in the Western Cape. At the thickes...