Photo of the Day: Flashback, Spring 2016, Dahnert's Lake County Park, Garfield NJ

Some years ago, a local DJ, who roundly despised football, would play baseball music as a bit of counterprogramming on Super Bowl Sunday. In a somewhat similar spirit, as the dead icy hand (not to mention snowflakes) of winter falls on us, I thought I would give readers something to look forward to: spring, in the form of a photo I took in mid-April four years ago of Dahnert’s Lake County Park, at the western edge of Bergen County NJ.

Maybe by then, we will have something else to anticipate: the gradual recession of the coronavirus that has had us in its grip since March, blighting everyone’s lives in ways small and, unfortunately, large.

Photo of the Day: Ripples on the Water, Rockland Lake State Park, NY

I took this photo of Rockland Lake nearly two weeks ago, on the same walk when I took this prior picture of the park.

Photo of the Day: Lake, Leisure Village, Lakewood NJ

For years, I have been very fond of being near water. You won’t be surprised to know, then, that I was very taken with this lake I photographed when I was visiting a few weeks ago a friend with who now lives in Leisure Village, a 55+ active-adult community in Lakewood, NJ.

Photo of the Day: Washington Lake, Township of Washington, NJ

Last weekend, on my way to a movie in the Township of Washington, NJ, I saw a side street that I had never previously noticed. What drew me to it was a sign for a public library (something that always gets my attention). But when I looked in that direction, I saw something I expected less: a body of water.

When I had a chance to wander over there, I saw a sign saying that Washington Lake was private. (When I returned home, I found on the Internet a real estate listing claiming that this was the only private lake in Bergen County. I can’t verify that this is the only one, but it is certainly a rare private lake in this area. ) 

The strip of land immediately surrounding the 29-acre lake is restricted to members of the Washington Lake Association Inc., a New Jersey nonprofit organization that has owned and managed it since 1947. (On the Internet, I've also seen it called Schlegel Lake--though, I gather, Washington Lake is how it's more commonly referred to.)

In any case, I took this picture from beyond the fence, on a clear late winter day, with brown earth, bare trees and a lovely blue sky.

Photo of the Day: Reflections on a Lake

A couple of weeks ago, as part of a Sunday afternoon of photo-taking, I took this shot of Dahnert's Lake County Park, in Garfield, on the western edge of Bergen County, NJ. (A few days ago, I posted the first from this series here.)

Photo of the Day: Trout Fishing, Garfield NJ

Admittedly, “trout fishing” is not the phrase that springs to mind when I think of Garfield, a city on the western edge of Bergen County, NJ, with a gritty industrial past that has left a residue in the form of chromium water contamination from a spill at its E.C. Electroplating Corporation site.

But in driving past a few years ago, I noticed how the area along the Passaic River had been cleaned up (something I discussed in this prior post). And, from working in the city more than a quarter century ago, I recalled a park a few blocks away.

The 10-acre Dahnert's Lake County Park, along Midland Avenue, is stocked with trout beginning the second week of April. I took this photograph of one optimistic fisherman there a week ago.

Photo of the Day: Water and Autumn Sky, Ringwood Manor, NJ

I’ve often found that changing your position—shooting from a different angle or height—can produce a different shot than what you might be used to. That proved to be the case for me at Ringwood Manor in northern New Jersey this past Sunday. Not just the objects in the distance, but those at my feet looked so much different as I crouched down to snap this picture.