John & I go to a Gallery

My friend John and I took a quick visit to an art gallery to look at some photographs, and of course we needed to do a shot of the two of us together. We met at RIT back in 1963 when we were students together, and in the 48 years we have known each other, whenever we get together, we take a photograph of the two of us together. Sometimes it is in a photo studio, sometimes it is with John's airplane, or just sitting on a rock together. Anyhow, I set up the camera with a self timer in the gallery, and we posed together for a shot. Only thing was, I had no idea that the self timer was going to take three photos! Here they are! You can click on this to see a larger view of the three images.

All or Nothing...

All or nothing. Funny how that works in terms of how to photograph a scene. In this case, it is Taughannock Falls, in Trumansburg, NY. I have photographed this before and posted it, but because it was spring, and because there have been heavy rains for the last week I decided to stop and see how it looked with a lot of water coming over the precipice. I was not disappointed. But when I included the entire waterfall, it looked kind of ordinary, in some way. If I showed the waterfall, and the river below and part of the gorge as well, it was interesting, but the waterfall lost all of its grandeur - it looked like part of a small stream. But when I cropped into the falls, and showed only part of it, and included some of the interesting formations in the rocks, then it appeared to grow in power. And as you can see, it became a bit mysterious as well, because you can't see all of it. So sometimes less of an object may be more. I like this photograph a lot, now that I finally figured out how to see it properly.

The Green of Spring

It is amazing to me that after all these years, EVERY spring I am astounded all over again, at how brilliant the greens are! It has been raining most of the day, and when I went outside, I spotted these ferns growing under the Japanese maple tree. It was overcast, and misty, and so the light was really soft. Colors are always more intense on rainy days, and the saturation of the greens was just stunning. The Japanese maple was green as well, but there was something about the ferns - perhaps because they were isolated and surrounded by the wet brown earth that made them jump out and grab my attention. My fear is that on the web the colors shown won't even come close to being as rich as what I saw in real life.

Montauk Garden

I promised no more New York City photographs, and I am delivering here, with this shot from Montauk. This is a garden at Gosman's Dock. I love the combination of things here - the old wood, the rusted anchor, and the beautiful flowers. I should also mention that at one point I *thought* I knew what these are, but then I checked and I was wrong. So I continue to bat 1000 by not knowing the names of ANY flowers. Anyhow I hope you love the garden.

The Brooklyn Bridge

OK, this will be my last post from Manhattan, I promise. Most photographs of the Brooklyn Bridge are shot looking along the roadway and pedestrian walkways. From the South Street Seaport, I saw this view from the side. What I like about this is that it shows the complex arrangement of Suspender cables, both vertically and diagonally. The arrangement of all these wire cables is what gives the Brooklyn Bridge its distinctive beauty. The story behind the cables is really interesting. It turns out that the wire cables supplied were of poor quality. By the time they discovered that, it was too late to change them, so to be safe, they added diagonal cables from the towers to the deck in order to stiffen the bridge. It turns out they were unnecessary, but they were kept for their beauty. Please click on this image to see it in more detail.

World Financial Center

It is much easier to find photographs when I visit new places. So that explains why I am still showing you photographs from the trip to New York City a week ago. We walked over to the construction site where the World Trade Center was. You can't look directly into the construction site, but you can go around to the west side and look out the windows of the World Financial Center into the site. We did that, and then I turned around and looked in the other direction, toward the Hudson River, and saw this scene. It was the polished floor that made this.The buildings you can see out the window are in Jersey City, across the Hudson River.

The Realm of the Galaxies

OK you are going to look at this post and think that I am loosing it! I went out east to Custer Institute last night to do some observing, and got home at 3 AM - that's why this post is late. I was trying out a new device I have called an "Astro Trac" which attaches to a tripod, and you put a camera on it, and it will allow the camera to follow the stars for long exposures. The part of the sky in this photograph is called "The Realm of the Galaxies." Even in a modest amateur telescope you can see galaxy after galaxy, side by side. It is an amazing experience. OK, so here is the weird part - you can't SEE any galaxies in this photo! Duh! Please click on this though, and it will open in a larger window so you can see a sky full of stars. At the top center of the photo is an open cluster of stars called "Coma Bernices" which translates to "Bernice's Hair." The Realm of Galaxies and Coma are both seen behind the tail end of the constellation Leo "The Lion." The three stars making up the right triangle to the right center of the photo make up the rear end of Leo.