A Vincent Mounier Photography Blog
Not Thy President
November 10, 2016
I was almost sold yesterday when I heard president Obama declare that we are all on the same side, that life goes on and we must work together. He is such a smooth talker, the man makes you want to reach out and touch the TV screen. And it is his role as our leader to bow gracefully and ease the transition.
But the more I think about it, and the more I read, the further I feel from that stance. Social media might have played a key role in this election, as will no doubt...
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Speechless
November 9, 2016
Eight years ago, the country pulled itself together and elected an Obama. There was progress. There was hope.
Now we are shown that the masses will do anything, following the bright spot out there in complete hypnosis, like Marlin and Dory lost in abysmal depths, unaware, clueless. It so happens that the 2008 spotlight had been aimed high, and last night it was aimed low. People follow. Evil has prevailed even though a few good women and men did something. Too few. It p...
Karoo Parenthesis, Part 1 - Return to Babylonstoren
October 29, 2016
Having spent a few days in Constantia, we leave Cape Town on August 16. Our road trips have unfortunately shrunk in scope and hunger, starved by my worsening lack of time. From the full-fleshed, epic adventures they once were, they have mummified into short, frantic dashes to the end of a relatively short but surprisingly elastic escape leash. It lets us spring out at high velocity and enjoy a brief timeout at the apogee, life standing still for a few p...
I Am Become Deaf, The Destroyer Of Words
October 7, 2016
This is a repost of a repost, concentric bubbles of introspection. The first iteration was published in early 2005, shortly after Hurricane Ivan having devastated the Cayman Islands, a slow national recovery had left our dive operation at idle and my resolve weakened. I had island fever. This blog would be born from the cesarean-like departure that followed, and would mature slowly as I healed in Vancouver.
The second was published in May of 2010, while I struggled to m...
The Quest for Meeleon
September 15, 2016
It's a long love story. Back in 2008, upon my first visit to South Africa and after hearing from various Cape Town informants that elusive chameleons were possibly to be found nearby, I set out on a quest to seek out new life and new reptile civilization, to boldly go find what I had never found before. Unknown to me, I had begun the unlikely search for Meeleon.
After much staring at bushes under the quizzical looks of dog-walkers who could not understand why I seemingl...
Out of Africa
August 28, 2016
For now, however, a glimpse of the Karoo's perfect solitude.
Empty Karoo
Planning an Escape from New York City
August 11, 2016
Soon to be joining Marie down in beautiful Cape Town, I was having coffee high above Midtown this morning, the hot air thick with moisture and haze beginning to smear a jagged skyline, and I pondered the insanity of our modern lifestyle. Can a human being really work fifty weeks a year, barely threading water in a giant pool called society and filled with stress and pressure, the fluid akin to dirty engine oil, sticky, restrictive and toxic, and then wipe the slate clean a...
New York City Safari
August 1, 2016
With a trip to South Africa finally approaching, my year-long, city-must, day-to-day rat-race-controlling concentration is breaking up and I catch myself thinking about road trips and the many marvelous animals we see there. The fact that in North America we get two weeks' vacation time out of the fifty-two our planet grants us while chasing its tail around the sun, still both puzzles and depresses me. But that's another story.
I am here to remind myself, by showing you...
Fireflies!
June 26, 2016
At first there was one, we tracked it all night, pointing fingers like children in a zoo. Then there were two. A night later, three. Now there are so many we lose count. It's not the woods, of course, but for a New York City neighborhood, it's quite pleasant. They fly around us and light up our evenings.
With birds of all kinds, the bloody squirrels, visiting cats, a dog across a fence, the raccoon and even possums, this is a lively garden space. I'll soon post about ou...
Philly
May 30, 2016
A few months ago, while a moody winter hiccuped erratically across the Eastern Seaboard, I blew the proverbial fuse and blasted off our Brooklyn island and unto uncharted territory at the wheel of a Zipcar. Poor Marie was tied up to her computer by aggressively lively deadlines, and I just had to see the world. Any world. Fast.
Willingly lured by the artistically carved, delicately etched and forever lacquered and polished memories of my dear tropics, I was weak and wen...
Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn - 360 Panorama
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I am posting this for the heck of it, despite many imperfections. Water movement caused the boats to blur, people were strolling past, birds flew like UFO's and clouds struggled to all say cheese at the same time. Oh well, I needed the practice and this is the result of eighty separate exposures, combined into a single image through exposure fusion, my new HDR replacement, and PTGui Pro, and some Photoshop tweaking of the nadir and zenith.
Consider this a rehears...