A Vincent Mounier Photography Blog

First snow
October 30, 2011
It would seem this was a first, ever. It snowed yesterday in New York, after a very mild October had us fooled. When I woke up to howling wind, thick, wet flurries were being tossed around between a heavy gray sky and weak trees who just couldn't believe it. There even was thunder at one point, another first in my own experience. But I'm stuck at home with a cold and while the weather has now turned sparkling clean, I didn't see the patches of snow that were left here a...
Broad Channel Jam
October 23, 2011
Broad Channel, only inhabited island in Jamaica Bay, is an inholding within the Gateway National Recreation Area, a unit of the U.S National Park Service. The small island sits in the middle of much water, with great views of Brooklyn, Queens, the Rockaways and JKF. The MTA's A subway line hops through on its way to ocean beaches. This is a weird place if I ever saw one. Three thousand souls,  full of stray cats, strange small houses all decorated for Halloween months i...
New York City from a Whale's Perspective
October 9, 2011
'twas the beginning of October. The American Princess was doing her last whale watching cruise of the season, in hopes of ending a run of bad luck seemingly associated with the passage of two hurricanes. Marie and I had been sitting on our tickets for weeks and hopped on board on a sunny Sunday, along with some sixty fellow earthlings. The vessel was a comfortable 95 feet in length, featured a canopy-covered upper deck and a closed main deck with tables and cushioned se...
Broad Channel, Jamaica Bay, Queens - Wild at Heart but City in Sight
October 2, 2011
Within spitting distance of New York's main airport across the water of Jamaica Bay, rests Broad Channel - a mixed oasis of odd marginal civilization and plain wild spaces, part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, managed by the US National Park Service. In the first picture, two cormorants rest perched inside a marsh in view of the JFK control tower, 18th busiest in the world. The Three Towers Grumpy
Air France AF447 - The Human/Machine Interface Factor
September 26, 2011
Two years after Air France flight 447 from Rio to Paris crashed into the Atlantic, the French Bureau d'Enquêtes et Analyses continues its analysis work. A final report of the accident's causes is expected in early 2012. What comes out of the interim reports so far confirms my worst fears: Murphy's Law was in the front row and eventually stepped on stage to play the main role. But there were two other major actors involved, and they are called human element and machine e...
Manhattan: What the Other Half Sees
September 19, 2011
It is a well known fact that there are inhabited western lands beyond Manhattan. Strange, remote and not completely understood, these are forever confined to a foreign status by the mighty Hudson River, whose crossing implies both a death wish and a need for utter anarchy. After much research and planning, Marie and I decided to attempt an expedition in order to get a fresh perspective onto our familiar world, and to attempt understanding how the other people live. We c...
10 Years Later
September 12, 2011
Yesterday was September 11, 2011. Let's not forget. Let's not forget those who died in the tragedy ten years ago, the many real heroes among firefighters and police officers and simple citizens who lost their lives protecting that of others, and those who lost loved ones, and those who suffered and still do, those who fought bravely and managed to come out alive but scarred forever... The Tribute in Light shines into the clouds, September 11th, 2011 Let's not forget th...
Staten Island Revisited - Mushroom and Poison Ivy Galore
September 5, 2011
Staten Island, however close to us, remains sort of a no man's land. When our friend Frank, Marie and I visited Greenbelt Park this Sunday, I think the three of us combined had less than ten lifetime visits to the island under our belt! The woods were quite deserted and storming with mosquitoes, probably hurricane-bred. We walked and walked, eyes on the ground and peeled for all things small, woody, colorful and rare. An intimate look Mushrooms were everywhere, most of...