Completing the Quest

 Last week I failed to get IR photos at Chapel Pond because of a dead camera battery. Yesterday, I drove down to the mountains again. The weather was more varied, mostly sunny, mostly cloudy, and even a couple of sprinkles. I stopped first at Barnum Pond, where I shot several photos of St. Regis Mt across the Pond. For those unfamiliar with the area, St Regis is the dark peak on the left, off in the distance.

The highway curves around a bay here, so you can't miss this view. Every time I go by here, I am reminded that my grandfather photographed this scene over a hundred years ago. He had very different equipment, however, glass plates and a wooden camera. I have a few of his glass negatives and often wish that his camera had also been passed down. He died in the spring of the year that I was born, so I never knew him.

Back in Keene Valley after negotiating several sections of roadwork, I finally shot the photo (above) that I was trying to make when the camera battery died last week. The 'red barn' mentioned in the last post used to stand on the left side of the photo.

I was told quite a few years back that this copse of trees remained in the field because it was an Indian burial ground, but that was just local legend. I learned later that it is a geological formation, a pile of stones left by the last Ice Age.  The image above is a telephoto shot from the viewing platform that the state built by the parking area.  

My next stop was Marcy Field, a grass strip airport in Keene Valley with an excellent view of Noonmark Mt and several High Peaks.

The airfield windsock with Upper & Lower Wolf Jaws Mt, Armstrong & Gothics in the background.

And finally, Chapel Pond.

The cliffs here are popular with rock climbers, and there was a pair on the rockface near the middle of this scene.

To avoid the road construction on my way home, I bypassed Lake Placid and Saranac Lake, going instead through Upper Jay, Wilmington, Franklin Falls, and Bloomingdale. On my way by, I stopped to photograph the Veterans Memorial Highway Gatehouse across the pond.

My final stop of the trip was at Moose Pond, a side trip as I was approaching Bloomingdale. The scene above is along a trail that circles the Pond. I stumbled onto this spot several years ago. It struck me at the time as being the sort of place one would encounter leprechauns and fairies. I photographed it in color back then and wanted to see what an IR version would look like.

This last photo is a bit grainy. The Canon G-11 is a 10MP camera that tends to be 'noisy at anything over ISO 400. I had to shoot this at ISO 1600 to get a handholdable shutter speed. Thanks to modern editing software it came out well and is probably my favorite photo from the day.

Adirondacks in Infrared

 

On the 21st, I drove south to the mountains to visit some old haunts and shoot them in IR.  I planned to drive as far as Chapel Pond on Rt 73 and possibly farther east to Split Rock Falls. I started with a stop at Mountain Pond, where there was a group of locals canoeing. 

There were no clouds, with a bright sun, which is perfect for infrared. After Mountain Pond, I stopped in Saranac Lake to visit my brother, then drove down to the Cascade Lakes, where I photographed a roadside boulder and Lower Cascade Lake.

 

My plan to go to Chapel Pond was aborted after a stop in Keene Valley. I stopped at the turnout across from the road to Elizabethtown, where 'the red barn' used to be. It was for many years the most photographed barn in the Adirondacks, but a few years ago, the state tore it down because it was in bad condition and people were using it as a toilet. I was setting up to photograph a tree there when my IR camera signaled that it was shutting down due to a low battery. After a futile search through my camera bag, I discovered that I didn't have a spare battery with me. That was when I aborted the rest of my plan and went home. When I got home, I searched for the spare but couldn't find it, so I ordered two new batteries. The ones I had were getting old (10+ YEARS), so it was time to get new ones anyway.