Chris and I recently returned from a month in Connecticut, near the city of New York, and each weekend we went exploring in every direction. I’ve put together ten of my favourite photos – and this was a challenge to get it down to only ten! – in the hope that the cold weather doesn’t put you off from visiting the New England area of America. I thought it was absolutely beautiful!….
This was just a few steps away from the path between the house we were staying at in Stamford and the nearest shops. I was amazed to find out a few days later that underneath the ice and shadows there was a massive fast-flowing river!
This photo was taken at Catskill Falls in Kaatskill Mountain, and although it was utterly freezing, it was also utterly amazing. The droplets from the spray of the waterfall were freezing before they hit the ground and it was actually a little painful on my face to take this photograph! The trees and plants surrounding the falls were completely covered in ice so they didn’t look real any more! Definitely take your earmuffs with you if you visit Catskill Falls in winter!
This was also at Kaatskill Mountain – a little further away from the last one, so much more peaceful without the immense noise of the waterfall! I was worried I wouldn’t be able to succeed in capturing what I could see all around me, and sadly I didn’t quite. It wasn’t snowing there, it was minuscule droplets of ice gently falling all around us and it looked like a glitter bomb had gone off in the sky. I’ve never seen anything prettier in nature before – it’s a shame we have to put up with it being minus eleven degrees celsius to experience it!
There are massive frozen lakes all over the place in upstate New York and North Connecticut. I was astonished to see so many people walking on them, and even drilling through the ice to fish. Where the surface had begun to melt made it perfect for capturing reflections and I would have loved to spend more time finding the best photography compositions.
Looking down at the side of the road somewhere on Bear Mountain. Vast areas are covered in woodland and I had to try and capture the eerie fairytale quality when the clouds came overhead.
This was another time I jumped out of the car to take a photo because in all its gloominess I could see its beauty. I have to admit though, that without a single other vehicle going past and a large old house nearby, I sort-of spooked myself with the sound of twigs snapping underfoot as I made my way through the dead plants and deep old leaves to the water’s edge.
If you’re thinking about visiting Harriman State park, then I expect you have to get there early for a parking space! If it was full in the middle of January, then I’m guessing it will be chocka-block in the summer! I would like to go back in different seasons though as I imagine it would look completely different. I loved the contrast of the bare trees against the snow and the dead grasses with winding paths leading into the distance. When everything is green it will be beautiful in a different way.
This isn’t my favourite photograph of all time, but I wanted to include it as an example of what you can see everywhere at the sides of the road as you travel through the hills and mountains of New England. There seemed to be waterfalls everywhere while we were in the car, but sadly not in the places where we were able to stop and explore. I think it’s likely we’ll be visiting the area again in the future, so we’ll do a little more homework next time and find out the best places to photograph frozen waterfalls.
I took this photograph just before the sun set at Burr Pond State park in Connecticut. It was at another huge frozen lake, and this time we saw someone go right across it on their bike! It took me a lot of courage just to stand on it at the edge, but I suppose my fear comes from simply not being used to seeing this sort of thing! We spent most of the day here taking photos (mainly changing into dresses for Threads of a Fairytale or just for Instagram), but by this time all the dog-walkers had gone home and it was so peaceful and beautiful we didn’t want to go.
The whole of the New England area is full of state parks and city parks and we really were spoiled for choice for beautiful places to visit. If you’re in the area I hope these photos will encourage you to explore more despite the cold! If you can’t go in person, but would like to see a little more, here are the vlogs from my YouTube channel of the three weekends we had there:
