A Vincent Mounier Photography Blog
The Road to Mokala, Part 2 - Ride of the Tsitsikamma Dolphins
November 18, 2017
Dutifully purring her way up Sir Lowry's Pass on Cape Town's eastern flank with the Hottentot-Hollands peaks rising above us like unbelieving eyebrows, our beloved Landcruiser Mogashagasha, locked and loaded for a week-long foray far into the Northern Cape, felt about as comfortable to me as the proverbial saddle we were back in. Vinyl might have replaced worn-out leather and a weathered hat was still to come, but the rhythm was there and empty, beautiful space lay ahead.&...
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The Road to Mokala, Part 1 - Sahara Below
October 31, 2017
Almost twenty years ago, an old man, aged beyond reason by a systematic abuse of smoking, alcohol and anger, burst into tears one day at the memory of travels it turns out he regretted as much as he missed them. He had been at peace in Tahiti, in love in Mexico and had fought in Algeria. He was my estranged father, scarred forever by the mental wounds of war. He passed away soon thereafter, abandoned and cynical to the end.
I do not have a tombstone to visit because he ...
Back from Africa, Reloaded
October 19, 2017
Eyes dreamy, heart loosened and memory sticks packed full of demanding pixels, I just flew back from South Africa, leaving behind a torn Marie who gets to enjoy a few more weeks of sheer Cape beauty, incomplete as it may when we are apart.
With another 3,000-kilometer road trip under her belts, the valiant Mogashagasha Landcruiser took us east and north to three different SANParks. There will be many pictures and a few stories to come, when the sea of time finally settl...
September Central Park Hummingbirds
A moon ago, I decided on a whim to go seek hummingbirds in Central Park. We had found them in the Conservatory Garden years back while living in Harlem. Even though the season was about right for their fall migration, the garden yielded no luck. Having gone for a walk in the Ravine and beyond to look for birds of prey, however, I ended up finding a spot along a little creek humorously called the Loch where hummingbirds hung out, attracted by jewelweed and bright crimson ca...
NYC Ferry to the Rockaways
August 30, 2017
New York City’s coastline, mixing lazy stretches of carefully orchestrated public space with the capriciously winding expense of nature turned to steel, clocks in at an amazing five hundred and twenty miles of intricate playground for anybody who is tuned to the presence of water. For the sake of comparison, the combined coastlines of Boston, Miami, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco cannot match the length of ours. Yes, I threw Denver in there for fun but it has no sta...
2017 Solar Eclipse
While others were spending hours if not days planning for this, I had a few minutes only to dash down to an open space and put my good old Canon G15 - only camera available at work - to good use. I first tried shooting through borrowed eclipse glasses but got crappy results. So I turned the density filter on, set manual focus to infinity, underexposed a couple of stops, and waited for the sun to travel through the right cloud density.
Here we go, merely a partial eclips...
Never Say Never
... As for your interest being purely theoretical, never say never: I have a feeling the only way to photograph a backlit saucisson on a 12.5 x 5.5 foot terrace would be to use HDR…
Yours truly to a friendly stranger - July 27, 2007
Well, we never said never. Instead we chopped the starting "n" off the word, and eventually, photograph a saucisson on said terrace we did. Along with a hundred other marvelous feasts, duly vetted by a big black cat and which ended up in a ...
The Eagles Are Coming!
Out on Staten Island recently, we spotted a pair of juvenile bald eagles, not quite bold yet and their heads still dark, later joined by a parent.
Mt Loretto, as often said here, is special. It is probably the only park in the five boroughs that is not packed on a summer weekend. Almost alone, we had our picnic on a favorite bench facing the ocean and watched large ships cruising by a stone's throw away. Happy birds were everywhere, a groundhog scuttled as if we had bee...
King Flees February Revolution, Long Live the French Second Republic
"Paris, February 26, 1848
Late in the night…
I feel compelled to report on the extraordinary series of events that have transpired in the last few days. Carried along as I was by the sounds and colors of a singular unrest that possesses our city, and with so many signals to process and digest, my quill has remained mostly dry. Yet it now appears certain that these were significant signs; once again, the Revolution is upon Paris.
Even though the mora...
New York Harbor Sunset
June 18, 2017
Enjoying a picnic recently at the Brooklyn Bridge Park, Marie and I were treated to an ideal evening and flamboyant sunset that reminded me of Vancouver colors.
Many people were on the lawn around us, some with food and drinks, others their mobile phones. Some were introverted, others a touch too loud. Some absorbed the scene with delight, others simply sat in it. But most, like us, were simply happy to be there.
We spread a kikoi out on the grass and sipped on light...
Dark Garden
Being plagued by the modern disease of workaditis, I mostly get to see our wonderful Brooklyn garden when a late afternoon sun sinks lazily behind urban mountains called the Next Street Range.
There we sit among plants and mosquitoes, tracking a few neighbors with peripheral supervision. We greet a friendly dog through the fence, denying any Pavlovian ties. We sneer at nosy squirrels, wishing teleportation existed. We marvel at the bees and their ballet, hoping an orche...
Four Owls and an Osprey
After two Staten Island weekend outings in a row, we worried that our necks might turn red—mine actually was pinkish for the lack of sunblock—and instead steered confidently north to the Bronx.
Landing in Pelham Bay on a sunny Easter Sunday was nothing short of paschal. The immense parking lot was bustling and the usual driving chaos prevailed. Hundreds of people were setting camp up on the grass for communal BBQ's and hundreds more lay on the sand like sardines, beggin...