Continuing Series - Post #8
It’s been a minute or so since I’ve shot with my Mamiya 7II. With wedding season in full swing, I find it hard to find the motivation and time to shoot some of my personal work. However, I am not going to wait until the winter to get back on the swing of things and I am going to make an better effort to shoot during this time. While I haven’t been shooting with my Mamiya, I have been scratching my itch to shoot black and white again. I have been shooting with my Leica M4 and I decided to do some 4x5 black and white as well. I have been sharing some of those photos on my instagram and I will do a blog post in the near future.
Last week I decided to take a day trip to the Ashokan Reservoir. I have been to this area in the past but never visited this place. I found it while searching google maps for a location to shoot. I saw that there was a trail that goes along the water and seeing some photos on google, I decided to take the time to shoot there. It seemed pretty accessible, there was a trail that ran along the reservoir and it was about 3 miles long. The views were breathtaking however you are very limited to where you can go. Getting close to the water is absolutely prohibited unless you had a special license. This reservoir is one of the main sources of water for New York City. So there is a ton of NYPD around, cameras everywhere but at least it’s safe. I talked to a few people on that path, it seems like a very popular place to visit. Someone pointed an American Bald Eagle perched up on a tree. This place is supposedly pretty popular for spotting them. I did wait a few minutes to see if it would fly but unfortunately it just stayed in place. On my way out I talked to another local who told me a little bit about the history of this place, a few towns/communities had to be moved for the construction of the reservoir. Also, the city of New York owns this place, they own a lot of the land around the area and have been buying up more land over the years. I think they do it so that no one develops anything around the reservoir to keep it safe and pristine. But according to this person, the city does not do a good job supporting the communities in the area. I honestly don’t know much about it but I am interested to learn more.
I shot these images with my Mamiya 7II, mostly with a 80mm lens. I did switch to my 50mm toward the end to get a grander view of the opposite side of the reservoir. The view of the reservoir of the mountains and water is beautiful but I went during sunset and it was making everything backlit. So I did not take too many photos of that view. I think visiting this place during sunrise would be ideal. I always find it hard to shoot during dawn but I think I might have to make the trip up one time to use that light to capture that breathtaking view.
