Our beautiful lake, from the head of the bluff. If you look on a map of Western New York, and find the Finger Lakes, mine is the one shaped like a "Y." The lake is split by a high bluff that rises 700 feet above water level. (This is much lower than that.) This is only a small section of it. A century ago, there were lake views all over the place, because most of the land was cleared. Now it's shrouded in trees everywhere, and the places where you can get a view of the lake are limited. Even the "scenic overlooks" along my road are completely blocked by trees! Seems like a mistake from a Chamber of Commerce viewpoint, but unfortunately they have not put me in charge of anything yet. (I keep waiting.)
Mike
*The lake is called Keuka, and the bumper stickers say
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Featured Comments from:
Doug C: "A cousin of mine who lives in New Hampshire says that in 1860, 80% of that state was cleared land; now it's 80% forest. He says the Civil War opened the young men's eyes to what sort of farmland was available elsewhere in the country."
Mike replies: Yes, there used to be a lot of farming there. They isn't there any more. As a boy, riding horseback through the hills of Vermont, it was very common to come across stone fences running through the woods; made from the stones they cleared from the fields. I fell through a wooden bridge once that was so overgrown I didn't even know it was a bridge until the horse fell through it. (The horse didn't let himself be recaptured, and I walked all the way home.)
This is a minor issue in landscape photography. I saw an article once that gave examples of all the features that photographers think are "natural" that are actually the remains of manmade features in the land. It often takes an expert to recognize what they're actually looking at. Supposedly there's one tiny section of primeval forest left in America, and its location is a closely guarded secret because the people who study it don't want it to be ruined.
Great Keuka Lake photo.
Posted by: Michael Matthews | Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 11:17 AM
Nice photo, Mike. I like "big sky" landscapes. Cool bumper sticker (cue-ka?).
Posted by: darlene | Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 05:06 PM
Our large biennial family gathering will be on Cayuga lake this summer, rather than Keuka, which is totally sold out. I'll file a trip report afterwards, to contrast and compare.
Posted by: MikeR | Friday, 24 June 2022 at 11:37 AM
This is the bad side of a rare environmental success story, the reforestation of the rural Northeast. Perhaps someday you'll be in a similar position to us in the Rocky Mountain states, surrounded by too many trees in continuous tightly packed forests. When the weather dries up and a fire breaks out, it burns wherever the wind takes it, with few roads or firebreaks to mount a defense.
So who regulates your lakeshore and overlooks? Is there a state park or forest involved? If neither, maybe you could speak up and get something done locally. Or not. Likely it's nobody's responsibility, and everyone's waiting for someone else to do it. And you can't underestimate most people's ability to ignore real life, with all these gorgeous phone and TV and EVF screens everywhere...
Posted by: John McMillin | Friday, 24 June 2022 at 04:04 PM
It’s overgrown trees and shrubs that prompt people to do stupid things. I saw a guy in a National Park, climb over a guardrail to get a clean shot of a beautiful canyon. He was standing on the edge of the precipice, took a photo and luckily, turned around and got back to safety. I used my short telephoto lens to get in between the trees. Just watching him made me nervous. As I am sure that he was not the only person to do that, I think that the National Park Service would do well to keep some trees trimmed rather than having to rescue people (or retrieve bodies).
Posted by: Ken Rowin | Saturday, 25 June 2022 at 04:26 PM
Mike worte, "Supposedly there's one tiny section of primeval forest left in America, and its location is a closely guarded secret ... "
The secret's out.
The lush forests in the Quinault, Queets, Hoh, and Bogachiel valleys are some of the most spectacular examples of primeval temperate rain forest in the lower 48 states. These rain forests once stretched from southern Oregon to southeast Alaska, but little remains outside of protected areas.
...
The west-facing Quinault, Queets, Hoh and Bogachiel river valleys all host rain forest. Trails and access roads offer visitors a way to explore of this verdant ecosystem.
https://bit.ly/3OEDUQn
National Park Service
Posted by: Speed | Saturday, 25 June 2022 at 06:33 PM
Back in the mid 1970s I was a student at RIT. Almost every weekend I used to drive the roads north and south on both sides of the Finger Lakes. When I came across a stream, I'd park my VW Beetle on the side of the road and hike up the stream. More than often the gentle stream passing under the road turned into a stream that eroded out a gorge over the past thousands of years. In the early winter and spring, falling through the iced over streams was a common happening. Thank God for high L L Bean's leather waterproof boots and multiple pairs of wool socks. Went back up to RIT in the 1990s to lecture. Spent one day trying to revisit those gorges... Alas, I wasn't able to find one of them.
Posted by: Gregory Kriss | Saturday, 25 June 2022 at 07:10 PM
By the 1790s, New England was exporting 36 million feet of pine boards and 300 ship masts annually, with over 75 percent coming from Massachusetts (which included Maine) and another 20 percent coming from New Hampshire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_lumber_industry_in_the_United_States
Trees and ice were biggies back in the old good old days.
Posted by: JMac | Saturday, 25 June 2022 at 09:06 PM
There are so many planning decisions photographers should be consulted on, because if it looks good, it's good. Great views are psychologically important.
Posted by: William Furniss | Sunday, 26 June 2022 at 02:28 AM
"I saw an article once that gave examples of all the features that photographers think are "natural" that are actually the remains of manmade features in the land."
Thanks Mike, very interesting! Can you link us to that article?
[No, sorry. I do recall one of the pictures, but that's about all. --Mike]
Posted by: Brian Adams | Sunday, 26 June 2022 at 07:01 AM
This one's no secret. I've been there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Kilmer_Memorial_Forest
Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest is an approximately 3,800-acre tract of publicly owned virgin forest in Graham County, North Carolina, named in memory of poet Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918), best known for his poem "Trees". One of the largest contiguous tracts of old growth forest in the Eastern United States, the area is administered by the U. S. Forest Service.
Posted by: Luke | Sunday, 26 June 2022 at 07:27 AM
Scientists say that ‘nature,’ untouched by humans, is now almost entirely gone
There's basically no landscape on earth that hasn't been altered by humans scientists say.
https://wapo.st/3ngtHhm
Washington Post
Posted by: Speed | Sunday, 26 June 2022 at 01:07 PM
While searching the 'net for more on natural vs. not-natural nature I found this ...
Photography in the Age of Falsification
The wildlife photography we see in films, books, and periodicals is often stunning in its design, import, and aesthetics. It may also be fake, enhanced, or manufactured by emerging digital technologies that have transformed—some say contaminated—the photography landscape.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/05/photography-in-the-age-of-falsification/377107/
It's worth looking at if only to see the word prestidigitation used in a sentence.
Posted by: Speed | Monday, 27 June 2022 at 12:31 PM