12.20.2020 Silent Sunday Memory-this day in 2015
This entry was posted in Landscape, Nature Photography, Quabbin, Sunrise, Western Massachusetts and tagged Clouds, colorful clouds, colorful sky, Dawn, Enfield Lookout, landscape, Massachusetts, Mount Monadnock, New England, Quabbin, Quabbin Landscape, Quabbin Park, sunrise, western massachusetts. Bookmark the permalink.
Stephen Gingold Nature Photography Blog 
So beautiful and calm – just what we need this year! 🙂
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That’s a quality I have always looked for…aside from chaotic water flows…and, especially in these times, it makes for a temporary escape from our current reality.
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Very nice Steve! Very calming image!
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Thanks, Reed.
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It’s very nice indeed to think of enjoying this beautiful scene in perfect silence.
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This is a much visited spot in the park but most often later in the day so it is not unusual to have it to myself and enjoy the quiet for a while. And the view too. 🙂
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Nice, I love the icy layers reflecting blue light.
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Thanks, Eliza!
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That’s beautiful, especially the undulating hills contrasting with the still lake. Is that the reservoir or a natural lake?
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Thanks, Sel. It is a reservoir. The brief story…The city of Boston and surrounds were running short on water supply so they sent engineers out to locate a new source. They found the valleys of this part of the state, which you see in this image, to be ideal for a reservoir and the state disenfranchised four towns, Enfield, Greenwich, Prescott, and Dana. That took homes from hundreds of families which of course could not happen today…we hope. It took many years to construct the two main dams that hold over 4 billion gallons of water. It also created what some people call an “Accidental Wilderness” and that is where I spend a lot of time. Of course there is really nothing about it that can truly be wilderness as it is heavily managed with timber cuts, deer hunts, and water controls. Many of the houses that were moved can still be seen around the area and there is a cemetery where all the graves were relocated that is visited by relatives.
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That’s quite something. Similar to the story of the Aswan Dam on the Nile in Egypt, but there they only relocated the massive pharaonic temples of Ramsis II (at Abu Simbel). True wilderness is v hard to find these days – have you read Feral by George Monbiot? A potent call for rewilding.
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I haven’t read that, Sel. I’ll look for it. I imagine “just” was meant with irony regarding moving temples. 🙂
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Wow 🤩 stunning shot! Great colors. Serene.
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Thanks, Sandra!
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And what a day it looked to be. Or at least that small moment within it. That’s one thing I love about photography, how it enables us to keep returning to these wonderful little moments from the past.
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Thanks, Todd. Yes, these memories are so welcome on gray and gloomy days. It’s nice to re-experience the peace of those moments.
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Did you consider cropping off the foreground trees at the bottom to leave a more panoramic sunrise?
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Yes I did and have had discussions in the past about composing this view, some variations of which have appeared here.. But most opinions favored a framing with the trees.I like the view either way.
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That thought did come to my mind too, and I agree that the foreground adds something essential to the whole (as I see it) that would be a bit less effective if it were absent. Both ways, a very sweet piece of work.
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It a lovely view in all types of conditions. I keep shooting there. I decided a while back not to crop this scene although I do use a longer lens at time to isolate the mountain. My one complaint here was a lack of reflected color in the reservoir so the quest continues. Thanks!
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The series of hills is lovely – hard to beat the colors in the sky.
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Thanks, Tom. The valley offers a few views looking at scenery like this. It is but I try.
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The four discrete bands — clouds, mountains, water, and trees — work together very well; each has a distinct texture. I think eliminating the trees would make the image less interesting. They help to make the image more than the sum of its parts.
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That’s a good way to describe the value of maintaining the foreground, Linda. Thanks. I love this view and do try different combinations of the elements but overall think this composition works the better.
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