Photo Blog Featuring:

Outdoor Travel, Adventure & Landscape Photography
www.michaelmalandra.com

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Catskills

This past week I headed up to the Catskills to do some photography for some shows/events I have coming up this fall. More on that later. I decided that I would camp this time out and not get a hotel room. Let me tell you it was one of the best decisions I made. For me, camping is a way to get back to a “primitive” lifestyle with no societal stress. It's so great to be able to sleep under the stars and listen to the wind blow and the rain fall at night. When I was younger my dad used to take my brother and I camping every summer and there were times when I would think “Why are we doing this? Why not just get a room?” As I grew older I began to understand it's purpose. Most children today are so out of touch with the natural world around them. They are engulfed in a technology filled, over achieving society that they don't enjoy the simple things in life or to have fun without using some type of electronic machine. Technology is great but it becomes a problem when one lets it consume them to the point of not being able to live without it. Anyway, the Catskills are so beautiful and I think I was able to capture it's beauty in the photos I took. When I decided to camp this trip I wanted to find a place where I would be on a lake so I could also do some kayaking. I found a great state run campground up in Haines Falls NY called North South Campground which is on North South Lake. Although I couldn't get a site right on the lake I did manage to get one that was less than a 100 feet from the water. My morning started at sunrise with about 3 hours of hiking and photography then to breakfast and then to the lake for some kayaking and planning where I would hike to for Sunset photos. Some of the photos I shot are in this blog with more to come in the Fall on both my website and at the upcoming events I'm in the mist of planing right now.