This is my wife's family's cottage up in Vermont. Her great-grandfather built it in 1913. She's come every year of her life, as have our kids, and I've been almost every summer for 20 years.
It's a wonderful place right on Lake Groton. I sit in the chair in the far left corner for hours on end, just reading. We didn't have a telephone until our kids were born. The bathroom went in just before I started coming (the outhouse still serves as an option if the bathroom's busy).
We spend weeks swimming, baking (the yard just to the left out of the frame is covered in blueberry bushes, and if someone else picks 4 cups, I make a pie), kayaking, canoeing, and hiking. Oh, and visiting other family on the lake. And going to the swimming hole downstream from the dam. And biking. And climbing Owl's Head (you drive almost to the top, then hike only 0.2 miles for a spectacular view).
Another annual tradition is swimming the 1/2 mile across the lake.
Yet another is to write about our adventures in the log, and then each year read back through our history. We read and remember our own first entries, our job and house changes, our kids' arrival, and their first entries. Plus visits by various friends over the years.
In short, it's paradise!
And this year, we had several nights of spectacularly clear skies. I saw an Iridium flare for the first time, we saw many shooting stars and other satellites, and I got some good star shots like this one and my "Under" entry. And one night, as about 10 of us laid on the dock under the stars, we listened to the local weather guy and planetarium speaker on the radio narrate what we were seeing.
As to this particular photo, well, I agree with the two folks who commented during voting. The star trails did come out a bit jagged, and the camp (I can't bring myself to call it a house) didn't ever quite look right. I tried and tried to find an angle that didn't distort it so much while still getting lots of sky, but the trees were in the way.
That's ok. It's a shot we'll cherish forever. :)
Here's a daytime, non-distorted shot:
Here's a sideways shot - all the greenery to the left is blueberry bushes. Some years we have gallons of berries, but this year was very minimal:
Here's the view across the lake:
And here's the view at night:
And here are some other shots I've taken there over the past few years:
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That's lovely! I like the house distorted just fine. Works quite well with the star trails. Gives it a Twilight Zone kinda feel, yes? The jaggies are probably a result of digital processing, either in-camera or afterwards. But I really don't mind - and I like the varying intensities. What a great place for a summer vacation!
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