Hartman Outdoor Photography
Shelley and Josh Hartman
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In late July, Josh and I flew to upstate New York to photograph Kristen and Anthony’s wedding. We were so excited to photograph this adorable couple and looked forward to exploring this part of the Northeast. The wedding took place just outside of Rochester, but we planned a four day vacation afterward in the Adirondacks and Fingerlakes. We packed a whole suitcase full of our camping gear and headed to start our trip at Letchworth State Park on Sunday morning.
Letchworth seems to come out of nowhere. The drive there was flat farm land, when all of a sudden there is this magnificent gorge, with a river, and a giant waterfall running right through the middle of it. This area was beautiful! We hiked all around, snapping shots of all the wonderful scenery. By the end of the day, we were ready to climb into our tents for a goodnight’s rest. It rained all night, through the end of the next day, as we drove out to the Adirondacks. Josh and I lucked out by finding an adorable, and affordable, little cabin right off of Blue Mountain Lake. Just so happens that we weren’t the only photographers staying at this tiny inn, world famous Scully and Osterman were also staying here, and we had the pleasure of talking with them about their tintype photography as we watched the sunset.
The next day it finally cleared up, so Josh and I rented a canoe to explore the mountain lake. The lake was full of tiny stone islands topped with fluffy pines. We spent the whole day paddling around these islands, even jumping in to take a dip in the surprisingly warm waters. It was so much fun we didn’t want to leave the next day! On our last full day in New York State, Josh and I headed back West toward Rochester, stopping at Watkin’s Glen and the Town of Geneva on the way. Watkin’s Glen is another place that seems to just pop out of nowhere. It’s a tiny nook of forest, full of creek carved canyons and waterfalls. Lush vegetation grows all over the park. We had a great time working with slow exposures here to capture the waterfalls.
As we finished up our hike, we saw dark clouds looming in the distance and knew we had to find a campground before it started to storm. We found a cute little family owned site right off Seneca Lake and enjoyed watching the storm roll in over the water while drinking some ice cold Saranac.