A Vincent Mounier Photography Blog
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...
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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...
The Airplanes of my Dreams
April 18, 2017
This will be a self-indulging blog post, insomuch as one post can be more so than another, given the rather egocentric nature of blogging to begin with. This disclaimer out of the way, it is no secret that I love flying, and I adore planes. I will take pictures of planes before I even take pictures of birds. But recently on Staten Island, they competed wing to wing.
The contrail shot below is my favorite. Marie was scouting for foragees in the distance an...
Feathered Arrows
April 8, 2017
After weeks on end of what the French refer to as "métro-boulot-dodo", the commute-work-sleep routine of large-city dwellers, I reach a tipping point where escape is no longer simply needed, it is quintessential, a survival skill. So we pick up a bubble car a couple of blocks away and head out of Brooklyn like dogs on a scent, pulling hard on the city leash and aiming for nowhere near here, and possibly beyond.
Now in case you are not familiar with bubbles, th...
Caribbean
March 18, 2017
The first time you visit Caribbean shores, everything is new and mesmerizing. A comforting sun roasts your skin to perfect rust, pristine beaches salt you up and wash away da worries, time slows down to the beat of reggae and locals turn out to be of two equally appealing breeds: lazy, friendly and colorful natives, living to dream, and hardworking, friendly and colorful expats, living the dream.
You soak it all up passionately, almost desperately, knowing that the blis...
South African Birds 'n Things
March 5, 2017
Since I cannot always be posting about epic road trips and cinematic landscapes, here is a mellow batch of pictures taken in the Constantia garden and nearby green belt last summer, just because. Because I miss the never-ending aerial ballet of the birds, and because there I have been and there I will always long to return.
Lesser double-collared sunbird
Addendum to the Karoo Parenthesis - Aerial Shots
February 17, 2017
This will be the closing Karoo Parenthesis, the images having mostly been shot on our two-hour-long first leg of the return flight from Cape Town after the Karoo trip last August.
Strangely, South African Airways flies its largest planes on the short haul to Johannesburg, and while the same aircraft sometimes simply refuels and actually takes us to America, this time the older Airbus A340-300 stayed in O.R. Tambo and a A340-600 took over for the crossing.
After ...
Karoo Parenthesis, Part 4 - A Giraffe in the Night
January 17, 2017
After a dramatically convoluted sunset, light streaking through mountaintops to paint Tolkienesque landscapes, our second night in the silent Karoo is much darker, clouds obscuring what had been an extraordinary moonshine the night before. While I had walked around outside as in daylight by the simple shine of a skyful of stars and full moon, when the time comes to set the terrace table for our second braai, our satellite has delayed her arriv...
Of Distance and Light
January 11, 2017
While Marie gets to stay a little longer down in the land of fynbos and malva pudding, providing much needed love, presence and help, I was flipping through old images last night, looking for a single shot of us together to mitigate the distance. I came upon this one of us stargazing in the dark at Tsitsikamma on the Garden Route.
The relativity of absolute darkness
If you think the colors are slightly off, you are correct. This was digitally developed from the RA...
Happy New Spin Around The Sun!
December 31, 2016
While my dear Marie was going to sleep listening to the call of owls outside her window in the Southern Hemisphere, and with neither reason nor need to celebrate here, I picked up a bubble-car and went for a ride earlier today, nursing my cold and intentionally avoiding later frenzy.
I had started towards Dead Horse Bay for sunset, but it was late and clouding over, so I deviated to Coney Island to go have a quick look at the ocean. There will be five official New ...
Karoo Parenthesis, Part 3 - Two Passes
December 27, 2016
After an eerily silent night, the end of the road equating to absolutely no traffic or human noise in an already deserted space, I get up early and, remembering that we have routinely forgotten the plunger for our stove-top espresso maker, I use the conveniently supplied replacement and prepare our traditional breakfast of coffee and rusks. Granted the luxury of a choice of terraces, we opt for the sun-facing side and warm up as we watch the mock-up sav...
‘Twas Another Night Before Christmas…
Exactly one year ago, I went on a New York Christmas Eve run in shorts and a t-shirt, and sweated! Today I decided to make this a ritual, whenever possible, and chose the same route. It was not nearly as warm, but after a rainy and grey morning, the sky had cleaned up nicely and the air was nice and cool, around 8°C - I actually could have done shorts.
North Cove Marina, Manhattan
Here are a few phone snapshots, taken to document the date more than anything else, ...