1948 Chevrolet Stylemaster

I went to the grocery store this afternoon and when I came back out I saw this car and was stunned!  Wow, what a beautiful car!  What a thrill to see this!  I had no idea what year it was.  I got my camera and took some photographs and started to drive away when I saw an older man looking over the car carefully.  So I backed up and drove by this car again and asked the viewer what car it was.  He knew that is was a 1948 Chevrolet Stylemaster, and said "This car has an automatic transmission in it!  They didn't make automatic transmissions back then!"  As we were talking, a younger man approcahed the car and said it was his.  Turns out his father built this car for a man who wanted an automatic transmission and a larger engine.  That men owned the car for years and when he passed away, the car was offered to the young man who now owns it.  I was asking about the engine and he said it was a NASCAR engine, and it was 500 Horsepower!  We had a really nice chat, and as I drove around the car to leave, he started the engine and it was unmistakable that this was not the original engine!  You should have heard that deep throated engine as it sat there idling!  What a sound!  What a car!

I particularly love the straight on view of this car from the front!  Notice how there is a triangular shaped dark thing right in front of the windshield - that is a vent that lets air come into the car and is distributed at the feet of the driver and front seat passenger!  All the modern conveniences!

 

Microclimate

We have Daffodils on our property that are hardly beginning to show, while our neighbors across the street have them in full bloom, which is where I photographed these.  Other neighbors on our side of the street two houses up the hill have them as well!  You know why that is?  Right!  Microclimate!  Seriously.  We don't get the sun as the other houses do.  In the wintertime, and I am not joking our neighbor Judy's property and our property get more snow than the people on the other side of the street!  I am serious.  The street is in a very shallow valley because the land behind us goes uphill, as does the land on the other side of the street!  Anyhow, our Daffodils will come, but meanwhile I have these beautiful flowers that grow at the curb across the street.  Happy Spring!

 

Before and After

The other day I showed you a photograph of a small ranch house behind a chain link fence, which I think is about to be demolished.  Let me take you back a bit to this house which I posted on the blog.  I always thought it was a nice house, a bit modern, on a large lot with tall trees all around.  What a lovely place to live!  This is a close view.

The wider view shows dumpsters on the property.  So there is trouble ahead for this nice house.  Little did I know!  I took this photograph last August.  I photographed some heavy equipment digging a foundation since then.  

Oh man, look at this!  They started the framing a month or so ago I think.  Look at it now!  "Mcmansion" is an understatement!  Yikes.  But here is the killer.  Remember all the trees?  All gone as well.  What a difference in "place" this is.  It changes everything...

 

A Beautiful Crescent Moon

After supper I went outside to see what the sky looked like.  I wanted to play with my new, old refractor telescope from the 1970's that was a gift from a long time ASLI member.  It was still light in the sky and I knew the moon would be a crescent, but I wasn't sure I could see it because sometimes it is really low in the sky.  I was stunned to see this beautiful crescent moon high in the sky.  So I quickly ran inside, grabbed my camera then went to the car and grabbed my tripod and finally managed to get this photograph.  I love how incongruous it is to see our old broken TV antenna still on it's mast on the roof.  Time to go up and take it down, but it does make an interesging foreground!

I continued watching the moon and then noticed a bright Jupiter up and to the left of the moon,  shining brilliant in the darkening sky.  If anyone is curious, the orange colored star down below Jupiter is Aldebaran.  And what is really cool is, that if you click on this photograph to enlarge it, just below the moon are a group of six stars or more - they are the Pleiades!  What a wonderful collection of objects in the night sky just after sunset!

 

Another One Down The Drain

One of the neighborhoods I ride my bike through is Roslyn Harbor.  There are or were a number of homes that look like this.  I have lost track of how many of them have been sold, then torn down and a "McMansion" has been built it its place.  I have been riding through this place almost 20 years now and have seen the same fates to so many homes.  I have shown you some homes that have been torn down, and the most recent teardown now has a completely framed new giant home being built on the property.  Stay tuned.

 

Fog Week Leftover

When I was doing "Fog Week" I never got around to posting this photograph of the Japanese maple.  I think I was getting bored with fog.  I was going through folders of photographs from my walks and realized that I had not posted this.  So here it is again, my favorite subject, in yet another weather condition.  I hope this doesn't put you to sleep.

 

The Crocus are Green!

Well, here are my "Rare Yellow Crocus" and they are as green as can be!  Whew!  What a relief!  As you might remember they had been covered with a mat of leaves left over from the Fall, and when the leaves were cleared away, the shoots were yellow.  I was not sure they were going to be OK.  Joan asked to see them in a few weeks, and here they are!  Green as can be!  I promise to be more conscientious next Fall and get the leaves cleaned out of the gardens!

 

Roots

This a curious thing.  Kathy has two giant Hosta plants in the garden next to the house.  One of them is huge and when cut back for winter, the low cut plant is 18" wide or more.  So it was crowding two other plants and so I took it out for her.  That was not easy.  I could not believe how packed the roots were together!  I had to use a narrow rectangular spade and only put half the width of the blade into the circle of roots and then stand on the shovel with both feet.  It took that much force to insert the spade into the remains of the plant!  So I went around the edge chopping up the plant in small pieces until it was all removed.  It was a deal.  What I could not imagine is the density of the roots.  There is hardly any room at all for soil between the roots, as you can see here.  This photograph is upside down - if you click on the photograph, you can see at the bottom, hints of purple from this year's blossoms.  This really is an astounding thing to look at, isn't it?

 

Edward Albee

This is the playwright Edward Albee, who I photographed on three different occasions.  This was taken at his house in Montauk where I also photographed him a few years earlier.  And he had a press conference at his home in Manhattan where I photographed him as he talked about a new play.  He is famous for the play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf."  Three of his plays won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and two of his other works won the Tony Award for Best Play.  According to The New York Times, Albee was "widely considered to be the foremost American playwright of his generation."  When he died in 2016 I wanted to find one of my portraits of him to run on the blog but couldn't find any.  He looks pretty stern here but he was always very nice each time I met and photographed him.  I always try to get a range of expressions so at some point I likely said something like, "Do you think I could get a photograph of you smiling?" and he probably said something like "I like this expression better." and so if he wants to be seen this way, I will photograph him as he wants to be seen.

 

Threatening Clouds

After lunch today I went out to run some errands.  On the way back I was driving along the edge of the harbor when I saw these clouds.  I thought they were so beautiful, and that they also portended a change in the weather.  I had to hurry because the clouds were getting closer, but I was having a problem with what made the best foreground.  I tried shooting with some of the trees in the foreground but then the clouds were not as obvious.  Finally I decided to have no foreground and that showed the clouds the best.  Oh, about half an hour later it started raining for a while.  But not a big deal.

 

My Pal Eppie

One more "lost" photograph found the other day.  This is my pal Eppie who is known to the rest of the world as "Ann Landers."  Why is she in a leotard?  Because the Sunday Magazine was doing a story of how Ann Landers stays in shape and I was sent to Chicago to photograph her and some of her exercises.  I was terrified!  So I wore a suit of course, and at some point in our shoot she asked if I would like a cup of tea, and I said "yes."  So I found myself in a suit sitting on a couch next to Eppie Lederer who was wearing a leotard from head to toe!  Now that would have been a photograph.  She really loved the photographs that I did of her and wrote me a letter saying "You are the best living photographer in the civilized world, and I don't know any who are dead who are better than you..."  No hyperbole there, huh?  The exciting thing was that six months later I got a call from Family Circle magazine which was doing a story on her, and they asked her which photographer did she want to do the photographs, and the art director said she wanted me!  Wow...  So off to Chicago again, and after that shoot we were pals!

 

What Dad Does This With His Daughter?

This is another photograph I found the other day.  It is a dark and faded and stained print.  I don't have any recollection of this at all!  What's interesting is that the water is not all that calm, and yet I took Liz for a ride in our dinghy, which I still have stored under the front porch.  At least Liz is wearing a life jacket.  How come her father is not?  Liz does look happy.  When we had our Lightning sailboat I had a mooring down at the end of our street, and we used this dinghy to row out to it to go sailing.  Maybe Kathy was still on the Lightning and that's when she took this photograph.  A treasure in our family photo collection that I had forgotten about!

 

One of Our Favorite Family Photos!

In 2003 my sisters Joan and Betsey joined us in New York at the Whitney Museum for the Gees Bend Quilts exhibit, which was an astounding show!  When we left the museum I wanted to get a group shot of us in front of the Whitney.  So everyone lined up at the wall and I went over and put my little SONY camera on a mailbox with the timer set.  The woman on the left, out of focus apparently saw me delicately balancing the camera, and then suddenly moving back across the sidewalk to join the group.  She kept walking as the timer counted down, looking at the camera, and we all started laughing!  What a great happenstance photograph this is!  Got her, blowing her nose at the perfect moment in the perfect place!  I had lost track of this negative but found it recently and scanned it today so you can all see one of our favorite family group photos!

 

The Comfortable Cat

I titled this photograph of Grace "The Comfortable Cat" because it doesn't look comfortable to me.  But she must be comfortable because she sits like this all the time!  It does look funny but somehow she is comfortable or she wouldn't be doing it.  Don't you love her tail just kind of draped over the top of the pillow in the chair?  The cats, infinitely fascinating.

 

A Japanese Drawing

One day recently, when there was no wind and the water was calm, I looked over the railing at these beach grasses which are all bent over because their season is long over and thought that they looked like a Japanese painting.  Of course that was in my mind because I am not that familiar with Japanese paintings at all.  But I do think these grasses make in interesting photograph in the shape that they are in now.  Soon new green shoots will appear from underwater.  I will try and remember to photograph the new shoots when they appear.

 

Escalator People

When I visit the city, I am paying attention the second I get off the train in Penn Station.  It payed off because the light was different on this day and the shiny parts of the escalator were brilliant.  And the effect was that the people on the escalator, both riding up and down, were silhouetted by those bright parts and instead of people they became just shapes. I stood in this spot for 10 minutes and took a lot of photographs until I got an interesting arrangement of shapes.  I did convert this to black & white because there were some people wearing bright colors and that took your attention off the overall scene and on to those people.

 

Urban Landscape

This is a strange photograph, and it is meant to be!  We came out of Trader Joe's and got in our car and I started the engine.  The headlights came on and I saw this scene.  How strange is this - it looks as if we are at the seashore or parked in front of someone's garden, and yet there are all those buildings with stores in them in the distance.  It just seems like a strange disconnection.  Wait, wilderness or shopping mall?  Both, I guess.

 

The New Library

When we got inside Costco, Kathy wanted to shop for some small things, so I said I would hang out in the book section.  I came around the corner and there were these two really cute kids sitting on the floor enjoying two of the books on display.  I immediately thought about taking their photograph and was reaching for my toy camera on my belt when I had a thought: "What if a parent saw me taking some photographs of their kids?"  I am harmless of course, but you never know.  So then a brilliant idea hit me - I got out my iPhone which doesn't seem like a camera.  I was leaning forward on the shopping cart and I think it would appear that I was just checking email or something on my phone.  I only took two exposures - this is my favorite and then I moved on.  No confrontation, no worries of "what is that guy doing?" and a cute photograph in the end.

 

Costco Sunset

We went down to Costco after dinner tonight for just a few things.  I had not noticed the sunset because we were driving south.  But when we turned west on Old Country Road to get to Costco, I was aware of it.  Fortunately, I drove closer to the building to find a parking spot, and when I got out of the car I saw this!  Yikes!  OK so that's a photo.  So I moved around a bit  to position the tree against the sky.  For my first photographs I kept the camera pointed higher to eliminate anyssense of all the cars in the parking lot. But then I thought that the cars were part of the scene so included them in the later shots, and I decided to chose a photograph with the car tops reflecting the light of the sky.  Funny, I guess beauty is where you find it!

 

Purple Crocus Flower

 

When I set out on my walk today, on a gray overcast day I didn't expect many possibilities for photographs.  So imagine my surprise when I looked down and saw these Purple Crocus flowers not two houses away, only 2 feet from the curb.  They were in amongst the big exposed roots of a huge tree and there were a lot of leaves around, just outside the picture area.  I loved the flash of subtle color when everything else was dark around them.  The big problem was, "What are these called?"  Well, Google to the rescue and I hope Google is correct!

Contemplation

 

I was finishing up one of my walks, back before the arrival of Daylight Savings Time, and it was getting really dark.  I saw this person standing on the boat launch ramp at the foot of our street and as I got closer hoped he would not move.  I got close enough, and leaned on the railing and held my breath while the camera did a 2 second exposure.  I was as still as I could be and the person did not move and I got the shot.  Something about looking off in the distance, out over the water that brings on a sense of quiet and a sense of contemplation.  I have no idea what the person was thinking, but I know the feeling well to just stand and gaze out over the water.

R.H. Macy & Co.

I never noticed this before!  Whenever I am headed up to the Metropolitan Muyseun of Art, I walk fromn Penn Station one block over to Herald Square where I take the N train up to 59th Street.  But I usually walk over on 33rd Street.  On the reverse trip the other day, I decided to walk along 34th Street to get back to Penn.  I was on the south side of 34th, street, and R.H. Macy & Co occupies the entire north side of 34 street!  I happened to look over at Macy's and was stunned to see this formal entrance, which I have never, ever, noticed before!  What a stunning, formal entrance.  This is astounding, right?  Look at all the architectural details.  This building was built between 1901-1902.  It was not the first Macy's building and not the first in Manhattan.  It has been said that this building has a Palladian facade.  So believe it or not, the first Macy's store was opened in downtown Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1851, to serve the mill industries employees in the area.  All the mills eventually failed, and so R.H. Macy decided to move to New York City in 1858.

 

The Rare Yellow Crocus

Every Spring I await the arrival of the first Crocus in the garden next to our house.  I hadn't seen any so far, but...  In the fall with weather changes and rain, we never fully cleaned out all of the leaves from the garden next to the house.  I mean I did it once, but that was before all the trees had lost their leaves so the garden filled up again.  Anyhow, Kathy started cleaning the side garden, packed with wet leaves underneath, and here were the Crocus.  But they were yellow not green!  That is apparently because they were so covered up.  So there is no such thing as the "rare yellow Crocus" I just made that up!  I am guessing these will eventually turn green now that they are out in the air and sunlight.  We will see.

 

Moonrise over the Planetarium

This is the Charles and Helen Reichert Planetarium at the Vanderbilt Museum in Centerport, which is where we have our weekly meetings.  The light was perfect, after sunset but while there was still some light in the sky, and as I approached it tonight, there was the nearly full moon rising behind the building.  Notice the beautiful clay tile roof, which is in keeping with other buildings on the property, including the mansion which was built in stages between 1910 and 1936.

 

The Transformation of Penn Station

In June of 2019 the Long Island Railroad started construction on a new concourse at Penn Station.  They wanted a wider corridor and higher ceilings than what they have had since I came to Long Island in 1966!  You have seen photographs of the interior construction and the finished result, which is just stunning!  Well, now the outside is pretty much done as well, I think.  This swooping entrance on the 33rd street side of the station leads to spectacular escalators that lead to the main concourse.  On the outside everything has been changed from the exterior of the building from top to bottom and then this large overhanging roof supported by giant white steel columns, and the finishing touch was resurfacing all the walking areas with marble.  It is an amazing transformation!

 

The Big Gun

So you all saw my photograph of Venus yesterday, taken with a relatively small, inexpensive refracting telescope.  And as you saw, the crescent of Venus photo was kind of blurry.  Plus, I held my camera and lens over the eyepiece and tried to get a photograph that way.  It was not a high quality photo.  So, today I decided to photograph Venus the right way, and I got out my "big gun" telescope and put it on this fancy Equatorial tracking mount.  And my results were much better.  I used my Sony a7 camera which was attached directly to the back of this telescope.  And here are my results:

This is more like it!  This is what Venus actually looked like through the eyepiece of this telescope - a very thin, very delicate crescent.  This is what I saw yesterday.  But here was the surprise.  I had no idea how large this crescent would be in my camera.  I was stunned to see how incredible tiny it was.  This next photograph is the whole "negative" and Venus on the negative is a tiny speck.  Please click on it to see how tiny.

 

Mercury and Venus!

Mercury and Venus are the two "inner" planets, meaning they are closer to the Sun than we are.  Venus is never a problem to find when it is visible to us, which is not all the time.  Sometimes it is too close to the sun for us to see it because of the Sun's brightness.  Venus has been putting on a spectacular show for the last couple of months, blazing high in the sky about an hour after sunset.  But it is getting closer to the Sun, as we see it and will soon be out of our view.  So I decided to look at it with a telescope , both while the Sun was still up, which is possible, and then after the Sun had set.  I won't go into the mechanics of it all but tonight Venus was an incredibly thin and delicate crescent in the telescope.  Such a beautiful sight.  After seeing that, I knew that Mercury was also nearby and I found it in binoculars, so decided to take a photograph of them both.  Here is is.  And Mercury is down between some tree branches on the lower left, just a tiny speck.  And here is a photograph I tried to take with my SONY camera while looking through the eyepiece.  Not very successful but I got something.  The actual visual crescent was only about 1/3 the thickness of how it looks in the photograph.  But at least I got something.  Please click on the first photograph to see it larger.

 

Strand

 

Many years ago, before the Internet existed, someone told me about Strand Bookstore.  It opened in 1927 And it is both huge and famous, their motto is "18 miles of books."  The original store is at 12th street and Broadway two blocks south of Union Square.  I would go there because brand new books were all sold at 50% of cover price.  And of course they had all kinds of used books as well.  I remember going there to "browse" and coming home with six large, used, photographic books in a shopping bag.  I am a book junkie so the Strand was always like catnip for me.  The photo above is the kiosk they have on 5th Avenue, just north of 59th street which is only open when the weather is nice.  I have bought a few books here as well!  Seeing it yesterday on my walk up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art reminded me that I bet I haven't been to the original Strand in more than 30 years!  Why not?  The Internet.  We bought our first desktop computer in about 1993, A Macintosh, and within a year or two, something called "Amazon" started and all it sold at first were books.  I should have bought Amazin stock!  I have way too many books, of course, so that reminds me I should not go down to the Strand to see the store, unless someone else carries my wallet!

The Changing Skyline of Manhattan

Went to the city today to see an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  More on that later.  When I emerged from the subway at 59th Street and 5th Avenue, this is what I saw!  I know that these all glass walled  exterior buildings have been appearing one by one, but this is the first time I have seen them all in a row, and the lighting makes them more obvious.  The shortest structure, in the lower right corner is the Essex House and that has been there for ever.  Such a dramatic change seeing these new buildings, which have been called "Pencil Towers," appear above all the older buildings, most of which are made of brick.

 

Remember "Fog Week?"

Ah, Yes, Fog Week.  I have a lot of photographs still to go through.  But I did find this one of my favorite subject, in the fog that I thought everyone should see.  I don't think I have photographed the Japanese Maple in fog before.  It was the last photograph I took after my long walk, just as I was about to walk up my driveway.  The subject that never ceases to inspire me.

 

Driving in the Deluge

The forecast was for rain tonight, maybe heavy at times, but I had an astronomy meeting to get to!  When I started out it was raining moderately.  But when I got on to Route 107 suddenly it was a deluge!  Heavy rain and strong winds and water all over the road.  I had no problem driving in it, I just needed to really pay attention.  What made it easier was the bright yellow line in the center, and the white line on the right hand side of the road.  After Route 107, I headed east on Route 25A, a four lane road.  I was driving in the right hand lane.  The speed limit there is 40 MPH, but because of the deluge and all the water on the road, I was doing 30 MPH to be safe, as were some other cars.  And then I was passed by a jeep with big fat tires on it, and it was doing at least 50 MPH! And a couple of minutes later, another similar Jeep passed me at high speed!  That was nuts.  I am guessing the drivers were kids, who have never heard of "hydroplaning" which is when the tires "climb up" on all the water in the road, like a water skier.  When that happens you have no control at all, with neither steering or braking control anymore.  I was glad to see them race into the distance, so that they couldn't cause an accident sliding into the other cars that were driving in a safe manner.

When I was editing the photographs for this post, I also chose this photograph.  Then I decided to post the one above.  Then I was looking at this again and decided I love how colorful it is and perhaps more interesting and more artistic.  So I decided to post it, and see what everyone thinks, which is always so much fun for me to see what others think!

 

Two Geese On The Pond

On a sunny afternoon two geese at Scudders Pond stand on the bottom of the pond.  The drought has lowered the water so  much that in some places the water is only a few inches deep.  I love the warm light of the late afternoon, and the fact that two geese are standing together, kind of like two bookends.

 

Remember Winter?

I know you remember winter, and I know that it's not over yet.  I do remember some years ago, a heavy wet snow on St. Patrick's Day!  When interesting things are going on with the weather, I take a ton of photographs and then I edit them quickly, and sometimes miss an interesting photo.  This is Kathy's herb garden right after a light snow of a couple of inches.  I love that in this color photograph we only see black & white.  And this almost looks like some kind of etching with the fine details in the garden being fine black lines against the white snow.  Come on Spring!

 

Gray and White on Gray

During the two different days of fog we had a week or so ago, I walked every day and did a lot of shooting.  Then other things came along and there were a lot of photographs that never got posted.   This is one of those.  When I saw the seagull sitting on the railing I was some distance away, so I zoomed in with my lens but it wasn't close enough so very S L O W L Y, I began to walk closer to the bird.  It eyed me suspiciously but stayed where it was, so I would take a step closer, take a shot, wait, then take another step.  So I got this.  I loved that this photograph is mainly only gray tones.  "Monochromatic" as they say in the business.  I love the drops of water underneath the top rail of the railing.

 

Pizza to Go

I decided to pick up a small pizza for dinner so after calling I went to pick it up.  I pulled into the parking lot, got out of the car, facing west, and was absolutely in awe of the beauty I saw when looking up, one of the thinnest crescent moons and the planet Venus blazing in the sky.  What a surprise!  What a joy!  I was there at the absolutely perfect time.  From our driveway, this scene would have been blocked by our house which blocks out most of the sky to the west.  I loved the delicacy of the trees which matched the delicacy of the thin crescent moon.  This is a wide view, rather than a closer view which I could have taken, but this is more like what I saw.

When I got home, it was a bit darker and so I could see the dark side of the moon illuminagted by "Earthshine" which is light from the Sun reflected off earth and toward the moon!  For this view, I composed the scene as a tighter view so you can see more detail.  I wondered about the old battered TV antenna, but thought that is had more interest than just the silhouette of trees.  Which one is your facorite?

The Garden Bridge

How cute is this tiny bridge in a small front yard garden!  I dropped my car off this morning and retraced the route that I took when dropping off Kathy's car.  This time it was a sunny day, instead of overcast, so I saw things I hadn't seen before.  I don't think I have ever seen a bridge in a garden.  I have seen small statues, and I bought a stone angel for our garden.  For some reason I found this lovely and worth a photograph.

 

The Antique Shop

 

OK so this is pretty bizarre.  It is a continuation of my walk home from dropping the car off.  This was the location of an antique shop that has been here since I can remember.  Then suddenly they were having an out of business sale, then it was closed.  I used to ride by it on my bike but the store is on a hill so I went by it at high speed and never took much notice of what was left inside.  But when I walked by the store on the way home I was stunned to see this mounted deer head in the chair!  I guess no one wanted to buy this at the final sale.

Beautiful Ironwork

This photograph goes back a couple of weeks.  I mentioned the day I dropped Kathy's car off at the mechanic, and then walked the two miles home.  Good exercise.  Also good for photographs!  I took a bunch.  This is one of the first, a beautiful piece of ironwork in front of Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Glen Head.  I have driven by this church a billion times, but you need to walk to really see things.  I just love the artistry and the beauty of this piece of ironwork on a pole by the front steps of the church.  It is just lovely.

 

The Oil Boom

I have been fascinated with this yellow rubber oil boom.  It has air in it so it floats on top of the water.  It sits unused most of the time, but when an oil barge comes in to unload, they surround the barge with this oil boom in case of an oil spill.  The oil, being lighter than water, would float on the top of the water and be contained by the boom.   This is located down by where the old power plant used to be.  Usually the boom is in a straight line and I am always trying to make an interesting picture of it.  So far, no luck.   But yesterday it was bunched up and then from the left, these four Mallard ducks swam toward it in a line!  Bingo!  Here was my photograph, finally.  It is about something to do with nature versus man made technology, if you came here for sone philosophy!   :-)