I Know This Plant!

So are you impressed that I know the name of a plant? Everyone knows what this is of course - it is Basil, growing in the garden. I love how the leaves are shiny, which is part of the beauty of Basil. But my favorite part of Basil is how aromatic it is. The garden is right next to the car, and sometimes I smell the Basil just getting into the car. Sometimes I brush up against it, and I nearly swoon with the scent. And of course adding fresh Basil to things like pasta, or making Pesto is more like sensory overload!

The Occultation of Venus

There was an interesting astronomical event late in the afternoon today. The Moon was going to cover up the planet Venus at about 4:40 PM just before the Moon set. A friend from the astronomy club and I set up in Memorial Park in town - it is up high on the cliff, and overlooks Hempstead Harbor and Long Island Sound. We set up a telescope and looked through binoculars, but there were clouds all the way to the horizon so we didn't see a thing, unfortunately. I was COUNTING on taking a photo of the Moon just about to cover Venus for the blog, so when we didn't see that I was at a loss. So I came home, and around sunset I saw this one cloud illuminated by the setting sun. So you get a pink cloud, instead of the Moon and Venus.

"Fish Week"

"Fish Week" is a joke. I am not going to post fish photographs all week long, but since I recently posted some other photographs of fish and fishing, I thought I would use this title for a laugh. So this is one of the other fish caught on the boat - it is a "Fluke" and it is stunningly beautiful, isn't it? The Mate held it up against the light and it was almost as if you could see through it. I decided to post two photographs instead of just one because the fish looks so different in each photograph. The fluke lives right on the ocean bottom, and with the coloring on it's back, it has to be nearly invisible to predators.

The Mature Master

When I was hired at the newspaper, in November of 1966 there were several other young photographers who had also just been hired. And there was a whole staff of photographers who had been there for a long time. So the older photographers were called "The Mature Masters," and we were called the "Snot Nosed Kids!" There was a lot of jesting about all of this, and it was fun for all of us. So this is a photograph of my friend Dick, who is a prize-winning photographer. I think he worked at the paper longer than I did, which was 41 years. I have always admired Dick's skill and enthusiasm. He is a photographer with a capital "P" which means he is always photographing, not just for for work. Here he is taking some photographs at Friday's "Dinosaur Breakfast" which he established about 6 years ago. It is a wonderful gathering of ex-newspaper photographers, that keeps us all connected.

After The Storm

There was a drenching rainstorm that passed through here this afternoon. It was astounding how much rain fell - there was flooding everywhere. As it is with these storms, there are "cells" where the rain is the heaviest, and areas where the rain is lighter. I was not in Sea Cliff, but out on the road on the south side of the island. When I finally got home it was obvious that the flooding had been the worst we have seen in a long time. I went to the beach, and huge parts of the sandy beach were just plain GONE! So I looked around and saw these geese preening themselves, and the gorgeous gray sky, and the moored sailboat. I thought it made a nice photograph.

Fishing

So this is another photo left over from fishing in Montauk. This fish is a Porgie, I believe, one of the fish that Kathy caught. I have never been a fisherman. No particular reason, but it just didn't interest me - I would rather stand around with a camera watching, which is what I did on this trip. When this first fish was caught, we all looked at it, and the mate put it on the painted deck. I moved in close to it to photograph and was struck by how magnificent an animal this is! We all realized that it was so beautiful, and we felt badly that it was dying. I just didn't expect that reaction. We all felt really badly. More fish were caught, and several hours later we ate them for lunch, and they were the best fish we had ever eaten. But man, it is tough to see them this way, fresh from the water with their life ebbing away.

I Know It's Not Easter

Recently I have been taking a number of classes at night down at church. The classes are actually in the school, and at one end of the parking lot there is a really nice raised garden with grass and boulders, on top of which are three crosses. It is a striking sight. I have known that it is there for a long time, but I never got around to looking at it closely. The most recent classes are three hours long, and fortunately we have a break every hour. So I went out at dusk for a walk, and went over to where the crosses are, and discovered that they make a stunning sight against the sky and lit by a giant mercury vapor lamp.