A Vincent Mounier Photography Blog

And a Happy New Year...
January 1, 2012
While my dear Marie was waking half a world away to the sounds of birds chirping in a beautiful garden finally re-adopted by Cape Dwarf Chameleons, I made a split second decision to finish the year the popular way and ran out the door with my camera to go see the Prospect Park New Year's fireworks. Having found a spot away from the crowds on the eastern flank of the Great Lawn, I setup the tripod and aimed my wide angle lens nearly upward, as the shooting gallery had be...
A Desk with a View
December 30, 2011
There are great advantages and even greater threats to working in a building a few blocks away from where the Twins crumbled, but once I am past the barricades and the explosive-sniffing dogs, I rise up to my 34th floor, brew an espresso or two and once in a while, when workload allows, take a moment to peer out the windows and look down thoughtfully at the Big Apple.  Much happening down there and yet, there is a void...   Brooklyn (home) seen from the Lowe...
Wall Street, the Unlikely Neighborhood
December 27, 2011
After seeing the movie Wall Street many years ago, I firmly associated that name with large avenues covered by a never-ending human tide, thousands of pedestrians clogging each intersection, a desperate struggle for space, success, a crazy lifestyle involving more work than sleep and play together, the quest for profitability turned cash cow, and and a lust for inside fame. Stone Street, Financial District, Manhattan, New York Today, over two decades and at least one m...
'twas Christmas Eve in New York
December 24, 2011
Peace on Earth has many faces. This will be a lonely end of the year, but I shouldn't complain. While Marie has flown down to the land of sunshine and flowers to visit her parents, a well deserved trip, I have the privilege to spend some quality time with a big black cat with an attitude. It will be his first Christmas in family in many years. So with nothing better to do on a Christmas Eve, I went out to reflect on the contrasts that make our city so complex. The fi...
Alley Pond Park, Queens - Veni, vidi, never come back
December 18, 2011
Once in a while, we have to take a chance. We trust some report we read, a beefed up website, blog stories or just our gut feeling. Most of the time, the guts are right. This time they weren't. Having connected with the LIRR train from Penn Station and ventured far into Queen's outskirts, we had hoped for isolation turned refuge, for hints of wilderness and dashes of beauty. We were also testing the much awaited Canon 50mm f/1.8 II bargain of a lens. Queens' Alley Pond Pa...
It's your Turn to Pitch, José Gaytan, Godspeed!
December 10, 2011
An iconic Brooklyn photographer passed away a few days ago after a brave struggle with cancer. Marie and I were lucky enough to meet José Gaytan and his wife Lisa a while back and I was struck by the light in his tired eyes when he talked about photography and played with a very sexy hybrid camera he had brought out on the terrace to snap our gardening efforts for posterity. His memorial service was touching and brightened by valiant efforts from various speakers to rem...
Éléphant Blanc
December 8, 2011
Built in '76 for the Olympic Games, the huge stadium sits in Montréal's early and very flat east side like an escapee from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, its inclined tower the tallest in the world but its deficit even taller. Local teams have long deserted and the magnificent structure remains unclaimed, and unwanted. I saw Pink Floyd live there once, in another lifetime. Montreal's Olympic Stadium "And no one called us to the land And no one knows the where'...
Adirondack Tracks
With eleven hours to kill, one's rhythm slows down spectacularly when traveling by train to Montreal. Much time spent on the computer working, some reading, coffee, meals and lots of staring out the windows at hypnotic but ever-changing scenery. Here are some more snapshots of yet another round trip on Amtrak's Adirondack train, taken with the G10, grainy, often blurry, but moody as ever in the pale and yet strangely warm winter light. All taken from the train in motion...
Highbridge Park
November 27, 2011
While Inwood thrones at the very top of Manhattan like whipped cream on a grande decaf non-fat caramel macchiato - too much on too little, too far, too late -, slightly to the southeast along the East River the much less known Highbridge Park drips down the island almost unnoticed. Narrow and split in two by an agonizing FDR highway about to turn casual, the park is strangely deserted, almost creepily so. Benches have been placed right along the high traffic road, as if...
Live from Amtrak's Adirondack Train from New York to Montreal
November 24, 2011
A sign of unstoppable progress, Amtrak now features wireless internet access on its trains. As the Adirondack to Montreal rushes through the state of New York, the Hudson River long left behind in Albany, Marie writes in her comfortable seat, I sit in the café car, comfortably rocked by the train's uneven ride on endless converging tracks that only meet in the mind's eye. Snow has appeared outside, the late morning sky is turning a morose grey and the whistle blows r...
2012 Calendar of the Brooklyn Botanical Garden
November 20, 2011
We spent a few hours at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden on Saturday for the inauguration of the 2012 calendar. Marie's bluebells picture as been chosen along with 11 others - out of 4000 entries - to be featured on the 2012 BBG Calendar. She's Miss May. And I'm Mr. aMayzed. So as we dutifully followed the group on a guided garden tour presenting the 12 pictures in their environment - they have been posted on-location on informative plaques - I dragged behind and aimed my ...
A Fall from High Rock Park
November 13, 2011
No hurry, one tick, two salamanders, three people, four cameras. It was just another day on Staten Island. High Rock Park had put on a warm autumn robe of exclusive yellows. So starved for reds, we stopped at a strange pizzeria on our way back, reincarnation of a Brooklyn joint fallen from grace. I'm sure Marie will post about that. Fall in High Rock Park, Staten Island Fall in High Rock Park, Staten Island