Luke Dow Photography

10/28/2026

Yesterday morning's sunrise was pretty spectacular!
I wanted to work on this shot and post it yesterday, but life and work got in the way...
Same with this morning, hence the late post lol.

While most of the fall foliage at the upper elevations have started to turn a yellow-brown, there are some nice pockets of color still around the shore and some brilliant yellow spots on the slopes of French Mtn and Prospect, which is really nice!

I hope that everyone is having themselves a great hump day!

Lake George
New York

Oct. 27, 2026

10/27/2026

When something first happened to Dakota, I was willing to throw everything at the issue to not only find out what was wrong, but possibly fix it.
I can’t imagine how I would be feeling if I didn’t have the scratch, or credit card limits to pay for her testing/treatments…
So please think about donating to my friends go-fund-me to help her baby girl get the neurological help she needs!

I’d really appreciate it, thank you.

My best friend of 7 years woke up sick one random day and two different v… Savannah Hill needs your support for Hope for Eris: Finding Answers for Her Illness

10/27/2026

So here is another shot of the Moonrise a couple of nights ago over the horizon.

Now you know how it feels when you see the Moon rising over the horizon/mountains and it looks absolutely massive, but when you take a photo with your phone or camera it looks NOTHING like what you are seeing?
Frustrating right?
Well it's not your camera or the phone that is messing it up, or the chemicals of the horizon enlarging it, IT'S ACTUALLY YOU!

It is because of something called the Moon Illusion, which is a psychological and perceptual trick your brain plays when you look at the horizon!
When the moon is low near the horizon, your brain sees it next to familiar terrestrial objects like trees, buildings, or mountains and your brain misinterprets the moon's size and scales it up in your perception. Which explains why later in the night the moon appears much smaller when it is higher in the sky vs. when it is peaking up over the horizon.
To prove this, if you hold your thumb up at arm's length, the moon covers the exact same amount of space whether it is low on the horizon or high overhead.

Cameras make it look small because there is no brain to trick.
A camera lens just captures light onto a sensor. Without the psychological context of trees or buildings right next to it, a normal camera photo makes the moon look surprisingly tiny.

In order for us photographers to capture the moon and make it look huge we have to use a HUGE zoom lens and zoom in from far away. So when you see a huge moon rising over a city, that photographer is miles and miles away from the part of the city in the photograph. Or they were devious and used Photoshop in order to artificially enlarge the moon to recreate what the eye is seeing.

So the next time you see the moon, just zoom in with your phone or camera as far as it can and you can also grab similar shots!

Lake George
New York

Oct. 25, 2026

10/26/2026

Seeing as today marks 2 weeks, in fact the exact time 2 weeks ago, since I had to say goodbye to my baby girl, I figured I would post one last photo I snapped on my last adventure with her on the day before she left me.

This is a shot of the Sagamore Hotel on Green Island on Bolton Bay with Bolton Landing and Rogers Park in the background.

The colors were just really starting to pop around the area, after seeing this I thought that we would all go up together this week to Ticonderoga and Id stop and take some more shots when the colors were better, but the next day changed those plans and I didnt really go anywhere after that.

I cant believe it's been 2 weeks.
Feels like a lifetime ago.

Sagamore Hotel
Bolton Landing, NY.

Oct. 11, 2026

10/26/2026

Last night's moonrise was incredible!
I wanted to snap this shot when the Moon was just peaking over the mountain, but by the time I ran back to my house and grabbed my camera and ran back out and set it up it was already past where I wanted it.

Because the Earth and Moon's orbital planes are tilted, the angle at which the Moon cuts across the horizon varies. A steeper angle makes it pop up closer to 2 minutes, while a shallower, more diagonal angle can stretch the appearance out closer to 4 minutes or longer.
So even though I ran in and out and had everything set up in a little over 1 minute, that is all it took for the Moon to rise above the horizon.

If you have binoculars you can actually see the Moon's speed when rising. It's super cool.

Anyone else catch that one last night?

Lake George
New York

Oct. 25, 2026

10/25/2026

Today is going to be another continuance in my tribute of the last day I spent with my puppy girl Dakota with this shot that I took early in the morning of Shepard Park and the new amphitheater that was recently built and the fall foliage starting to really percolate around the park and the village of Lake George.

The original amphitheater, was an open-air stage built out of stone and had columns in 1917. This was replaced in 1990 by a covered wooden structure that then burned down from an electrical fire that broke out at 3am on June 30, 2024.

It took 2 years to construct the new amphitheater and came at a cost of $6 million dollars. $600,000 went to new lighting and speakers and $1.5 million went to rehabilitating the original 1917 stone-work.
Some people feel like this was a bit excessive, but there is no denying that the new building is a beautiful structure and it certainly is much better suited for live music and bringing larger and larger bands to play here to play during the village's free concert series throughout the summer.
It also made for a wonderful wedding venue for my friends Alex Garry and AJ Otero this past September. The first one held in the new amphitheater.

I personally am glad they went the extra mile for this structure. The new amphitheater is a much larger structure that allows for some spectacular shows while allowing the lake to be in the background still with the large windows looking out in the back.
With costs going up and up, free concerts will really help bring folks to the village, and this allows bigger bands with bigger draws to come and allow more visitors to have a great experience while in the village, which will hopefully bring more income to the local businesses.

Hope that everyone had a decent weekend.

Lake George
NY

Oct. 11, 2026

10/24/2026

I have a couple photos left from when I journeyed on the final day I had with my puppy Dakota, so Im going to post through the weekend.

To kick off this weekend Im going to share this photo of Jabe Pond surrounded by a beautiful technicolor carpet of fall foliage while looking north where you see the northern end of Lake George winding into the distance.

This small lake is surprisingly deep!
70' deep!
And from what I hear it is great trout fishing in there, but you can only use artificial lures.
Why are certain bodies of water artificial lures only? For a couple of different reasons.
1. Natural baits (like worms or minnows) are often swallowed deeper by fish, which causes severe internal injury or death during release. Artificial lures typically hook fish in the side of the mouth, leading to higher survival rates during catch-and-release.
2. Live bait can escape or be dumped into a lake, possibly introducing harmful parasites, pathogens, or aggressive species that damage the local ecosystem.
3. Certain natural baits or heavy groundbaits add excess nutrients, decay, or chemical compounds into the water, which can degrade water quality or fuel harmful algae growth.
4. This also protects the fish during spawning seasons, preventing the risk of death from catch and release during a critical time for the population of fish.

I really only like to use live bait, but I can understand these reasons lol.

Jabe Pond
Near Hague, NY.

Oct. 11, 2026

10/23/2026

To end this week Im going to share the last shot I snapped while with my Dakota.
Our last stop of the day was by the canoe launch spot on the Schroon River along East Schroon River Road while looking up the valley to the north over a section of crazy bends in the river.

The upper stretch of this 67.7 mile long river doesnt originate out of Schroon Lake, but rather further north at the confluence of New Pond Brook and Crowfoot Brook near exit 30 on I-87.

This river probably formed after the glaciers retreated up here between 10,000-12,000 years ago. But you can tell it's an older river because where the valley widens and there is softer sediment you can see it starts to have numerous bends and oxbow lakes. This stage of a river is called the 'Old Stage' of a river.

I love in this photo how all the leafy trees dominate this section of the river and you can see the course of the river in the distance as it winds up the valley while the pines are on the outskirts. Well there is a reason for this and it is because pine trees struggle to grow in the soft sediment around rivers primarily due to poor root anchorage, waterlogged soils, and intense competition from broadleaf trees.
Pines are generally "pioneer species" adapted to nutrient-poor, sandy, or rocky soils where other trees cannot survive, but waterlogged soils will kill their roots.
Not to mention fast-growing, water-loving broadleaf trees (like cottonwoods, sycamores, willows, and alders) quickly claim riverbanks. They shoot up faster than pines, blocking out the sunlight. Because most pine seedlings are shade-intolerant, they cannot survive beneath the thick canopy of these broadleaf giants.
So this is why you get visuals like this.

I wanted to come back a few days later to see it when the leaves were completely yellow, but 24 hours later I would have to make one of the hardest decisions of my life and say goodbye to my baby girl 25.5 hours later and it has left me gutted for a while and most likely have missed this window.
Maybe next year.

Schroon River
Near Warrensburg, NY.

Oct. 11, 2026

10/22/2026

I was going to post something different today, but since my aunt is home, I couldnt work on the shots I wanted to post today, so since I talked about the Sagamore Golf Course yesterday and spoke about how you dont really have any views of the lake from the course I figured I would share a photo from the one hole you can see the lake from.
The first hole!

This hole is the signature hole on the course and it was specifically designed by Donald Ross in 1928 with this view in mind.

In the distance you can see Montcalm Point on the end of Tongue Mountain.
Behind it are the Narrows with Oahu Island at the very mouth of the strait.
Behind the narrows you can see (from South to North) and unnamed mountain (1,811'), Sleeping Beauty (2,346), and Erebus Mountain (2,527' - 2nd tallest mountain on Lake George).
You can also see the stark change in foliage from around the lake and near the top of the higher peaks.

According to John Sasso, Sleeping Beauty's name goes back to at least 1880. He surmises that Sleeping Beauty was likely named for its profile, which appears as a woman lying on her side, in slumber. He also notes that Sleeping Beauty was referred to by other names like “Sleeping Lion Mt.” and “Jack’s Pinnacle."

Erebus Mountain's name comes from Greek mythology, pertaining to a primordial deity who was the personification of darkness. In 19th-century literature, it was not uncommon to find land features which were very dark in complexion referred to as being “black as Erebus.”

Sagamore Golf Course
Near Bolton Landing, NY.

Oct. 11, 2026

10/21/2026

To keep with the form of sharing photos this week that I snapped on the last true day I had with my Sweet Pea Puppy Dakota, after swinging by Jabe Pond I worked my way south before cutting up and over County Road 11, just north of Bolton.
I stopped along the side of the road to take a couple shots of the colors around the Sagamore Golf Course.

The course was originally designed by Donald Ross, a Scottish immigrant and golf course architect responsible for creating many legendary destinations, including Aronimink Golf Club, Seminole Golf Club, Oak Hill Country Club, and the celebrated Pinehurst No. 2.
Ross himself built The Sagamore Resort’s golf course in 1928, but it was purchased by the hotel a year later at a discounted rate due to the harsh economic effects created by the Great Depression.
In true Donald-Ross fashion this course has many challenging super long par-4's that are tough to birdie. If they're not long, then they curve in a way that forces you to lay-up and have a long approach shot.
As a golfer this course is built for big hitters who are really consistent, as a person who is neither of those this course is fun, but can humble you really quickly lol.

The Sagamore Course is by far the nicest course in the area, only rivaled by the Glens Falls Country Club (another Donald Ross course). That said, even though it is perched on the hills above the lake, the first hole is the only hole that you can see the lake or even the surrounding mountains! So you are really just ponying up for the course, not the surrounding nature.
But if you are an avid golfer, I'd highly recommend playing it at least once.

Sagamore Golf Course
Bolton, NY.

Oct. 11, 2026