Fog Week VIII

 I was standing right by the shore when there was a flurry of activity with at least two separate groups of birds.  I forgot how it worked, but I think one group swooped in from the land, from the left and was in the process of landing, when another group came in and was approaching to land as well  In any case, the birds further back were obscured by the fog more and I got this really interesting photograph.  I think it is so beautiful!  It sort of feels like a Japanese tapestry.  But I have four different versions of this, so I may decide to post more than this one.  Oh, yeah, and yes, I know that a week only has seven days and I am posting "Fog Week VIII."

 

Fog Week VII

I found so much to photograph as I walked around in Morgan Park.  This interesting building, believe it or not, is the Glen Cove Yacht Club, next door to the park.  At first glance it looks more like a chapel.  But the trees near the church look wonderful with the fog and the landscape in the distance.  This one is a favorite!  I hope you are not bored with my fog photos, because I am not, and there are more to come!

 

Fog Week VI

I'm continuing to show you my fog photographs from Morgan Park. I have been in Morgan Park so many times, but on this day I stopped to read the bronze plaque that you pass by to get to the beach.  The park was given to the citizens of Glen Cove and Locust Valley by James Pierpont Morgan, Jr. in memory of his wife, Jane Norton Morgan, in 1932.  Here is this wonderful old tree, leaning to the west, with its twisted branches, and behind it are two beach pavilions made of brick, with slate roofs.  Here is the memorial plaque to Jane Norton Morgan.

 

Fog Week V

I forgot to mention that yesterday's photograph was the first one I took when I got to Morgan Park in Glen Cove, a huge park on the water in the next town over.  I walked carefully as I explored because there were geese everywhere and if you upset them, they will attack you.  I got clear of the flock and moved down by the water and then suddenly heard the honking of a whole bunch of geese, and then I heard the flapping of wings behind me.  So I quickly spun around and fortunately the zoom lens was set on wide angle and I managed to get one shoot of as the flock became airborn right over me.  No one was more surprised than me to look at the screen on the back of the camera and found that instinctively I had gotten a decent shot of the geese!

 

Fog Week IV

So I am getting a bit more subtle by posting this photograph of three trees, with the harbor and fog in the distance.  I just find it is a lot of fun to see something like these trees, and then I move around and change my position, or move closer or further away and watch how the relationship of the trees change in relation to each other.  I took a LOT of photographs of this scene and this is, as they say, "My Final Answer!"

 

Fog Week III

I guess you could call this my "Motif Number 1."  How many photographs have you seen me post of this scene?  After I took all those photographs at the foot of our street, I got back in the car and continued on my way to the store.  Well, I only went about two tenths of a mile before I came to one of my favorite places on Long Island, this point at Tappan Beach with the three trees.  And of course the fog was perfect for a completely different atmospheric sense of this scene.  The fog really is a magical thing!

 

Fog Week II

Yesterday I mentioned I went to Morgan Park in Glen Cove.  I took so many photographs that I figured I could do "Fog Week" as a result.  Well, today I was going over to the Apple store for a cord and charger, so I went down our street.  I was stunned when I saw this scene, with a layer of fog covering the water on the far side of the harbor.  So I started shooting!

The fog lent a kind of mysterious sense to the photographs of the harbor, and how lucky was I that this bird flew in to grab a fish in the water!  Without the bird, there would not be a center of interest.

So then I did a photograph looking south with Shore Road on the left.  Not too much fog in the foreground but you can easily see plenty of it in the distance.

I turned my back to look north and take a few photographs of the fog in that direction.  When I turned back south I could not believe my eyes!  In a minute or two, I think a very faint breeze came in from the west and gently moved the fog from the far side of the harbor to my side!  I was stunned at the change!  I have never seen anything like this before!  It was simply astounding, and beautiful!  Thanks to the bird that circled through the scene!

A neighbor passed me walking down the street with his dog, as I was done and heading back up to my car.  I said to him that I thought this was amazing and he agreed.  When he stood with his phone photographing the scene, I quickly grabbed my telephoto lens from out of the trunk, and managed to grab this shot from some distance away!  So many choices, so many interesting photographs.  Stay tuned for Fog Week Day III.

 

Fog Week I

"Fog Week" kind of like "Shark Week" you know...   :-)  This afternoon it was raining lightly, and then fog began to form.  I was out doing a couple of errands, and stopped at this baseball field in Sea Cliff to take some photographs.  This photograph is really about where various elements were "placed" in the image, based on where I stood and what focal length lens I used.  So it is about the fog, sort of, and it's not. When I was finished with my errands I drove up to Morgan Park in Glen Cove and spent an hour there taking photographs.  You will start to see those photographs tomorrow, and in the days following..

 

Our Garden Angel

This is our garden angel, which I bought in a garden store, and I think she has been in our garden at least 30 years.  I love how she has aged.  She was perfectly light gray when she arrived. I love the sense of age she is showing now.  And, honestly, she looks cold at this time of year.  I think she adds so much to our garden.

 

Moonrise

Stan is offering his online class, Introduction to Night Sky Photography again through the Amateur Astronomers Association of NY, and I decided to take the course again to be supportive.  Plus it is fun to see people starting out and to see what kinds of photographs they do as they learn their craft.  So I know that there will be some kind of moon assignment in the next week or two.  So I decided to go out and try and get an interesting photograph of the moon, while the sky was clear last night.  I took this looking up Laurel Avenue with a telephoto lens which makes the moon larger.  I tried other photographs, one at an older wood church with a nice steeple, but the moon was not in the correct position so that didn't work.  The original photograph was in color, of course, but I thought this photograph was more powerful in black and white.  

 

I Use a Fountain Pen

I use a nice fountain pen.  I have since about 1990.  Carry one with me every day.  Most people don't notice, for the most part.  I actually have a few different pens that I love and have purchased over the years.  These pens use replaceable plastic cartridges filled with ink, but I don't do that because that's a waste of money.  Being a Connecticut Yankee and wanting to save money, I refill one cartridge over and over from a bottle of ink using a syringe.  I save a fortune this way!  And maybe once a month I take each of my fountain pens apart and wash the nib and the feed part of the pen under warm water in the kitchen sink, to clean them and to keep the ink flowing after I have refilled them.  And sometimes, I get ink on me.  That's actually a badge of honor that fellow fountain pen lovers will notice right away! 

 

Music

OK, so you are going to think I have lost it now.  I am calling this "Music."  You will never guess what this is.  I was looking out the window this morning, and wanted to take a photo of the back yard, so I opened the inside window.  There was a strip of ice along the bottom of the the storm window.  The sun shining through the ice, leaving this shadow pattern on the windowsill.  The pattern reminded me of what an audio file looks like in an editing program.  Something I used when I was working and doing video.  OK, OK, not my greatest post...

 

Moonset

It was first quarter moon two nights ago.  So I used one of my astronomy programs to figure out when the moon would be near the horizon.  So at 1 AM I went down to the harbor with a couple of my telephoto lenses and photographed the moon as it was setting over Port Washington.  I guess the best part of this is the moonlight reflecting on the water.

 

Snow at the Beach

If this is Thursday, then this photograph couldn't have been taken at the beach, because we only go there on Tuesday!  Correct!  And that's when I took it!  But I wanted to show you other snow photographs before this one, so that's why I waited.  OK, so this isn't some beautiful landscape.  But I think it is interesting in a way.  I kept looking at this scene from the car, and finally decided to get my camera out of the trunk and do this photograph.  This scene seems like an intellectual investigation in composition.  There is an upper half and a lower half.  The upper half is soft and hazy.  The foreground is hard edged and is in contrast to the background.  Do you buy that?  It's not beautiful, but it is interesting.

The Rose Garden

For some reason, when I parked my car down by the planetarium tonight, I decided to look over the wall into the rose garden.  I hadn't thought about it, I was just curious.  When I saw the fountain brightly lit by some lights on the outside of the planetarium I thought about how different the garden is from when the roses are in bloom.  I guess because of that, this photograph is more striking than I would have thought.

 

Late Night Snow

I took the garbage can out to the street late last night and I was surprised to see that it was snowing!  So after I went back in the house I decided to grab my SONY camera and come back outside.  I have one lens for the SONY that is very special.  It is a 50mm focal length and it has a very wide aperture.  Most lenses these days are f/4 aperture.  The next larger aperture is f/2.8, and the next is f/2, and my lens is f/1.4.  That is a really wide aperture and lets in 8 times more light.  So I can easily take photographs in very dim light, like at night, which I did last night.

When the aperture is wide, then I can hand hold the camera and use a faster shutter speed, which in this case, freezes the snowflakes in flight.  I had two photographs I thought worth posting, so there they are.  No need to vote, I just wanted to give you separate photographs taken when it was snowing.

 

Computers and Maintenance and Archiving

There are some days I spend more than the usual amount of time on my computers.  It is amazing how many photographs I take each day.  I save every photograph I shoot, on external hard drives, like the ones you see here in many colors.  Each folder of photographs gets copied to two drives, for safety, in case one drive fails    It is surprising how much space the images from modern cameras take up, because they are of such high quality.  Those drives are my archives.   Then I also follow the practice of backing up each computer's drive once a month by making a "clone" of the computer's SSD drive, to a small portable drive.  I have my home laptop, the big one and I also have a smaller travel laptop.  So it seems I am always doing backups on one or the other of them.  It's a lot to keep track of.  Some days  photography seems like a lot of work!

 

Cat Flash

I got a new small flash unit that goes on my SONY camera.  So I am walking around the house photographing things with it.  Kathy does not like being photographed, so the next best things are the cats!  I was just experimenting with where to hold the flash.  I did shoot one picture with the flash held right over the lens but the image was too flat.  So then I held the flash up above Grace pointing down at her and that gave me a more three dimensional look.  Please click on this and see the detail in every hair on Grace's face!

 

The Little White Cloud

When I got to the bottom of my street, the first thing I saw was this little white cloud in the distance, against the dark gray clouds.  Not sure why this attracted me, but it did.  I kind of wondered why this cloud formed where it did.  So the trick was, what could I put in the foreground in order to make an interesting photograph of the cloud.  I walked along the edge of the harbor on my normal route south, until these two rocks came into view.  Something to balance the foreground I think.  So I think this does work to make a cloud photograph more interesting,  I wonder if you think the cloud is interesting - did you see it right away when you saw this photograph?

 

This Was Difficult

This photograph was difficult.  Not to take.  But to process afterwards so that it looks good.  I was on my bike and going by the golf course, when I saw the bright orange color between the horizon and the overcast clouds.  That's what made made me turn around and come back to shoot this.  I didn't have a camera with me only my iPhone.  And my iPhone is six years old, so it only shoots JPG files, not the new RAW files which are much better quality.  So after I took this I had to work on the image a lot, to make the dark shadows lighter, and the bright sky darker.  It was a complicated process.  When I was done, then I wasn't sure which version I liked best.  This one, cropped in closer, or the one below which gave a wider view of the scene and which included more sun and clouds.  So which one do you like?  I am really not sure which one my favorite is.  Please let me know what you think.

 

The Dog Walkers

I didn't get this photograph when I wanted to.  I was walking up 5th avenue and I saw these two dog walkers cross 5th avenue about a block ahead of me.  So I picked up the pace to try and catch up to them.  Unfortunately I didn't get close to them in time.  They made a left hand turn into Central Park when I finally caught them.  I took about 4 or 5 photographs and then stopped.  But when they were on 5th avenue the dogs were spread out more and that made a better picture.  So this is OK but it could have been better.  They sure are walking a lot of dogs!  It was better when you could see both of the walkers.

 

Fish. Swimming.

I went to the grocery store to get a piece of salmon for dinner.  While standing at the counter while my salmon was wrapped, I happened to look down and saw these fish on the ice.  It looked as if they were swimming upstream.  Well, except they were on ice.  There was something beautiful about the fish and their color and their shapes.

 

Buttonball Trees

When I was leaving the Metropolitan Museum of Art I was looking at everything, as I always do.  I have been here so many times - I am a member - but I never remembered seeing these trees.  Probably because they usually have leaves on them.  I bet, dollars to donuts, that they are Buttonball trees, formally known as Sycamore trees.  How do I know this?  Because all the tries that line the road by the harbor in Sea Cliff are Sycamore trees.  And my grandparent's farm was called "Buttonball Farm" because of the giant Sycamore trees in front.  I took this photograph because of the contrast between the trees with the dark clusters of branches on the end of each large branch.  That's how they trim the trees along the harbor.  The tree branches are going every which way and that contrasts with the smoothness of the museum building in the background. 

 

Life Imitates Art

Stan and Preston and I were having lunch in one of the small cafeteria type places in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  One of them, and I forget who, said "There's a picture!"  So I turned and looked in the direction they were looking and saw this!  I am thinking, "Yes, that's a good one!"  Well, I raise my always ready camera and I'm shooting this scene, and whoever suggested the photo said "No, not that, I was thinking of the scene over there."  But then they admitted this was worthwhile.  I just think it is so funny how I found this.  Actually only one of the women is imitating the art, but I will take that!

 

Mosaic

Before we leave Grand Central Madison, I want to show you this.  I was walking along the platform after getting off the train, and I saw this scene.  I can't remember what I saw first, the mosaic, or the young woman on the cellphone.  Without her in the photograph, there wouldn't be a photograph.  But the object of the photograph is this brilliant tile mosaic, one of the artworks in this new railroad station.  Seeing this mosaic with it's colors and fanciful designs made my day. Be sure and click on this an be amazed when it opens in a giant size.  It's stunning!

Welcome to the Space Station!

Welcome to the Space Station!  Oh wait!  This is not a space station.  It is called "Grand Central Madison" and it is a brand new terminal for the Long Island Railroad that is connected to Grand Central Station, and it is absolutely stunning and beautiful.  This new terminal started construction in 2008 and opened on January 25, 2023, and sits beneath Grand Central Terminal.  I mean WAY underneath Grand Central!  You cannot believe how far down under the street level.  I was stunned when I first arrived here in September for the first time.  It is bright and shiny and white and beautiful.  What a change from Penn Station on the other side of town, although as you have seen in previous posts about Penn Station, that station recently had a major make over. 

So I had a lot of fun photographing this station when I first arrived.  I mean, look at these cool reflections.  It really does look like a space station.  You come in on two different levels of tracks and on this level you first take a short escalator down one level.

That puts you in this corridor.  Notice the gentle curves in the ceiling and in the supporting parts of the arch to the right.  It is just elegant in its architecture.

This is a close up of something you can see in the previous photograph.  No practical purpose for the translucent blue floor or the opening in the ceiling with dark blue lighting, except it induces awe in the viewer, and I am good with that!

Turning right from the blue area, you are faced with this astounding escalator which has to be at least 200 feet long.  It seems to go on forever.  And it has a curved ceiling and tile on the walls!

Here is a view of the escalator from the top looking down.  This is just stunning!

This is where you come up from Grand Central Madison to the traditional Grand Central Station.  This is the dining area of Grand Central and the mahogany woodwork is quite a contrast to the white tile and aluminum of the new Long Island Railroad Station, which we have waited for, for years!

And this was a shock for me.  These are what the tracks look like for all the trains that come and go from Grand Central.  That includes the trains of the New York Central I would take to Rochester, New York for college, and before that, the trains I would take from Milford, Connecticut to visit New York City!  How is this for a shock.  I haven't seen this part of Grand Central Station for perhaps 60 years, and it seems unimaginable to me now!  What a difference!

 

Flower Child, Grown Up

Yesterday was a trip to "Fun City" where I met Stan and our friend Preston at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  We went to see the exhibit about the relationship between Manet and Degas and how their paintings were similar at times, and how they were different.  So my railroad trip always takes me to Jamaica station where I have to change trains, to go to either Penn Station or Grand Central.  While waiting on the platform, I always look around to see if there is a picture.  And when I saw this woman, I was immediately taken by how she was dressed.  I am assuming that all of her clothing was made by her, and I am in awe of her work as a seamstress!  I don't like to embarrass anyone, so I photographed her from behind.  I really wanted to compliment her on how she was dressed, but after being sure that I had a photograph, the train to Grand Central pulled in and she got on.  But I am thrilled I did get this photograph.

 

A Random Meeting!

I love the randomness of meeting people!  My flight instructor and I had just landed and parked the plane and I wanted to take a photograph of the two of us.  So I got a small stepladder used to check the fuel and balanced my camera on it to take a photograph of Michael and I.  Then from behind me I heard someone say "If you would like, I could take the photograph for you, I'm a professional photographer."  I said "Thanks but we're good with the two shots taken with the self timer."  Then the strangest thing happened - the photographer who offered to take the picture said "I know that voice!  It's Ken Spencer!"  WHAT?  As he walked closer I recognized my friend Kevin Coughlin!  He had just landed as well and was putting covers on his airplane because of the possibility of snow this weekend.  We were both blown away by the randomness of our meeting!  So I introduced him to Michael, my flight instructor and we had fun talking and being amazed at the coincidence of our meeting!  So naturally, I had to take yet another self-timer photograph of the three of us, and here it is.  I WAS going to call it "Three Hot Shot Pilots" but then thought better of it So the title is "Two Hot Shot Pilots, and me!"

 

My Last Flight...

Well, sad to say, today was my last day of flight instruction.  I decided that I was never going to be as proficient as I was at age 40, when flying a plane was like driving a car.  Hardly had to give things a second thought.  Now, as a "rusty pilot" trying to complete my "Flight Review" which includes both flying and ground instruction, I am finding that everything takes longer to sink in, and I study and then after a week, forget some of the things that I should remember.  I am not at risk of having an accident at all, it's just that in some situations I am "task saturated" and end up "behind the airplane."  That means I need to catch up by thinking ahead more, and I find that difficult.  This has been an amazing experience!  I have had two of the best flight instructors around.  I started working on my flight review on March 6, 2023.  And now it is 10 months later and I have learned a tremendous amount and have gotten really good with my "stick and rudder" skills, which means flying the airplane and making doing really good landings.  The tricky part is to fly into a busy airport, like Long Island MacArthur and to talk to busy, fast talking air traffic controllers and to hear their instructions and immediately read back their instructions and then to fly the headings and altitudes and turns they give, in order to land.  I have flown in the day, and in two memorable flights, at night, and landing in the dark on lighted runways was magical.  So I will really miss my Wednesdays at the airport, and I will miss the learning and the feeling good as I got better, and I will miss the camaraderie with Michael, my instructor.  We have a nice relationship and joke with each other when it is appropriate, and the laughter is really nice.  Flying is not so serious all the time, that we can't share a laugh once in a while.  We had a really good workout today with some radio navigation, and then entering the traffic area of a busy airport and doing takeoffs and landings as controllers issued a lot of quick instructions.  It felt good to be able to do that!

And since we finished late in the day, we also had this beautiful scene of clouds with a late afternoon sun behind them.  It was a wonderful day, and it was a bit of a sad day as well.

 

Magic Carpet

I love airplanes for so many reasons.  Today I think of them as magic carpets that can take us anywhere.  And while taking us places we can see beautiful things.  We flew back from Los Angeles two days after Christmas, on the 27th.  This is a view of the Pacific Ocean climbing out from Los Angeles International Airport.  We take off and head west, climbing, and then turn back to the east to head for New York

About twenty minutes later, we were over the desert in California.  What a change in the landscape!

About four hours after that, the sun is setting as we speed eastward.  I looked up to see the golden light on the aircraft window, with the blue sky and clouds in the distance.  A lovely color contrast.  We arrived home on time after a wonderful flight on our magic carpet, an Airbus 321!

 

Mirror Image

We are so lucky to live so close to the water.  In this case, Hempstead Harbor, with Long Island Sound in the distance.  The harbor and the sound are the gift that just keeps on giving.  When I look at the sky from home I only see the sky, which, of course is always changing.  When I look at it down at the harbor, not only is the sky changing but the water is changing as well.  I took my walk late in the day, and was rewarded with a mirror smooth harbor, that in this case, reflected the sky perfectly, giving me a mirror image.  It was nice that there was a bright area in the sky which becomes the center point of the photograph, attracting our eye.  But then you notice the dark cloud overhead, and then its reflection in the water in the foreground.  I think that this photograph is one of my best in a while!