Tropical Storm Irene close to a year later

We are approaching the one-year anniversary of Topical Storm Irene here in upstate New York. Tropical Storm Irene hit the Catskill Mountain top area with a vengeance on August 28th 2011. It was September 11th I decided to take a trip up to Hunter and Windham area of the Catskill Mountains. It was heart breaking seeing what Mother Nature had done to this area and the destructive force of this storm.

Today I went back to some of the same locations as I was at back last year. These images are from the same location showing the hard work of mankind to restore towns and roadways. It was nice to see things being restored and people getting back to a normal life, but still sad to see areas that homes where totally destroyed that have force families to leave the area.

Life can be tough but events like this make use tougher and bring us closer together to help out our fellow neighbors.

Devil’s Kitchen Waterfalls

It has been some years since I have went out a shot cotton candy waterfall photos. A few weeks I had to go up on the mountain top area of the Catskills to document some of the damage from tropical storm Irene so I stopped by one of favorite locations. This is the Devil’s Kitchen that is at the top of the Platte Cove area, this small waterfall is just down in off the road, very easy to get into and grab a few quick shots.

These images are shot using a 2 stop neutral density filter to lengthen the exposure time resulting in the cotton candy water effect. After image capture I processed images with Adobe Lightroom and NIK Software Color Efex Pro Tonal Contrast filter.

Tropical Storm Irene, Greene County NY

Tropical Storm Irene hit Greene County NY hard a few weeks ago. This past weekend and the weekend before I ventured out to see the damage Irene left behind in Greene County, New York. Here in the Hudson Valley we had some bad flooding but nothing like what the damage it left behind in the Catskill Mountain region.

People are now in the recovery/rebuilding stage but based on what I saw it is going to take many helping hands and donations.I have created two images galleries of photos I took in my travels thru the mountain top region of Greene County, NY.

Tropical Storm Irene, Gallery No. 1

Tropical Storm Irene, Gallery No. 2

Dangers of Hiking in Catskills

Two of my favorite locations to go and hike for photography in the Catskill Mountains are getting a lot of attention. These areas are the Kaaterskill and Platt Clove areas due to hikers falling and getting hurt or loosing their life. The local officials are asking NYSDEC to look into these locations and make recommendations or changes to the locations to help prevent future issues.

I do not want to see anyone get hurt, but I also don't want to see chain link fences or barricades in the nature area of the Catskills. Signage at trail heads is called for but we must know when we are going into locations we are not prepared for. When going into extreme locations we have to know our limits and not go into areas we are not prepared for.

The posting image is the Bridal Veil Falls in the Platt Clove, this is the view that everyone hikes into see. If you go there go slow and easy it is a short hike down a extremely steep slope to the 100 foot high ledge/cliff which I am standing on to take this photo. This view would not be the same when view thru a chain link fence.

Fall 2009 Image Gallery

I ave just created a Fall 2009 Image Gallery which you can access from link below.

http://rjnphoto.com/Gallery/2009images/Fall2009/

Creative Work

Nikon has not pulled the creative tools that we had during the film days from today's digital camera bodies. During yesterdays outing in the Catskill Mountains I shot a few ten shot multiple exposures of a stand of trees along one of the roads I traveled. These images are all in camera no Photoshop magic.

Fall in Catskill Mountains

I was out in the Catskill Mountains yesterday to see how the fall colors doing. Here a few images I took in the Tannersville and Hunter area of the Catskill Mountains here in Upstate New York.