Phragmites

"Phragmites is a genus of four species of large perennial reed grasses found in wetlands throughout temperate and tropical regions of the world.  Phragmites stands can provide food and shelter resources for a number of birds, insects, and other animals.  The leaves, roots, seeds and stems of phragmites are edible. Young shoots can be cooked or eaten raw just like bamboo shoots. The young stems, "while still green and fleshy, can be dried and pounded into a fine powder, which when moistened is roasted like marshmallows."  Thank you Wikipedia!  So there is all the official information about these plants which I have seen all my life, living near Long Island Sound, both in Connecticut and in New York.  I never knew any of this more technical information.  I photographed this group on one of my walks, when I stopped at Scudders Pond, when it was overcast late in the day.  I love this photograph because it is "monochromatic" - almost all the things in the photograph are nearly the same color.  And I love the softness of everything as well.

 

What a Difference a Window Makes

I know I just posted a close up of the large tree so it seems strange to photograph a less interesting photograph of the whole scene.  I mean, why do that?  I will tell you why.  I saw this wide angle scene out our south bedroom window this morning, and took a shot just for the record.  Then I happened to glance our of our east bedroom window, and THIS was the scene from that window!

What a difference!  Hard to imagine that 50 feet in the other direction, the colors are so completely different.  OK, no more Fall color!   :-)

 

Two Days Later

I woke up this morning and while brushing my teeth in the bathroom, looked out the window and saw this!  Two days ago, when I did my "Fall Color" post, this tree was still filled with green leaves.  One day later and it is magnificent in its peak fall color!  How beautiful this is with slightly different color leaves, depending on which part of the tree the leaves are in.  This scene and this photograph made my day!

 

Fun With A Drone

 

Stan come out today because he wanted to fly his drone,  He hasn't flown it in a while, and, by law, he can't fly it in New York City.  And also I needed help with a new version of Photoshop that I bought, and it is quite different from my current version which I bought in 2012!  So we had fun flying the drone, and here is a photograph that the drone took of the two of us.  Then I cooked his favorite meal that he loves to eat when he is at our house, Mediterranean Salmon.  After dinner we did some more Photoshop work.  What a great day!  Oh, the white "H" on the blue circle?  Stan's drone is SO smart that it is unbelievable...  It remembers by GPS where it started hot and it flies to that spot, then its camera sees the "H" and the drone lands automatically!  That is beyond astounding!

Fall Comes to our Back Yard!

I was changing into my riding gear to do a ride today, and when I looked out of our bedroom window,  there was this magnificent yellow tree, ablaze with color!  I have been watching this tree, but I had not seen it backlit by the sun, as it was today at 3 PM!  So I grabbed my camera, and then had to open the inner window sash, and then lift up the lower storm window, so that there were no windows between my lens and this scene.  I have been looking for any kind of fall color close by, and finally found it!  Oh happy day, and I had a great bike ride because it was 57 degrees out, and that means I don't have to bundle up that much to ride in these temps.

 

A Little Bit of My History

I was in the attic looking for a book.  I saw a plastic sheet with a number 35mm color transparencies in it.  I was absolutely stunned when I held up the sheet to the light and saw about a dozen portraits of Gloria Steinem!  I nearly fell down!  I remember this portrait session with her,  back in 1974.  It was so cool to be photographing her because she was one of the more famous leaders in the Women's Movement at the time!  There was a little bit of "I can't believe I am here photographing her" the day I was there!  She was really nice and generous with her time while I was photographing her.  Wow, what an amazing job I had!

American Vernacular

I was on my bike ride today, and every day I ride, I climb a short, steep hill and pass this house, and a couple others that seem quite old, based on their architectural style.  I am guessing that these were the first houses in the neighborhood.  I was amazed to see this motorcycle parked right in front as I went by!  So I stopped immediately and got out my iPhone, the only camera I carry with me on my bike rides. The quality is OK, but I wish I had my SONY a7 with me instead. But I love the shot!

 

Ferns & Vines in Fall

I took one of my walks down to where the old power plant was.  It is almost a three mile walk, so when I was walking back up Laurel avenue,  I was not looking as carefully for photographs as I am when I start my walks.  But as I was just about to walk up my driveway, I looked down at the fern bank and saw this scene.  It is interesting how many different colors there are here, with green vines. and ferns of many colors.  Beauty as Fall fades into Winter.

 

The Last Roses

I looked across the side yard and was surprised to see four roses still on the rose bushes.  The roses have done well this year, there have been so many blossoms on these bushes all season long.  So when I saw them, I wanted to show that the whole bush was almost empty.  So I tried different compositions, and I liked this one best, with the whole right side of the image just an empty rose bush.  Which makes the bright red roses more obvious on the other side of the image.

 

Caumsett X

 

OK, so this is my last post from my hiking trip at Caumsett State Park.  And once again I am fascinated by the beautiful grasses there.  These grasses appear different in that the golden ones seem to be emerging from another type of grass that is lower, and which is green.  I have no idea what these all are.  But in this photograph I like that these are tufts of one kind of grass are interspersed with the other, lower kind of grass.   To me this scene is just beautiful.  And I promise not to post any more photographs from this trip!  As they say on Monty Python "And now for something completely different."

Caumsett IX

I was walking along a paved path out in the open when I saw this hawk in grass that was perhaps 8" tall.  It was hopping around just a bit, and then I realized that it probably was holding something he had caught, down on the ground.  I stayed at some distance, not to spook him.  After a minute or so he flapped his wings and lifted off, carrying a small mouse!  He flew into this tree, which fortunately I could still see with my 200mm telephoto lens.  I watched him pull off pieces of the mouse and eat them, while keeping the mouse firmly in place with his claws.  Wow, what an awful way to die if you are a mouse.  The laws of nature at work I guess.  I think this is a Red Tail hawk, and I love how beautiful they are in their fierceness.  I love to watch raptors as they glide along looking for their prey on the ground.  But I have never seen this before.

 

The Ghost of Ken

The other day, I was reading about Andrew Wyeth, and I looked at some of his paintings, which are all about light.  After I took a shower I walked into Liz' bedroom to hang my damp towel on this hanger attached to the door.  I stopped in my tracks, looking at my lightly used, ironed white shirt, and seeing the white on white and the white doorknob, knew I had to photograph this, which of course I did.  I thought about how it was kind of a ghost of myself, hanging there on the door.

 

Setting up a Telescope

This is Tony, one of the members of our club setting up one of his telescopes for the observing session for the Long Island Cares benefit.  Believe it or not, it was completely dark out and I was walking around with my camera set on 12,800 for the digital sensitivity and my 50mm f/1.4 lens.  I was stunned to discover, as you saw the other day, my photo of a mother and daughter looking through my telescope, that I can actually take photos in the dark with my SONY camera!  Tony was easy to see and photograph because he left his car running so he could make use of his red running lights to give him enough light to see by to set up his telescope.  I love that the all red scene makes the photo jump out!

Another photograph in the dark, seriously, of three Long Island Cares people who were at the event.  This is near the end of our observing because the clouds had moved in. We got a really good turnout and because of that, everyone looks really happy.  Fortunately they all got to see the moon before it clouded over.  I know this photograph looks like daylight, but I promise you it was completely dark out!

 

Another Tree

A different tree not too far from the first tree, but a whole different feel to the photograph.  And that is the planet Venus to the left of the tree.  I love how the sky still has a glow at the horizon, and then gradually fades up in to darkness as we look higher.  This is such a familiar scene to me as over the years, I sit with my telescope set up, waiting for night to arrive, so that I can begin observing.

So we started observing at 6 PM last night, showing visitors the Moon through our telescopes.  We had perfectly clear skies until 8:30 and then clouds moved in and covered the moon.  There were openings in the clouds from times to time, and looking through the telescope as the thinner clouds raced across the face of the Moon was a special treat.

 

A Tree Full of Stars

A Tree Full of Stars!  We had another outreach event tonight at Sunken Meadow State Park.  It was an event to raise money and get food donations for Long Island Cares, The Harry Chapin Food Bank.  There were something like 20 astronomers with telescopes from two different astronomy clubs here.  And the public turnout looked pretty good which was great because this is the first time we did this.  When I arrived it was dark and I took a walk over to the administration building, and as I was leaving, here was this tree right in front of me, illuminated by a spotlight on the building.  It stopped me in my tracks.  My camera was in the car, so I took about a dozen images with my iPhone 12.  The exposure for this was at least two seconds, but the phone is amazing and this image seems as sharp as a tack.  What I love is that it appears that the tree is full of stars.  Actually, those are the few last leaves still clinging to the branches after all the others have fallen.  And the brightest spot near the center of the tree is the planet Venus!  Wow, how cool is this shot!

 

Mother, Daughter and a Telescope

Our astronomy club had an outreach event tonight for students and parents at an elementary school.  We had been there last year and had gotten a good turnout - 100 people.  This year we had 250 people!  It was a big hit.  I wanted to do some photographs, but there were so many people in line that I didn't have much time to photograph.  I finally grabbed a few shots near the end, and this was one of them.  I love how the mom looks like a madonna and the way she has her hand on her daughter's back, steadying her daughter as she looks in my telescope to see the planet Jupiter, and four of it's moons.  It was a wonderful evening.

 

Caumsett VIII

"When is he going to stop this thing with the grasses?" you might be asking.  Well, not for a while yet.  I think these grasses are just stunning and I have never seen anything like this before. What is strange is that I have been going to Caumsett in the fall for a few years now and I just don't remember seeing grasses like these.  They are all so delicate I could look at them for an hour, and the colors are so subtle.  "Make him stop!"  Well, I am almost done with my Caumsett collection, you will be glad to know.

 

Caumsett VII

 

Phragmites!  I have always loved these.  This patch of them was down by the pond.  They are really spectacular when the sun is shining on them from behind, as it is here.  They are not as interesting when the sun shines directly on them from the front.

Caumsett VI

Caumsett is such a beautiful place with all kinds of different areas, from open fields, to ponds, forests, and the shoreline of Long Island Sound.  This is one of the main roads that goes by fields and then into the forest.  It is paved for cyclists, and walkers.  There are other trails through the woods that are just dirt tracks and that's fine, but at least everyone can see part of Caumsett because of roads like this.  I was hoping for really bright Fall colors, but the different trees change color at different times, so there was not one particular area where everything had fall color.  I shot several photos of this scene without moving and as the pedestrian walked by me, I photographed him as he walked away, getting smaller and smaller.  I think this size is just right - to be an object of interest, but also, to not be too much of a distraction.

 

Caumsett V

 

There is something about the delicacy and beauty and subtlety of these grasses.  Caumsett has huge areas where they grow and they are magnificent in the long view, as you saw in my first post, and they are also so beautiful seen up close, as in this photograph.  The differences in color don't jump out at you.  So this may not be a "complete" photograph, but I also wonder what it would look like printed large, like a 20" by 30" and framed.  It makes me feel so good just looking at this scene, both in person when I was there, and in this image seen on the computer.

Caumsett IV

OK, so here's what you have been looking for!  Beautiful Fall color!  Finally.  What's interesting is that I did not see a lot of scenes like this that would make an interesting photograph.  So may of the trees were either bare, or had not changed color yet, so after a couple of hours hiking, I was thrilled to find this.  I spent some time composing and then shooting this and was happy with the composition and the photograph.  But then...

I was carefully looking at what I was photographing and realized that maybe I should shoot a horizontal photograph.  It seemed to me that the essence of this scene was the black trunks and the beautifully back lit yellow leaves.  This may be the important part of the photograph above.  I don't know, though.  Which one do you like better?

 

Caumsett III

OK, so back to my fall color posts from my trip to Caumsett State Historical Park.  So you probably expected an explosion of brilliant colors, since I said that's why I was out there hiking with my camera.  I was finding that I was not seeing any great fall color long views, although the first photograph of the hill and the pond certainly felt like Fall.  I began to feel that I was doing better at closeups than I was in long views.  (The photo of the pond and Long Island Sound was one of my last photographs.)  This is one of my earlier photographs and I really love the subtlety of this!  There is Fall color here, but only in two red leaves!  But I really like this image because it is interesting and not what you expect.  I hope you all find this interesting, at least.

 

Happy Halloween!

Look what we made today!  Kathy loved the photograph I did of the ghost inside the Caumsett mansion yesterday, so we we made our own!  We wanted to hang our ghost, so Kathy thought of using a balloon as the head, which is brilliant!  We used gaffer tape to fasten a paper clip to the top of the balloon and we could hang our ghost from the opening in the front porch!

And last year, sad to say, I never got around to carving a Jack-O-Lantern, for some reason.  I have always made a Jack-O-Lantern as long as we have been in this house, I think.  Anyhow, this year I am back in the groove, and here he is!  Behind him is a skeleton hanging on the wall.  It doesn't look like much, but if you press the button on it's hand, the skull's mouth opens,  a church bell rings and it says "Welcome!  Don't be afraid....  Aaaaa hahahahaha..."  We have had her for almost 5 years now and enjoy pressing the button when we pass her!  Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!

 

Caumsett II - "Boo!"

This really made me smile!  I mentioned that there were some students and a teacher, I thought, outside the main house at Caumsett.  After passing them, I walked toward the mansion and saw this in one of the windows!  There were two of these ghosts, and a then two more elaborate three-dimensional detailed figures in other windows.  But I loved the simplicity of this!  And it has a feeling about it, as if the ghost wants to get out but can't!  This would be so simple to make, and we will get a ball and a sheet and cut two oval eyes out of felt!  Happy Halloween, everyone!

 

Caumsett I

Oh happy day!  Ken is done with his "Walk's" series!  Now on to something better!  Monday I drove out to Caumsett State Historical Park, up above Huntington.  It is a 1,500 acre park that was once the home to Marshall Field III, the grandson of Marshall Field, the founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago based department stores.  It is a stunning park and a favorite place for me to walk and photograph.  I was there for about 4 1/2 hours and walked about 6 miles.  Boy, I feel that today!  So I will be showing you some of the photographs I found there.  It was a stunning day to be there with crystal clear blue skies which meant the water, both in the pond, here, and in Long Island Sound, beyond the pond, were a beautiful deep blue.  And the colors of Fall were everywhere, both in the grasses and in the colors of only some of the trees.  You couldn't help feeling good on a day like this!

 

I Went for a Walk No. 8

This is an intellectual exercise in design mainly.  I was pointing the camera out over the harbor toward the sound and enjoying the delicate pastel light.  Then I noticed the single tree on the horizon in the distance on the left side.  Then I happened to see the single rock down in the lower right hand corner.  So I thought about the balance in the photograph, and the similarity of the shapes of the tree and the rock, and so I composed this.  It was interesting for me to think about.  So maybe it is another "non-photograph."  The good news is that today I went on a photo expedition in a park, and tomorrow I will start posting those photographs to give you a change of pace. Whew!   :-)

 

I Went for a Walk No. 7

Toward the end of my walk, the sun was just setting.  These rivulets of water are actually from that outflow pipe that I posted yesterday!  I just thought they made a nice pattern which we can see because the rivulets are reflecting the light from the sky.  Something different, I thought.

 

I Went for a Walk No. 6

We had a rainstorm the day before my walk, and there is an outflow pipe that runs under Shore Road to take water from the higher parts of Sea Cliff and safely let it get to the harbor.  There may also be salt water in these flows because maybe the high tide backflows into this pipe.  I am not sure.  But I was surprised to see how much water was running out of the pipe when I passed by on my walk.  So...  Seeing the running water, I used the oldest trick in the book - make a longer exposure and the water which is moving is blurred in a lovely way, and everything else is sharp.  It is a nice effect in a landscape sometimes, but it tends to be over done sometimes.  I am not sure what you will all think about this - is this an unusual thing to see, or does it seem normal?  For the technically inclined, this was a 1/2 second exposure.  I was without a tripod so I held my camera tightly on top of the railing and carefully released the shutter, and most of the photographs are sharp.

 

I Went for a Walk No. 5

Sometimes a photograph is not a "complete" picture.  I mean, it is a picture of something, but I want my photographs to be something more than just a snapshot.  In college one of the my great teachers would refer to  some pictures as "fragments."  That was a great term.  A fragment has parts of a photograph, but may not be complex enough or interesting enough, or may need some other element in it to make it complete.  So I think that this is not quite a complete photograph.  If I had a longer lens with me I could have zoomed in a lot and made an interesting composition of just part of the center of the photograph.  I am not completely clear, other than to say that I needed a blog post and here it is and it is not one of my better photographs.

 

I Went for a walk No. 4

I had walked all the way to the turn around place down by the old power plant, and it was later when I got back to here and the sun was lower in the sky.  But the light was perfect for these Sycamore trees, which you have seen me photograph about a billion times.  But for me I needed something other than just the trees, and lucky for me, there were three people out walking at the same time.  But I had to wait carefully and only shoot when they were evenly spaced between two trees.  That's a subtle thing I know, but it seemed important to me to make the photograph more interesting.

 

I Went for a Walk No. 3

This was the first photograph that I took on my walk.  I saw the runner in the far distance and started shooting. As she got closer, she moved to my left on the sidewalk.  I would rather the runner stayed in the center of the sidewalk because it makes a better balance in the photograph.  Because of that, this photo is only OK, sorry to say.  But it is a photo from my walk.

 

I Went for a Walk No.2

I walked about one hundred feet from where I took yesterday's photograph and crossed the street and here is the pond I have photographed so many times.  There was not a breath of fresh air, so the pond is as perfect as a mirror.  What makes this interesting are the shapes of branches both seen directly and as  reflections.  Some of the colors of fall don't hurt to make the photograph more interesting.

 

I Went for a Walk No.1

When it gets to cold to ride my bike, a few years ago I started doing my three mile walk down to where the old power plant was.  I walk at a good clip, but I do stop to take photographs along the way, so my average speed is not that fast.  It is still warm, but I was a bit under the weather from jet lag last week, so I decided to do my walk, instead of my bike ride.  A bike ride for me is a full-on ride, with me mostly going full blast all the way.  A walk is more gentle.  Anyhow, this walk lasted well more than an hour because I kept seeing photographs on this late afternoon.  So I will show you some of the things that I saw and see what you think.  I saw the woman sitting on a bench and then I noticed the silhouettes of the trees, and then the shadow of the trees on the grass. Sort of a mirror image.  I am thrilled with this shot!  Let's see what else I came up with in further posts.

 

Barber Poles

The architecture at the Getty Center is so amazing - wonderful things going on everywhere.  When I came out of the cafeteria at the north end of the complex, I saw all these shadows on the floor and walls and the supports, from the open lattice overhead.  I had never seen this before and I thought it was amazing!  Trust me, these shadows are not formed by accident!  I called this "Barber Poles" because I remember the red, white and blue curved stripes on poles outside barber shops, in my youth, and these curved shadows remineded me of that.

 

On The Beach

I was on the beach in Venice waiting for it to get dark enough to begin looking for the comet.  I had my 200mm telephoto lens on the camera, on a tripod.  The beach was pretty much deserted, and this woman came walking down the beach behind me.  I was just idly following this solitary walker after she passed me, when she stopped and got out her phone, I guess to photograph the scene.  Seeing the blue glow in the middle of this scene, I quickly swung my camera around and was able to only shoot two frames.  But I recognized this as a different kind of landscape, or even portrait.  Perhaps just a bit mysterious.  This photograph has a really nice quality to it, I think.

 

High Flight

I am still a bit under the weather with jet lag, so I wanted some exercise, but didn't feel up to a bike ride which is always full on exercise.  So instead I decided to do my three-mile walk down to the old power plant.  I carried my camera, of course, and I cannot believe how many photographs I found along the way!  You will be seeing them eventually.  Near the end of my walk I noticed this contrail in the distance, in the southwest. I always wondered where these airplanes are going. So here's the cool thing - there is now an app for my iPhone called "FlightRadar 24."  You open it and it shows all the aircraft in the air near me.  And that is a lot of airplanes, given  I am so close to JFK and LaGuardia.  Anyhow I look to see what airplane is right overhead, and there it is.  This  aircraft is SAS Flight 926, which left Washington Dulles International, enroute to Copenhagen.  It is at 37,000 feet and it is an Airbus 330-343 and it has 6 hours and 55 minutes to go!  How cool is that.  When I see aircraft like this and use the app to check on them, and see where some of these are going, I get a feeling of wanderlust.

This is a maximum enlargement of the original photograph.  I shot the original image with my zoom lens at 105mm which is not a long telephoto.  But when I enlarged the image to maximum size I was surprised that I could see the airplane in detail!  And it is 7 miles above me! Please click on this to see it larger.

 

Vivian Playing The Joker

I just realized this - I took this portrait of Vivian just before I took the photograph of "The Barking Lot."  we were finishing our snacks and drinks and when we left this outdoor patio, I photographed the dog.  So Amy bought a healthy drink made from all kinds of berries all blended together.  The finished drink was a bright reddish in color.  While Vivian was drinking it she was using a straw, then she took the straw out and put it in her mouth sideways, so it gave her face the look of someone running wild with lipstick.  I thought she looked so cute with this red all around her mouth, sort of like the makeup the Joker wore in the last Batman movie!

 

The Barking Lot

We made a trip to a small shopping area in Playa Vista because there was a Whole Foods there and we needed to get some stuff.  There was a Starbucks there and so we got coffee and some goodies to go with it from Whole Foods.  I looked across the way from our table and saw this scene.  It made me laugh because it was so clever of the shopping center people.  You could tie up your dog here if you wanted to go into one of the stores!

 

Winging our Way Back Home

You will have to forgive me, because I have done similar photographs before like this.  But I am always so astounded by the beauty of seeing the world from the air.  And then add the orange glow of the sun which had set some time ago.  Our world is such an amazing place but we don't get to see such spectacular scenes every day.

 

The Princess Helps Walk the Dogs

Vivian loves to be a princess and Amy is wonderful letting her wear whatever she wants.  She showed up at Liz and Sarah's house today, wearing this beautiful dress and a gold tiara!  When it was time to walk the dogs, Vivian wanted to help, so off we all went with Vivian being the best dressed dog-walker ever!  So we all had fun walking around the neighborhood together.  Maybe Vivian had the most fun of all!

 

The Getty Center - Garden

I went to the Getty center the other day as you know because I took my first Uber to get there.  There is always so much to see.  The exhibits, the special shows, the architecture of the center, and the gardens.  You cannot begin to see it all in one day.  This is the South Promontory Cactus Garden, which is spectacular.  There are so many barrel cacti in the foreground, going all the way into the distance, and then you have the skyline of Los Angeles!  I mean, come ON!  This is unbelievable, and wonderful!  It is always a joy to visit this museum.

 

Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS

The latest excitement in the field of amateur astronomy is the arrival of a new comet named C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS.  It was discovered in China and the name of the observatory where it was discovered means "Purple Mountain."  A comet comes into the the inner solar system from way out beyond Pluto.  In late September it could be seen under good conditions early in the morning before sunrise, but only for a few days.  Then the comet went around the sun, and now is the time to see it after sunset for perhaps two weeks, but it is getting fainter by the day.

So here we are in Venice California visiting Liz and Amy and tonight was the first night that the comet would be visible after sunset.  I had some hopes because I would be looking from Venice Beach out over the Pacific ocean where there would less light pollution.  So I went to the beach and looked and hoped.  I had about given up because it was getting really dark with almost no color left in the sky.  And then, scanning the sky with 10x50 binoculars I saw it!  So I started shooting and these are two of the best photographs I got.  And I am thrilled!  I poster larger than normal images so please click on them.

 

Gymnastics Class

We had fun the other day because we got to go to Vivian's gymnastics class and watch all the children go through their exercises.  This is called, apparently "The Turtle."  They had the children warm up and then bounce along on some long trampolines and work their way around a kind of obstacle course, and then, on a really soft spongy floor, do a forward roll.  Most of the children enjoyed their exercises, and every mother had their phones out to photograph their kids.  I was lucky and had brought a 200mm telephoto lens and was able to get this close up image.

I always take a lot of photographs of course and for some reason this was my second favorite one of the day.  Not sure why, except maybe it was to show the size of the children or something.  Here their coach is about to explain the next series of exercises that the children will perform.