Curvy

I have tried to get this shot before in different ways.  I tried it with a wide-angle lens and didn't get the effect that I wanted.  Today I was traveling with the 70-200mm lens so I tried zooming out all the way and this is the result.  It is the best way to show how curved the railing is that runs along the water at the edge of the harbor.  This is just an interesting exercise in composition and design.

 

A Man and His Dog

I did my walk to the old power plant today because the temperature was about 42 degrees which was the first time above freezing for several days.  It was sunny and a nice day for a walk.  I looked over the railing along the harbor and saw this man walking his dog.  The dog would run way out ahead of him, then turn and run back.  I liked the shadows of both the man and the dog, and I followed them for only a short time, and only took about 4 frames.  I like this one best because of the shapes of the man and the dog and the shadows.

 

Night Train

There is a fairly famous photograph from a well known photographer in Maine.  It shows a steam engine at night, stopped at a small station during a snowstorm.  That photograph has always stayed with me and I have always hoped to take some kind of photograph here on Long Island, with a night train at this station.  I haven't gotten that picture yet.  And this isn't that picture.  But I do like the feeling of this photograph, taken right after the train I came in on left the station.  It would have been better if it was raining or snowing, of course.  I do like the mood of this photograph, though.

 

Ice Storm!

I woke this morning to find a thin layer of white snow that had fallen over night, and on top of that was a layer of ice.  It was still raining lightly in the morning and that rain was adding to the ice on everything.  The ice, although dangerous, made for spectacular scenery!  I was seeing photographs everywhere.  This photograph is the famous Japanese maple as you have not seen it before.

This is a closeup of the end of one of the Japanese maple branches.

Another more recognizable view of the maple tree.  It is hard to see but the top branches are illuminated by the sun later on in the afternoon.

A view of two trees seen from the back yard.

And this is the tall Hickory tree in our front yard.  What makes this spectacular is the blue sky behind the branches, and the branches are lit by sunlight.

 

Train Time

I named this photo "Train Time" because it has trains in it.  But "Train Time" came to mind because it is one of my favorite tracks from the group Cream's "Wheels of Fire" album, which, of course has nothing to do with this photograph.  This is the Jamaica train station of the Long Island Railroad.  I was on the train from Penn Station and I have to transfer from the New York train to the Oyster Bay train, which is the one that goes to Sea Cliff.  You take the escalator from one platform, then walk across an elevated walkway to the escalator that goes down to the other train.  The setting sun was shining to the west, and people were going down the escalator.  I waited until they got to the bottom so they didn't block the scene.  A late winter afternoon at the train station.

 

The Hotel Grey Ne

Another photograph during my 20 block walk north on Broadway, on the upper west side.  I think I know what this photograph is about.  Maybe.  It's about the red light on the building from the neon sign advertising this hotel, and it is also about the pale blue light in the sky at dusk.  And of course what makes it all fun is that three letters are not illuminated on the sign so it is advertising the "Hotel Gray Ne" instead of "Hotel Graystone."  I really do love the colors in this photograph.

 

The Metro Diner

To get to the dinner last Friday night, I decided not to take the subway the whole way to the 103rd Street subway stop, but to get off at 86th street.  I was ahead of schedule and needed to kill some time, so I decided to walk 20 blocks.  I don't remember the last time I walked up Broadway this high up.  It was fun just to see the neighborhood, and some of the buildings and restaurants, and some of the architecture.  This diner at 100th street grabbed my attention from a block away.  I just like the design of the neon signs advertising the place. It's a nice photograph, except for the garbage out at the curb.

 

R.S.V.P 1 - Senga Nengudi

It is really interesting to me when I walk into a gallery and a work of art jumps out at me.  I have no idea why that happens.  I really don't.  But this sculpture did just that.  It was quite different both in the way it was displayed, and the shapes, which are so unusual.  This is a close-up of the main part of the sculpture. 

This is a photograph of the entire sculpture.  It is made with nylon stockings and sand.  The title is R.S.V.P 1 and I have no idea what that means.  But here is what the sculpture is about:  "R.S.V.P. 1 reflects on Nengudi's first pregnancy and her experience of watching her changing body.  "I am working with nylon mesh because it relates to the elasticity of the body," she explained.  "From tender, tight beginnings to sagging...   the body can only stand so much push and pull until it gives away, never to resume its original shape."

 

Construction at Penn Station

When I was in the city last week to go to MoMA I saw once again the construction at Penn Station.  I tried a few photographs with the 24mm setting on my zoom lens, but it wasn't enough of a wide-angle to take in what I wanted.  So when I went back to the city for dinner the other night, I brought along the borrowed 18mm lens that I repaired.  It was perfect for this shoot.  I wanted to show the huge beams that are are overhead.  I believe they are supporting the construction that is going on above this concourse.  The new construction is going to raise the ceiling of this concourse eventually.  The size of the beams is astounding.  I wish I knew what was going on up above them.

 

Dunkin' Doesn't Care!

You know what huge fans we are of Dunkin' Donuts, right?  Every Tuesday for the last 9 years!  Well, several weeks ago I asked for my regular "powdered old fashioned donut" and they didn't have any.  The next week they didn't have them either.  In fact, they had NO powdered donuts of any kind!  No Bavarian Cream donuts, no Lemon donuts, not even any powdered Munchkins!  The woman that we are friends with in "our" store said they couldn't get any powdered sugar.  So the next week I bought an "old fashioned" donut, and we brought confectioner's sugar in a bag, in the car, and I powdered it myself!  But two weeks after that, still no powdered donuts.  I even tried other stores just to check.  Now by this time all of you would have headed to Google to see what's going on.  Finally I did that.  They are no longer making ANY donuts with powder on them!  They have cut back on their donut offerings to make things simpler for their stores.  Phooey on that!  So Kathy said "I can make you powdered donuts."  So she made a batch of 8 of them today and to save oil and a mess, we cooked them one at a time in a small sauce pan and they are out of this world.  Kathy is, as they say on the "Great British Baking Show" a "Star Baker."  Man, is she ever!  These donuts are light and fluffy just like the ones from Dunkin'  I can't believe there has not been an insurrection by all the powdered donut lovers by now.  Pay attention, Dunkin.'  Consider this "a shot across the bow!"

 

A Celebration!

Another dinner in the city!  But this one is a celebration, instead of a farewell dinner.  The occasion is that Chirag, in the center with the flags, and his wife are now U.S. Citizens!  They are both from India, and we are better for their presence in the United States.  They are both brilliant people - Chirag is a doctor who is doing research at a major hospital and his wife is in the medical field as well.  What's interesting is that they had to give up their Indian citizenship.  Now they will need visas to visit the country they were born in.  It was a joyous occasion for all of us!  Stan is on the left, and Preston is on the right - this celebration was his idea.  We talked about learning photography, which both Chirag and Preston are doing and music and life and creativity.  What an inspiring evening!

 

That Was Fast!

I drove down to the end of our street, heading over to the hardware store and was stunned to see that there were trucks, and a wood chipper and a Bobcat front end loader, and the trees were gone!  Wow, just like that!  I only took my photographs of the trees yesterday!   It looks so strange to have nothing sticking up into the sky in this spot, because for nearly a mile, all you see is all of these Sycamore trees like a picket fence,  And now there is a huge gap.  They will plant new trees to replace them, but they will be very small for a long time.

 

The Kiss of Death

The kiss of death.  The orange "X" on the tree.  Actually there are orange "X's" on two of my favorite Sycamore trees down at the harbor.  You will be surprised when you see the trees that are my favorites.

It's these two trees.  Clearly they are in bad shape and the one on the right is almost completely dead.  This has happened to a number of these beautiful Sycamores which run along the shore for almost half a mile!  So why would these half-dead and twisted be my favorites?  Because they make far more interesting foregrounds for my photographs of the Moon and the planets than a normal tree would.  So I will be sorry to see these two trees go, but they have been planting new trees to replace the trees which have died, and new trees will replace these.  But I, for one, will miss them.

 

The Impossible III

 

How is this for artwork that is stunning beyond belief!  When you walk into this gallery at MoMA and see this, you can't take your eyes off it!  I did two different views of it because it is hard to see what this is in only one photograph.  This sculpture is called "The Impossible III" and it was created by Maria Martins, a Brazilian, in 1946.  The text for this piece says:  "The spiky tentacles reaching toward each other in this bronze sculpture are locked in an embrace that suggests both opposition and attraction.  'It is nearly impossible to make people understand each other." Martins said, and feeling that may be the source of the interaction depicted here."

Wonder Woman

                                                

We stepped into a small area outside of a gallery and this was straight ahead of us.  The thing is, seeing this video screen on a pole was what first grabbed my attention.  That just seemed so unusual, a single floor to ceiling pole with a TV screen in the middle!  The artwork was not the screen and the pole, it was the video that was playing on the screen.  And the video was Wonder Woman!  There were clips of her from the TV show showing her in action, and explosions!  The piece is called "Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman 1978-79," by Dara Birnbaum.  At that time, she began working with footage hijacked from television broadcasts.  She re-edited material from the popular program "Wonder Woman" to emphasize how mass media alternates between heroic and trivializing depictions of women.  "Where am I between the two?" Birnbaum has asked.  "I'm a secretary, I'm a Wonder Woman, and there's nothing in-between.  And the in-between is the reality we need to live in."

Frosting

I woke this morning to about three inches of relatively light snow.  The good news was that there was no wind at all and a very light snow continued to fall.  It was also great that without any wind, the snow was sticking to the tops of the branches and staying there.  It looked like frosting on the trees!  These were the perfect conditions for great photographs.  I started with photographs of the Japanese maple in the front yard and then walked down to the harbor, and when I saw these Sycamores covered with snow, I knew I had the photo!

 

Bright and Sunny

This is not a single painting, it is a collection of two dimensional paintings arranged on the wall and on a carpet on the floor.  When I came into this gallery I was stunned by how bright and sunny this all felt.  I could feel my spirits lifted!  The piece is called "Still Life #57" by Tom Wesselmann, and is considered "Pop Art."  The text on the wall says: "Like most still lifes, this one presents a number of ordinary domestic objects -- including an orange, a bouquet of flowers, a light switch, a radio and a tablecloth.  The artist spent three years developing this monumental work."  What do you think of this?

 

Richard Serra's "Equal"

Here is an amazing work of art.  I am at a loss to explain this to you, so I will use the words of the curator who wrote this about the artist and the work: "The sculptor Richard Serra has explored the basic properties of his medium through the most straightforward yet extraordinary means.  Rather than concern himself with images, Serra studies, form, including its mass, weight, ability to delineate space and the ways it behaves under the pressures of gravity.  As a result, his sculptures produce in us a heightened awareness of our surroundings.“Equal” consists of eight forged-steel units stacked in pairs.  Each of these solid forms measures five by five and a half by six feet and weights forty tons and measures eleven feet tall.  This simple construction - one unit sitting atop another yields a variety of experiences; the massive sculpture may overwhelm the viewer and, in this sublimity invite contemplation."  I hope that gives you a sense of the power of this piece and how astounding it is to walk into this room and experience this amazing work of art.

 

Monoliths

I went to Fun City today to go to the Museum of Modern Art and see some of the exhibitions with my friend Stan. I took the subway to Rockefeller Center and then walked up Sixth Avenue to 53rd Street  where the Museum of Modern Art is.  I haven't walked up Sixth Avenue in a bunch of years.  I was stunned to see how there is a wall of skyscrapers that are just rectangular buildings with no particular architectural interest at all.  They are just monoliths.  Not interesting at all.

Here is a view of Sixth avenue showing building after building along Sixth avenue, looking south.  I have spent so much time in this area when I was working, but I just don't remember this wall of buildings.

 

A Sun Dog!

So it's the usual thing, I walked down to the water on a cold day, to see what I can see.  I was stunned to see this Sun Dog as the first thing I spied when I got to the harbor!  I don't remember the last time I saw one of these, and this one is quite brilliant.  Sun Dogs are an atmospheric optical phenomenon that consists of a bright spot to one or both sides of the Sun.  They are caused by the refraction and scattering of light from hexagonal ice crystals suspended in high and cold cirrus or cirrostratus clouds.  The crystals act as prisms, bending the light rays passing through them.  Sun dogs are best seen and most conspicuous when the sun is near the horizon.  A beautiful thing is it not?

 

So Many Sea Gulls!

I have never seen so many seagulls just floating on the water together!  And I am down at the beach a lot, walking along the shore, as you know.  There was very little wind, and I think the tide was nearly high, but I just can't imagine why such a large group is floating here like this.  It doesn't seem a common sight, in my experience.  So I wasn't sure whether to call these birds Gulls or Seagulls, or Herring Gulls.  I decided to check Wikipedia to get an answer.  "Gulls or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari.  They are most closely related to the terns (family Sternidae) and only distantly related to auks, skimmers and even more distantly to waders.  Until the 21st century, most gulls were placed in the genus Larus, but that arrangement is now considered Polyphyletic, leading to the resurection of several genera."   I guess that didn't help much.  But I do think that some of them may be "Herring Gulls."  Please click on the image to make it larger and to better see how many gulls there actually are here!   

Aerial Photograph

When we went to the beach for coffee, the drift fences had done their job after the last snow storm.  There was snow on the back side of the fence, where it should be.  What was interesting were the patterns of the blown snow, with some of the snow mixed with sand that had been blown as well.  I got out of the car to do a wide-angle photograph of the fence and the drifts.  Kathy got out as well, and she was looking down at the snow drifts.  So I walked up to where she was and started looking closer at what she was seeing.  I was amazed!  I found a number of photographs of the patterns of snow and sand that looked as if I had photographed them from an airplane!

 

Blue Sky and Sunshine!

It was a beautiful day today, and so I did my walk as usual in the afternoon.  It was so nice, after so many cloudy days recently, to just be under a blue sky with the sun shining!  It was 26 degrees out, but that was comfortable because there was no wind to speak of and I was dressed properly.  So how do I show what a beautiful day it was?  Photograph the sky, I guess, and the sun.  So what might make this a little more interesting would be to have an interesting foreground.  So I chose these pruned Sycamore trees along the harbor that are always so strange.  Oh, and I used my newly repaired lens for this as well!

 

The Broken Lens Really Works!

Two days ago I posted a photograph of trees in the fog with a blue background.  I took that with the lens I managed to fix so that it would work.  When I left the house with the lens on my camera, of course the first place I stopped to take a photograph was at the Japanese maple tree.  Of course!  So here is the tree in a different way than I have photographed it before.  It is foggy out, and the sun has set long ago. I guess the scene is a bit bleak, but still beautiful in its way.  Because this 18mm lens is a super wide angle lens, it takes in a lot more of the tree than in other photographs I have done.  This is kind of moody and dark but beautiful in its own way. Please click on the photograph to see a larger version.

 

How To Fix a Lens!

This could be really boring.  So if you get tired of hearing about how I fixed this lens, you have permission to leave the class!  This one of the two parts I got when my friend gave the lens to me to try and fix.  It is the bayonet mount that attaches to the rest of the lens, and the side facing down attaches to the camera, and this was broken off when the lens and camera crashed to the pavement.  Notice the four black pieces sticking up from the silver circle?  Those are the plastic posts that are supposed to connect this bayonet ring to the body of the lens.  They fractured off when the lens crashed.  And notice the orange ribbon cable sticking up - that was ripped out of its connector when the lens was broken in two pieces.

This is the rest of the lens body, with a circular circuit board attached by the two orange ribbon cables, and a third ribbon cable that sticking up.  Eventually that will have to be attached to the circular circuit board.  The red lines each point to a ragged spot on the lens body where the plastic posts were before they fractured off in the impact. This lens is a completely different animal from the old camera lenses that were all completely mechanical.  This lens is completely electronic.  There are no gears for focusing, or for moving the diaphragm which changes the opening through the lens. Everything is done with little stepper motors that are connected with these ribbon cables.  The focusing is done electronically with little stepper motors as is the setting of the lens aperture as well. It is a whole new world out there with these modern cameras and lenses.

This is a close up of the back of the bayonet ring.  Notice the nice clean hole in it, it is where the screws go through to fasten this ring to the black plastic posts.  You can see how complex the ribbon cable is as well with each orange strip acting like a separate wire.

The force of the crash was so strong, that the screw that went through this hole, tried to pull through the bayonet ring and deformed it before the black post broke off.  I had to grind these rings down flat as part of the repair.

Here are the two parts of the broken lens, while I was getting ready to glue the bayonet ring with the little black posts still fastened to it, back on to the lens body.  The lead weight weighs about 10 pounds and will be used to hold the two pieces together after I put drops of glue on the little posts and then position the ring and the posts over the body of the lens.  The square of blue masking tape is protecting the rear element of the lens from any damage while I am working on the lens.

Here the lens is, where it sits for 14 hours while the industrial epoxy cures.  When I was sure that everything was glued properly, I removed the screws from the bayonet and removed it.  Then I could fold in the circular circuit board to where it belongs inside the lens.  You can see the tips of that board above the weight.  Then I had to delicately re-attach the three ribbon cables you saw sticking up in the air in the first two photographs.  My fingers are large and working in a small space with such delicate and small pieces was not easy!  

And here is the repaired lens.  I was actually stunned when I put the lens on the camera, turned the camera on, and pushed the shutter release on the camera.  There was a little whir from the stepper motor and I the lens focused!  I was astounded!  I could not believe that I had actually managed to get the lens working.  It is not perfect - the lens can not be focused manually, and the little digital readout in a window on the lens doesn't light up.  BUT...  I can take photographs with this!  The photographs are not perfectly sharp when I use the lens at f/2.8, it's maximum aperture but stopped down to f/5.6 or f/8 the images look perfectly sharp.  Wow!  I can't believe I managed to do this!  The cost of this lens when new was $1,400 so it is amazing that it will work again after the damage, even if it is not perfect.

A Broken Lens

I love when it is raining lightly and there is snow on the ground - the result is a low layer of fog maybe only 50 feet thick.  It is such a beautiful thing to see among trees where the ones in the distance begin to fade in the fog.  So that's the story of this photograph.  But let me tell you about the lens I used today.  A friend of mind was doing some night sky photography up in the Catskills.  A runner without a headlamp on at night, ran into her tripod, which had her camera and a wide angle lens on it.  The camera and lens smashed into the concrete.  It cost $600 to fix the camera. The lens, which was worth $1,400, had broken in two pieces and would have cost $900 to repair, so it was totaled.    So six months later I asked my friend if I could take the pieces and see if I could do anything with them, and so she said "sure, it's no good as it is."  I spent days looking at the pieces and thinking about the possibilities.  I thought I might have only a 25% to 50% chance of fixing it because it is an all electronic lens - nothing is mechanical.  The lens is filled with circuit boards and ribbon cables.  So at a friend's recommendation I bought some special industrial epoxy and then did some gluing.  Then I spent a week contemplating what was next.  Then I spent yesterday and today putting the lens back together and then taking it apart again! It worked, but it didn't focus!  So I took the lens apart and tried a few things that didn't work then put it together again.  The short version is, that I was finished with the repair after sunset tonight, and I raced out of the house, and over to this park to take some photographs of the trees in the fog.  This is the first photograph with the lens I repaired.  I am stunned that I was able to make this lens work again!

 

Ice on the Rocks

This title is funny:  Usually you have scotch on the rocks.  I did the walk today.  It looks cold because the sky is overcast and there is ice in the picture.  But actually it was pleasant - the temperature was 40 degrees.  I had seen these rocks covered with ice a week ago, and I was surprised that the ice was still there.  So with the gray sky the rocks were standing out because they were white and stood out with all the dark tones in the photograph. While I was composing this, I suddenly noticed a small figure to the left of center walking out of picture!  Please click on this to see it larger.

 

Our Garden Angel Looks So Cold

I have photographed our garden angel so many times since I got her and placed her in the garden.  The first photograph I can find of her here was in 2009 so we have had her for at least twelve years, but I think much longer.  I have photographed her in all seasons, but probably more in the winter, because she looks so cold.  I would be cold just photographing her for half an hour.  Imagine living outdoors in the winter!  I never get tired of trying to find a different photograph.  This shot may show her in better detail than any of the other ones where I have photographed her from further away.  The interesting thing is that the lichen which grows on her appeared right away, it seems, but has not increased to cover more of her in all this time.