Personal History I

I have never been good at carefully keeping track of my photographs and negatives, until the digital age. Back in the age of film photography, in this case in the early 1990's  I attended three photographic workshops with a photographer from Arizona. He took us to really interesting areas.  One year part of our trip was to the Barry Goldwater Bombing Range.  There was an important archaeological area that was a buffer around the bombing range and so the US Air Force was required to allow visitors during certain periods.  There were a group of maybe 14 of us, many who were using 4x5 view cameras as I was.  We camped for a week in the desert areas, one of which was the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Area, which is right on the border with Mexico.  I am sure that now that would no longer be possible because soon after that trip, they shut down The Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument because of migrants using those areas to come across the border to the United States.  It was a great trip, though.  I found some negatives in my darkroom today and this was one of them.  Man, who is the cool dude with the aviator sunglasses?

 

Stan's Talk About Photographing the Space Shuttle

Stan came out from the city this afternoon and we got to hang out and talk and look at photographs and the try out the old Leica lens on my new Sony camera.  Then I fixed Mediterranean Salmon for dinner which is a favorite - he says its the only reason he comes out!  And then we were off to the Astronomy meeting where he gave a spectacular talk and slideshow of what it was like for him to photograph all the Space Shuttle launches and landings for the last 5 years of the program, for Agence France-Presse where he worked.  He had a lot of "behind the scenes" photographs which was wonderful - not the kinds of things we usually see having to do with the shuttle program.

This was one of the photographs in the presentation.  One time he got to go way up on the gantry that surrounds the shuttle until just before launch.  He said it was amazing to be so close to the shuttle and to be able to look down on it when it was on the pad where it was launched from.  It was an amazing talk which everyone loved! (Photograph Copyright © by Stan Honda)

 

"Mare's Tails"

It's Tuesday so we were down at the beach as usual with our coffee, tea and two Dunkin' Donuts.  I was kind of idly looking at the sky and then began to realize the presence of these Cirrus clouds moving in.  They are just spectacular in their beauty in a blue sky, so I quickly jumped out of the car and snapped a few photographs with my iPhone.  These clouds are high clouds, usually seen at between 20,000 and 66,000 feet.  They are made of ice crystals, as you can imagine because they form so high where the temperatures are very cold.  On a standard day the temperature at 25,000 feet is about -30.0 degrees Fahrenheit!  But what this is really all about is how incredibly beautiful nature can be!  What a beautiful thing to see on an ordinary day!  Oh, I nearly forgot - these clouds are also known as "mare's tails, which would be easy to imagine, given their appearance.

 

Blue Sky, New Green Leaves and the Sun

I have checkpoints where I record my times as I ride around my ten mile bicycle route.  This spot is one where I stop and record three times before continuing.  Today I looked up and of course saw the beautiful blue sky.  Then I saw the dark silhouettes of the large trees then the light green of the new leaves, with the sun shining through them.  Something so beautiful with all these things together.  It made my day special to see this.

 

Kathy's Doll

This is Kathy's doll which sits on top of a clock on the chest of drawers in the dining room.  She started making dolls for Vivian, and the earlier dolls were smaller than this one.  The origin of this one is interesting, we visited our friends Dick and Trauti in Rhode Island and Trauti had some dolls that Kathy admired, so she took a few photographs of them and use one of those photographs for making this doll.  She made one for Vivian first, and then decided she wanted one for herself, and this is the result. What is amazing is the hand stitching on the face, of the smile and the glasses.  She was really proud of how the stitching came out.  She is such a cute doll, isn't she?

 

Lilac Tree Blossom

I needed a blog photo today, and it was raining out.  But I saw these Lilac blossoms on the tree right next to the house in the back.  So I grabbed my SONY camera and got the old Leica lens which I had adapted for this camera, just to try something different that just a really sharp image.  I posted before about this lens being adapter and you can see that post Here.  This seems like an appropriate subject to use my old lens on, where only a small part of the whole image is in sharp focus.  I do love that it is Spring and every day we are seeing more things blooming.

 

Night Light

On April 10,  I photographed a single trailer illuminated by a spotlight late at night, which was located on the property of the old power plant.  When I got back home and pulled into the driveway I saw this scene.  Kathy had just finished with clients and she had left the back spotlight on which cast a shadow of the lilac tree on to the garage. I just thought that these shadows on the garage were so interesting.  Something just a bit different.

 

Fog in the Morning

When I get out of bed in the morning, I always walk into the front bedroom and look out at the street, and then look at the side yard.  It was foggy this morning and I thought I saw some possibilities out both the north window and the east window.  This is the east window, looking toward the rising sun, and I loved how the fog gave depth to the photograph because the fog separates the pine tree from the closer trees.  Not a great shot, but a little bit interesting, and atmospheric I think.

 

Off to London and Zurich

These are contrails over our house and they are "condensation trails" from the water vapor coming out the engines of high flying jet aircraft.  So of course many of us look up with a feeling of wanderlust, and wondering where airplanes like this might be going.  Well, now there is a simple answer.  It is an App (of course) for our cellphones.  It is called "Flight Radar 24" and you can get it for free.  I will leave out the technical stuff, like it receives  ADS-B transmissions from aircraft, showing where they are going, what their altitude is and how fast they are flying.  All on our phones

So there are two contrails over our house in the photograph.  I watched the first airplane fly over and looked it up on Flight Radar 24, and then when I saw the second airplane fly over I looked that up.  So here are the displays for both aircraft.  They are both flying at 33,000 feet and doing about 560 MPH.  If you look closely you can see the type of aircraft, one a 777 and the other 787 and you can even see what time they will arrive at their destinations!  What an amazing thing it is these days to be able to see where airplanes are going!

 

Hosta

I love watching the Hostas come out of the ground in the spring every year.  Little pointy things purple and green in color come out of the ground where the plant was from last year.  It seems to happen so quickly where the pointy things get taller and then they begin to both unwrap themselves, and continue to climb skyward.  There is something beautiful to see all these leaves unwrapping themselves as they continue to grow.  I photographed this early one morning and there are water drops on all the leaves. So this is a photograph of an early stage in the growth of this plant, so far.   Please click on this to see more detail.

 

Four Eyes

I was sitting at my big desktop computer in the basement.  Years ago when I built the desk, I covered it with white formica.  So today I set my bifocals down and picked up my computer glasses.  I have a small LED spotlight on a flexible shaft and I happened to put my glasses in the light.  I love the shadows here and particularly the fact that the close-up part of the bifocals make a brighter image on the desktop.  I was looking at it for a bit an then decided it would make a photograph.  I called it "four eyes" because when I was a kid, that's what some people used as an insult to other kids wearing glasses!  That's terrible.  But here there are four circles, and it just came to me!  This photograph is all about the light, and the shadows.

 

Fair Weather Clouds

These are Cumulus clouds, often called "fair weather clouds" because they usually don't bring any rain.  They are formed when the sun warms the earth and so the warmed air begins to rise - warm air rises - and as it rises it moves up into cooler air.  Because of the nature of the atmosphere, the higher you get from the ground the cooler the temperature.  The air is cooler by 3 degrees Fahrenheit every thousand feet.  So when the warm air rises into the cooler air, then it condenses and "makes" cumulus clouds.  Aren't you glad I am a pilot and know this stuff?  :-)  I just thought this scene was so beautiful in just blue and white.  It lifted my spirits to see these colors.

 

Fixing The Fence

I put up this fence probably 40 or 50 years ago.  Our nighbor Larry had it built for me from cedar lumber.  The fence has been painted over and over again, and some pickets have been replaced when some of them deteriorated.  Well this winter, when the plows came by and pushed the heavy wet snow to the side of the road it broke loose two of the sections which fell down.  So I reattached the two sections and today started scraping and painting the whole fence.  It took several hours to do two sections.  I have two more to do.  You can see that the fence here definitely needs painting. But I am ultimately going to replace the fence.

So I started here on the right side of the photograph and I am just finishing up the second of two sections which I painted today. Do you like my little white seat I built?  I made it to hold binoculars when observing because I couldn't put them down in the grass.  But it is a perfect painting seat!   I have discovered that no one makes wooden fences anymore.  Everything is now plastic fencing which much of looks cheap.  SO...  I will buy the lumber and cut the pickets and attach them to the "stringers" that connect to the posts that hold the fence up.  It will be a long lasting job to do because of all the other work around here, like painting the west side of the house this season. But I will get this done.  Stay tuned!

I set my tools down and the paint and then realized it was an interesting photograph.  There is the scraper I used on all the wood, then the paintbrush to the right which I use to brush off all the scrapings, and then my paintbrush and can of paint, and my well used painting gloves.  A nice composition I thought!

And last but not least, a photograph of the finished painted part of the fence.  This is deceiving because it looks perfect, but many of the pickets are rotting in place and so are some of the stringers as well.  The third picket to the right of center is partially rotting away, if you look closely.  But at least the neighbor's won't dislike me because our property looks rundown.

 

A Rainbow!

It was just before suppertime that I went to the garage for some reason.  I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a small part of this rainbow.  So as I started down the driveway toward the street where I hoped to be able to see more of the bow, our neighbor came racing across out front lawn, iPhone in hand, with the same idea!  So we both marveled at our great luck to see this much of a rainbow.  It was still sprinkling on us at the time, which was not unusual because it is the water drops that make the rainbow in the first place.

After I got the overall photograph, then I tried for a closeup which included this gnarled treetop just up the street.  I thought that added a special quality to the photograph, with that tree.

 

The Bus Stop

Back around Christmas time, someone added two colorful pieces of fabric, one on each side of the door from top to bottom showing two "nutcracker" soldiers as decoration for the holiday.  It was wonderful to see this small shelter brightened up.  It made me feel good every time I walked by it.  Well, it has now been completely painted and decorated with a flag and flowers and some bright colors.  If you want to see what this structure looked like for 50 years, click Here.  Quite a change.  It will be interesting to see if the decoration changes again in the future.

 

A Seestar Evening

Tonight's astronomy meeting was different.  It was supposed to be an observing night but it was partly cloudy so instead some members decided to make it a night where members who owned Seestar telescopes could gather and help each other learn to use these amazing instruments.  The three white things up on the tops of the tripods are called "Seestar all in one smart telescopes."  They are an amazing breakthrough in amateur astronomy.  As the light pollution gets worse and worse each year, these devices can photograph objects in the night sky that can't be seen by our eyes.  You set it on a tripod and then connect to it with an iPad or smartphone and you run it wirelessly.  You choose an object that you want to see, and it automatically goes to that object and starts taking photographs and each photo is added to the stack of other photos and suddenly the object appears on your phone or ipad!  It has changed amateur astronomy!

We had am amazing turnout tonight with perhaps 6 or 7 of these telescopes and a number of people who just came to observe.  This photo, above and the two below were actually taken in darkness!  I used my SONY a7 III camera with a "film speed" setting of 12,800!  The normal setting for the camera is 400.  And look what I can photograph with this incredibly sensitive sensor in the camera!

Here Don, one of our members is seated and running his Seestar which is up in the tripod behind him, from his iPad. One of the two members behind him also brought her Seestar and it is running off to one side while she is talking with another member.

Here Bill, on the left is discussing the operation of his Seestar with Mak, on the right, who is also running his telescops.  There were lots of questions and answers tonight as members more familiar with their telescopes were helping people who had only recently gotten their own scopes.  It was such a great evening with everyone helping each other learn this amazing new device.

 

The Sycamore Trees, a Different View

 

You are all aquainted with my photographs of the line of Sycamore trees along the sidewalk at the harbor's edge.  I have photographed them so many ways, but pretty much all in a line.  So on the way back from my walk the other day, I paused and looked up at this scene.  It is part of the line of trees, and instead of them all being in a line, there is one tree behind another behind another.  I had never taken notice of the trees seen this way, and it fascinated me.  So what we have here is a jumble of tree branches and you can't really tell where one tree begins and another ends.  I guess I liked the texture, and the design with branches going every which way.  A new way of seeing a familiar object.

 

Fixing The Adirondack Chairs

When my sister Joan moved from the family house to a condo, she had no room for two beautiful Adirondack chairs that she had for years.  So she gave them to us, and you have seen them in blog posts showing the back yard.  They sit up on the top of the little hill, and we sit there with coffee or cold drinks and relax under the shade of the trees and look out over our little world.  Well, the weather got to both of them, and we hadn't noticed until I sat in one and one of the slats in the seat broke!  So the water had caused rot in some parts of the seat.  So I got some new wood and made new slats, and replaced the front part of the piece of wood that the slats are screwed to.  Then I painted the chair and it looks good as new!

So, one chair done and one to go.  This is what the second chair looks like and there is actually less repair needed to this one.  In a few days this chair will look as good as new as well!  Easy peasy!  Thank you Joan for our wonderful chairs.  I am taking good care of them!

 

Yellow!

Well, I guess that the title for this photograph is appropriate!  On my latest walk I saw that Daffodils were  looming everywhere!  The problem is that the light has to be perfect to get a good photograph of a blooming blossom.  You would not believe how many photographs I took before getting this one,  And then the original was a photograph of two complete blossoms but the shot was boring, sort of.  So I thought of my good friend Dean who always told me "You need to get closer..." and so I cropped into the photograph and just included one blossom and a hint of the other for balance in the composition.  The detail inside the blossom is always fascinating.  And you do know to click to see more.

 

The Northeast Astronomy Forum - NEAF

I have been coming to the Northeast Astronomy Forum now since about 1990.  It is the largest gathering in the United States for amateur astronomers to gather for talks from astronomers and astronauts and authors, and then to wander in this huge gymnasium and see anything having to do with astronomy that an amateur could want.  Telescopes, mounts, eyepieces, software, accessories and everything else.  It feels as if now I own one of everything, so I didn't buy anything this year!   :-)

It is also a wonderful experience to meet and talk with friends I only see twice a year, perhaps, both here and at Stellafane in Vermont.  These are two of my longtime friends in the Antique Telescope Society that I have known just about as long at NEAF has been in existence.  And the other half of this event is to be standing next to someone you don't know, while looking at some astronomical object and then start a conversation which can go on for 20 minutes, as happened to me today on a couple of occasions.  I think that is now perhaps my main reason for attending these days.

And I need to mention various raffles from the different manufacturers or dealers.  This is a group of hopefuls hoping to win either some astronomical filters, or some solar filter material, or some glassware with a manufacturer's name on it, or maybe some ski hats or baseball hats.  I WON A BASEBALL HAT!  So, another perfect day at NEAF!

 

American Vernacular

I thought about photographing this trailer which is on the property of the old Long Island Lighting Company, after I drove by it one night and saw it illuminated by a single floodlight.  I have no idea what the trailer is used for, but it does seem funny that they shine a light on it all night!  There is something just a bit odd to have a trailer all by itself, and then, I guess because of security concerns, that you light it up.  So "American Vernacular" is a term that Stan and I use all the time.  To us it means something about an object or a building that is common all over the United States and that is interesting to look at, so we photograph these objects or buildings or old phone booths or old advertising signs that have been abandoned..

 

Sparkles on the Water, and Frustration!

When I went for my walk yesterday, it was brilliantly clear with blue skies and bright sunshine.  The first thing I noticed were the sparkles of sunshine on the water.  I thought about this and realized that it was because there was only a light breeze and so there were waves but they were small.  And the sun was high in the sky.  That's what you need to get sparkles on the water, it seems.  HOWEVER, when I tried this composition, even though the sparkles on the water were really obvious they don't begin to show up in a wide angle view!

So I zoomed in on the scene and even if you enlarge these photographs, the sparkles are still not obvious.  I guess it is the actual flashing of the sunlight off the waves that makes the sparkles more obvious. And without the flickering which you won't get in a still photograph, the sparkles are not obvious.

In desperation I tried taking a few frames where the sparkles on the water are out of focus, and now they appear as much larger bright round circles  So the sparkles are now more obvious.  BUT.  This isn't really a photograph!  Duh!  Oh well...  Sometimes photographic ideas just don't pan out.

 

Tonight's Astronomy Speaker

We had a terrific speaker at our astronomy meeting tonight.  The title of his talk was "You are here: A Guided Tour of Our Cosmic Neighborhood." He helped us truly comprehend where we are in the universe and what else is all around us. What's really cool is that Rex is a new member of the club, and at one point in his career he was a professor of astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania.  And now he is a member of our club!  How lucky are we.  In this photograph he is taking the time to answer other questions members had after the talk was over.  He is so generous with his time.

Sunset at Trader Joe's

Late in the day we drove down to Costco to get some things, like two 40 pound bags of cat litter and some Clorox, and a jar of cinnamon, Tylenol, a bottle of vanilla, and a bag of seasoned pretzels!  Then it was off to Trader Joe's for some butter, frozen blueberries, two 1 pound chocolate bars, and a bag of dark chocolate orange sticks.  As I got out of the car I saw this scene and couldn't quite tell if it was a photograph or not, but the brilliant orange light from the setting sun on the buildings against the clear blue sky seemed worthwhile so I used my iPhone to grab a few exposures.  I really like this for some reason.  How about that, a photographer who doesn't have a clue about what he shoots! Perhaps this is just about the colors.

 

A Foggy Morning

This photograph is from Easter morning.  It was foggy when I woke up and I happened to look out the front window of Liz' bedroom.  I love fog and I love how it separates things in the foreground from the background.  Things in the distance are lighter in tone because of the fog.  Things in the foreground are darker because there is no fog between them and the camera.  I look out of this window all the time but I never really saw a photograph in this view.  But the fog changed everything!  Try clicking on it, it is beautiful seen larger.

 

Hyacinths

Easter seems to be a good day to post flowers, don't you think?  It was raining today when I went out to take a look at the Hyacinths that I took a photograph of when the first green shoots came out of the ground and were only one inch tall. The First Shoots That was on March 21st which was 14 days ago. Now look at all these blossoms!  Notice that these blossoms don't look normal and that's because all the blossoms are covered with rain drops!  Maybe the blossoms are not as pretty, but they are interesting with the rain on them. Don't forget to click on the picture to see it larger.

 

What is This?

This is an interesting photograph.  At least to me.  It is interesting because whatever it is, is not obvious.  And the colors are interesting and the brightness differences between the two objects in the photograph are interesting.  I think it is an abstract image.  I am actually not sure if this is interesting at all!  I do like that the top piece is reflected in the water adding some interest.  So I will leave it up to all of you to see what you think.  OK, so here is the answer.  You know there is a place I have photographed so many times called "Scudder's Pond" that is right next to the road along the seashore.  The water enters the pond from the far side, away from the road, and this object is right next to the road and there is a concrete "bridge" kind of thing that allows the water from the pond to go under the road and into the harbor.  This object is part of what holds the water level constant.  This is a concrete ring like they put in your backyard for a cesspool.  You have seen these concrete rings on trucks when you are driving, right.  So this is only a small part of the ring which is about 5 or 6 feet in diameter and goes down into the water about 4 feet.  So you can all be the judge whether or not this is interesting at all.

 

The New Pipe

So this is the pipe that is being used to replace the steel gas line that has been in the ground carrying gas to Sea Cliff homes since the 1950's.  This bright yellow pipe is called "Medium-Density Polyethelene." it is widely used for natural gas and propane distribution, because it is flexible and corrision resistant.  I wasn't able to see it being "welded" together for this project, but I saw a similar type of pipe being welded together for a sewer line on Shore Road 3 or 4 years ago.  They carefully trim the ends of two pieces of pipe and then put both pieces in a "jig" and the two pieces are brought together and then surrounded by a device that I think uses ultrasonic waves to heat both pieces and when it is done the pipe joint is as strong as the original pipe

Here is an entire trailer full of long sections of the pipe.  They are welded together above ground tha then the long sections are buried in the trenches in the street.

If you enlarge this, you can see that this kind of pipe is much thicker than a steel pipe would be.  Aren't you so glad to learn all of this information about gas lines in the street?

 

Digging Up The Streets

There has been a lot of street construction going on in Sea Cliff.  There is excavating equipment that digs a trench in the street then men are working in the trench, then the excavation is filled in and asphalt fills it all in.  Turns out they are replacing natural gas lines that one of the workers told me, were installed in the 1950's and are getting old. I was driving down the street and saw these old cut up gas lines covered with dirt and had to stop and see them close up.  You can see the filled up trench in the road, to the right.

Here is a closeup of a group of the old gas pipes.  If you look at most of these, they are cut off clean with a saw and you can see that the steel looks pretty solid. But the pipe at the very top has a ragged end to it that doesn't look good.

I don't know what this pipe was connected to, but how could this pipe not be leaking gas with the ragged end showing?  I will show you a couple of photographs of what this pipe is being replaced with tomorrow.

 

The Old Tree at Dusk

I parked my car at the Vanderbilt Museum and as I was taking my computer and other things out of the trunk for the meeting, I happened to look over to my right and saw this tree off to the right.  My sense is that the tree is really old, based on its shape and the condition of its branches.  I have no idea what kind of tree this is  - maybe in daylight when it is leafed out I might hazard a guess.  What made the photograph as well are the high overcast clouds that silhouette the tree. Against a plain sky I am thinking that the photograph would not be as strong. Please click on this to see more detail.