A Vincent Mounier Photography Blog
Nervous Brooklyn snapshots
January 12, 2010
This will probably be the last - or next to last - post before wheels up. With suspense and stress levels hovering around critical, we've been taking walks around Brooklyn to relax our nerves. Both Marie and I hide very well behind a camera. Notice we took the same shots.
Funny how a single interview can carry the weight of an entire life path. With so much at stake, perspective is skewed and elusive. So my finger pressing the shutter has more to do with a spasm than a ...
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Panoramic New York
January 11, 2010
As D-day homes in on us, here are a few panoramic images to keep me occupied and distracted. And right after that, we'll be on a plane. South Africa here we come. Who knows what the future holds?
Avatar revisited: Part 3 - Ok, I see why they saw you.
January 11, 2010
At some point during Avatar, when Jake first meets Neytiri after she's saved his butt by reluctantly killing the wolves, she throws his torch in the water, annoyed by the light. As their - and our - eyes adjust to the obscurity, incredible bioluminescence awakes all around them, revealing for the first time that indeed, everything that lives on Pandora glows beautifully in the dark.
At that point, the tough guy sitting next to me and who was also on his second viewing j...
Avatar revisited: Part 2 - A look behind the scenes
January 9, 2010
James Cameron is no ordinary man. He began his career as a trucker, studying cinematography on the side. Yet he holds the current record for the highest grossing movie ever, Titanic, and 3 weeks after the premiere, I believe Avatar has already reached the second spot for worldwide sales. The thing is, Cameron likes taking risks. And he had been dreaming about making Avatar for the last 15 years.
His latest movie breaks so many rules and innovates in so many fields that ...
Avatar revisited: Part 1 - I see you. Again.
January 8, 2010
They say that bis repetita eventually placent. So I repeated. But this time I came prepared. When I arrived at the Lincoln Square AMC Loews theater (seating capacity: 4144) at 1:30 PM for the 3:00 PM showing of Avatar in IMAX 3D, there were already 20 people waiting in line, or rather sitting on the carpet with iPods and laptops to kill time. Within 15 minutes, twice as many had arrived behind me.
So there I sat, along with my fellow obsessive-compulsive movie geeks, an...
La Traversée de Manhattan
When one has been bitterly disappointed by the new chic movie of the year, there's nothing like a long run to put things back in perspective. That's what I did Tuesday, abandoning my routine Home - Brooklyn Bridge - Hudson River - Battery Park - East River - Brooklyn Bridge - back home run and setting out on a Manhattan experiment.
From Brooklyn, I hopped on the subway in my running gear and rode the C line all the way to 110th Street at the northwestern corner of Cent...
Cats and people in a few acres of snow
January 7, 2010
Voltaire, it seems, thought very little of Canada and is famous for having called the French colony nothing more than "a few acres of snow", quelques arpents de neige. I beg to disagree. There are many more than a few.
We spent a wonderful holiday week in Beloeil, QC with my family and were blessed with a white Christmas, my first in so many years I can't even remember the last time I saw a Christmas tree on a snowy background.
Follow a few pictures of cats ...
Avatar: I Don't See You.
January 5, 2010
Ok, now that I have your attention, let me explain what I really have on my mind. It's 9:00 PM. We walked out of the theater around 5:30 PM. I am still sulking. I feel sad and extremely disappointed, and sour. Because you see, for me, Avatar totally sucked.
I had been basking in a deep trance of the finest expectation for over two months, thinking about the upcoming 3D IMAX blockbuster constantly, counting down, cherishing each moment gone between me and D-day. I don't ...
Winter railway magic on the Adirondack train
January 1, 2010
On December 20th, 2009, Marie and I set out on a holiday trip to the Frenchie side of the family. These were my second and third rides on Amtrak's Adirondack train between New York's Penn Station and Montreal - and return. Catching that train the morning of NYC's first snowfall of the season was a bit of a mixed blessing.
On the one hand, we got to experience Penn Station's uniquely unfriendly waiting area and had to share it with hundreds and hundreds of other anxious ...
The old year is dead, long live the new year!
January 1, 2010
A difficult decade is over. Major terror plots, a severe depression, worldwide epidemics and the passing of Michael Jackson. It sure wasn't easy.
Last night, Marie and I watched fireworks under an pink umbrella, holding each other tight while the Manhattan skyline disappeared in a foggy, rainy night. An NYPD police car was parked on the Brooklyn Promenade, playing an oldies radio station out through it's loudspeaker. This morning, as we awake to a new cycle of life, we ...
First snow
December 19, 2009
Shyly, slowly, New York skies have begun to sprinkle the year's first gentle snow. As we are packing our bags for tomorrow's long train ride to Montreal, listening to Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 while the cat follows our every move with suspicious eyes, the light is dimming outside and we can hope to wake up to a white world. Better, still, the countryside might be snowy.
End of a long road. A new one soon to appear behind some hills. Scary freedom. Time to recover. To res...
Fighting the mob at the Bottom of the Rock
December 13, 2009
It was Saturday night. My week-end spirits soaring with ideas of grandeur and dreams of fluid, motion-blurred skating photography, I set out in the cold for the Rockefeller Center and its giant-Christmas-tree-adorned skating rink. It would seem that I had not gotten the hint at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and was still ignorant of holiday crowd prognostics. I was about to learn my lesson.
[sound of needle scratching old vinyl record]
No, this will not be a l...