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Spring I. Walking in the Watchung Reservation on a spring morning is a great experience. Everything is turning green, the undergrowth is thick and the trees welcome the warm weather.
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Spring II. Carris Hill on a spring afternoon. The trees are so thick that no undergrowth has a chance to survive, and so leaves from previous autumn are still noticeable. Up to this day, this is my favorite forest picture.
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Summer I. I usually avoid climbing 900 feet in the middle of a summer, but this view has convinced me to do so. Mount Tammany offers an impressive view of the Delaware Water Gap, but it is places like this that make me return every year.
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Summer II. Worthington State Forest. Just an hour of walking away from the previous location, yet the setting could hardly be more different. No people and a later hour helped to make this hike a real fairy-tale experience.
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Autumn I. The wide trail of the Terrace Pond loop. This image is a little out of place here. Before getting published on a full page in the October 2003 issue of AMC Outdoors magazine, I felt luke-warm towards this picture. Now I'm really proud of it.
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Autumn II. This is one of my favorite locations. Taking this picture, I was sitting on a boulder overlooking a shallow gully in Jenny Jump State Park. Great view, a gentle breeze and warm sun; what else could I ever ask for?
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Autumn III. This one was hard to take. The moment I pulled out the camera, the sun disappeared behind clouds, and I had to wait for over an hour for the sun to reappear. In hindsight, I think I was lucky; the shadows are much better at the later hour.
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Autumn IV. Yet another shadowy picture, this time in early morning. I arrived before anybody else at the Pyramid Mountain and was threated to empty trails and views like this one.
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Autumn V. New Jersey is famous for its foliage, and I really enjoy this picture. I've taken it the first time I did the Stokes State Forest loop, along with other great foliage shots. Once again, I arrived before enybody else, which allowed me to exclude people from the picture.
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Chained. This spot has always fascinated me. It is located in Mount Hope Historical Park, an old iron mining facility. Apparently, miners were fencing their holes by stringing wires on trees, and the trees grew over the wires over the years.
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Loner. Back to Carris Hill. I always liked to sit on the top in summer, on a windy day. Once, the wind was strong enough to really bend the lone tree that grows from a small hole in the bare rock, and I wasted no time taking the picture.
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Aspen Groove. Waking up at 4AM (courtesy of jet lag), I decided to go hiking before sunset in Snowmass, CO. The day before was a little rainy, which allowed for very sharp colors. The aspen groove reminds me of many Russian fairy tales I watched when I was little.
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Before the Storm. I wisited Boston only once, for two days. This was the only picture I managed to shoot, at a moment before the big rain came and the sun found a hole in the clouds behind me. I'd like to remember Boston like this.
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Fog I. The hills were smoking on the day I hiked Raccoon Ridge. Not even the midday sun managed to dispell the fog, and I felt as isolated as it gets. I enjoyed the hike a lot.
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Fog II. This was an interesting experience. I went to Jenny Jump, knowing that a big rainy front was coming. Before the rain hit, I managed to take a few pictures of the foggy forest. I later continued shooting as the rain started and before I knew it, it was dark and I was an hour away from my car.
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Deadwood. Merrill Creek Reservoir was filled only recently, and there's still plenty of dead trees sticking out from the water. In their death, however, the trees have granted life to a multitude of plant and animal species, which now thrive in areas like this.
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Titans I. Whoever planted these two trees next to each other was a genius. Then again, the whole garden around the Ringwood Manor is great, but this particular spot is my favorite one.
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Titans II. Back in Mount Hope, I was taking pictures of a tree split by a lighting when I happened to look up and saw this. It looks more like a clash of titans; two trees that could hardly be more different fighting each other for dominance. I think I'll stop by in a couple of decades to see whether there's a winner.
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Titans III. Jockey Hollow, the winter encampment of Washington's army. For the most authentic experience I went here on a very wet and cold November day. There were many great treas, but this giant struck me as one of the most impressive trees I've ever seen. Ever so proud, no matter when nature throws at it.
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Titans IV. There are few pine tree forests in New Jersey, but this one is pretty near, in Watchung Reservation. It's a humbling experience to walk under these giants, especially when the sun casts long stripes of shadow on the ground and the view up offers plenty of contrast.
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Titans V. Believe it or not, but I took this picture while sipping my morning coffe and going to pick up the morning paper. This was the first snow of the winter of 2002, which brought us more snow than I like to remember, and so I figured I'd take a picture of that first snow. It came out better than I hoped for.
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