By Jonathan Ment
It was a dark and stormy night…
Actually it wasn’t so dark, and the early January storm hadn’t rolled in yet when I pointed my and car and camera lenses in the direction of the historic Winter Clove Resort in Round Top, near Cairo, NY in the Catskills.
The session was initially described as a family reunion. The reason for the gathering was two-fold. It was also mom’s 90th birthday celebration – the second 90th birthday I would photograph in about that many weeks it turned out!
Never having been to the Winter Clove, I mapped it and considered all my options for good weather or bad. I thought I knew the general vicinity having skirted past many times over the years, but when the road just kept going and going, I reconsidered that notion.
Still, I arrived early. Years ago, a fellow I worked with in another photographic setting suggested there was nothing worse than the white knuckles on the wheel of one who would just make it in time if nothing went wrong. I am a professional photographer in every sense, and it is more the norm than not for me to drive to the exact spot where I will be shooting.
When you’re hiring Jonathan Ment Photography (that’s me, folks) to capture your memories, you don’t want to hear ‘the traffic’ was bad, the roads were awful, or I got lost.
You want to turn around and see me there taking pictures!
“No excuses,” are basically words to live by.
Finding a Catskills resort you’ve located on a digital map previously is easy enough. Figuring out which unmarked building is the one you need is harder, but trial and error got me there and I walked into a party – earlier than expected.
Laughing, talking, drinking and eating were more people than you would think might ordinarily fit in this room. Since they all knew each other, the arrival of this unfamiliar face with a camera bag on my shoulder left no doubts who had arrived. It was picture time.
With a crowd like this, there’s ample opportunity to capture some candids while different groups are gathering for family photos. BUT when space and time is tight, dressing the set isn’t always an option.
Still, I move things in the background, remove things in the foreground, move subjects around and use every available inch of a space to capture what I know will be the most shared memories from such an event.
When this celebration moved to the dining room in the main lodge, once I’d captured the scene and requested photos the family urged me to join them for a bit of dinner and conversation.
From far and farther, New Hampshire to New Jersey basically, I never did figure out how Greene County became the gathering spot. But I was glad it did.
When it was time to go, I realized I’d lost track of time, extending our meeting like new found friends. This was the way to start the year I thought – a session with folks so welcoming that I lost track of my scheduled time. Many times over the years clients have become friends, if almost entirely virtual.
Through social media connections we follow one another and cheer each other on. I their growing families and other milestones. They, my latest sessions or even personal adventures.
In an online review after the session Lyssa said I “put everyone at ease and had a great time along with (the family.) I suspect that’s why the smiles seemed so genuine.
It’s not entirely normal to have a stranger come in and capture the minute by minute of any life event, but pictures can speak thousands of words and without this sort of invited intrusion photographers like me would be stuck snapping pictures of squirrels.
Like the postal service, neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night …
Right?
Need photos to remember your reunion by?
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Jonathan Ment Photography
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