Random Excellence: Rick Tyrseck

Cover photo by Rick Tyrseck

Like many regional and travel magazines, Adirondack Life has an annual photography issue. I don't know about past years, but this year the editors put their Grand Prize Winner on the cover as well—and a B&W magazine cover always takes a bit of editorial courage. Kudos. Winner Rick Tyrseck, another among the legions inspired by the great John Shaw, is a semipro scenic and nature photographer specializing in the Northeast. He lives in Danbury, Connecticut, and took this with a Canon 5D Mark II and 24–105mm lens.

The cover looks terrific.

The March/April issue also features a portfolio of drone aerial photos. And here's Rick's website.

Courtesy Wikipedia

The Adirondacks, or Adirondack mountains (for some of our International readers who might not know), is a huge region in the upper part of New York State, geologically a "massif," that is overlaid by what is often called "Adirondack Park." Actually it's neither a National Park nor a State Park—it's a forest preserve, managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and not by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Consequently, it is not listed as a State Park.

More than 50% privately owned (but tightly regulated), the Adirondack Forest Preserve covers 6.1 million acres (2,468,582 hectares) and encompasses more than 1,900 lakes and ponds and between 25,000 and 30,000 miles of rivers and streams. It is larger than the State of Vermont and the largest public protected area in the lower 48 States. Lake Placid, where the 1980 Winter Olympics were held, is in the Adirondacks. The name is a transliteration of the Mohawk word for tree-eater or bark-eater, referring either to porcupines, or, derogatorily, to the Mohawks' neighbors the Algonquians.

Mike
(Thanks to Mark Hobson and JohnMFlores)

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

David Miller, Grasswood, Saskatchewan:

Portrait of a tree-eater: "A whole park
named for little old me? Aw shucks…."
(Fuji X-T1, 16–55mm @ 55mm)

"Oh, they are 'tree-eaters' indeed! Every winter gives rise to a running battle with the little 'pine-pigs' (porc au pin). A porcupine can gnaw a circle of bark from a pine or elm trunk in a single night, killing a tree that has stood for a hundred years. And all for the sake of a single supper, which seems a bit disproportionate.

"No, I don’t kill them. The trick is to knock them off a low branch, scoop them out of the snow with a garbage can, and deport them to a nature park a few miles away where they can eat scrub willow to their hearts content and leave trails through the snow for the entertainment of schoolchildren on class outings to the park. Win, win, win.

"In the summer they keep to themselves, eat small green plants and annoy no one. We rarely see them."

Comments

[Jake]

The boat in the photo is not meant to be rowed but designed to be pushed through the water with an outboard motor attached to its wide transom. And it's certainly not meant to be photographed. The Adirondack region is famous for the lovely wooden guide boats that were built there. They were light weight and a joy to move through the water with a well made pair of oars. Not so the aluminum tub in the picture.

[Mark Bridgers]

Porcupine? I'd expect a "tree-eater" would be a beaver....

[Ed Hawco]

Thank you for not writing "Dacks."

[Speed]

We've already established the link between (or possibly intersection of) camera people and car people. Today we may learn to include boaters in the mix.

[Mark Hobson]

As a full-time Adirondack resident and the former Creative Director of the agency which had as a client the northern / central region - to include Lake Placid - of the Adirondack Forest Preserve, I feel I must correct a few of the the errors in your description of the Adirondacks ...

... the Adirondack "Park" is in fact a forest preserve managed by the NYS Dept of Environmental Conservation and not by the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Consequently, it is not listed as a State Park.

The forest preserve size is most commonly referred to as larger than the star of Vermont with approx. 105 villages and hamlets and a year round pop. of approx 100K.

The current estimate of the number of Lakes and ponds is approximately 1,900 and it has 25-30k miles of rivers and stream.

As for the roots of the name Adirondack, most residents understand it to mean bark eater which was meant by the Mohawks as a derogatory name for the Algonquin tribe.

You oughta come up some time - there's a bedroom suite waiting for you any time.

[Thank Mark—I amended the post with the better information you've provided, and added a hat tip to you. And thanks for the invite, too! --Mike]

[JohnMFlores]

Fun fact: Adirondack Park is the largest publicly protected area in the lower 48.

[Thanks John—I added this to the post, along with a hat tip to you. --Mike]

[Dennis]

We only "discovered" the Adirondacks a few years ago, despite having lived our entire lives in northwest CT. We can get to Lake George in about 2.5 hours, stay for a few nights, and venture (a little ways) into the park from there. We've only been as far north as Fort Ticonderoga (took in a great battle reenactment). I highly recommend the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake. It's not really near anything, but well worth the trip. You wonder how much there could be to see at a museum dedicated to the Adirondacks and then you wish you'd arrived earlier to spend the entire day. I'm hoping to spend time exploring more of the park by staying somewhere more central.

[Miserere]

As a B&W photographer, I approve of this cover. It's such a wonderful photo that not even the horrid "2017 Photography Issue" letters detract from its enjoyment.

[giulio croce]

A decade (or two) ago I used to hike through the Adirondacks with a few colleagues, during my longer working periods at Montreal. I love mountains, and I'm used to italian higher peaks: wandering through the Adirondacks was a nice reminder of the fact that travelling (and travel photography, too) is not about looking for the highest, the biggest, the nicest or the most famous, but mostly about appreciating the beauty of the different, and take inspiration from the variety.

[Rory O'Toole]

On a January day, about 10 years ago, I drove from Montreal to New Jersey, through a mountainous region - I assume it was the Adirondacks. As we climbed it began to snow, and eventually the highway was completely covered. There was nothing around, nowhere to stop, and 18 wheelers passed us in the fast lane, throwing snow over the windshield as they went by. Scariest drive of my life! We don't do snow here in Ireland ..

[Mark Bridgers]

So porcupines do eat trees....the things you learn on a site nominally about photography!

[TBannor]

Another fun fact about the Adirondacks. They're actually a young mountain range. The uplift started 10 million years ago and is progressing at about 2mm per year. Strange, because they're not on a plate border. They are not part of the Appalachian Mountains, which are much older.

[Earl Dunbar]

My father-in-law (Dave - actually my wife's step-father) grew up in Saranac Lake (with a part of early childhood in Montreal) and maintains a home in Saranac. He was an Adirondack guide for many years (he's 90+ now) as well as a member of ski patrols.

After World War II he went to work for Kodak in purchasing, now known as supply chain management I suppose.

His mantra was to keep things simple and tells a story about some advice he received just prior to starting with Eastman Kodak.

The owner of the very first photo shop in Saranac showed him how he timed film development in the shop's darkroom. Hanging from the ceiling by twine was a small weight. On the wall behind this makeshift pendulum were marks at wider and wider intervals.

Each mark represented a different Kodak film. Move the pendulum to the mark for the corresponding film type and then let it go. When the pendulum stopped, developing time was over - the shop owner and worked it out and no special equipment purchase had been required.

The advice to Dave was to "Tell everyone at Kodak to keep things simple, don't over complicate anything." It's unfortunate he didn't have any advice on how Kodak could navigate the onslaught of their invention of digital photography.