Mother and Son

On my walk, I saw these two people in the distance and the water running down to the harbor in the foreground.  I liked the shape of the water as it curved toward the harbor.  And the two tiny people in the distance make the scene more interesting.  So I took this photograph with a wide-angle lens.  Then I wondered what the people were doing.  It looked like a mother and son were  doing something on the ground.  So I put my telephoto lens on the camera and zoomed in on them.  It turns out that they had a metal detector and were going over the sand by the water.  It was hard to tell if they found anything, but I thought the silhouettes were interesting.

 

Seagull Landing Zone

I went for my three mile walk today.  It was not that cold as long as I bundled up and wore a ski hat.  I happened to have my 400mm lens on the camera - the lens I used yesterday to photograph the dog walkers.  I happened to see some seagulls sitting on the utility pole and on the arm that holds the streetlight.  So I quickly pointed the camera in their direction as things were changing quickly.  Everyone was lined up and then that seagull with wings spread came in to land.  I guess he was of higher standing in the flock because one of the birds on the lamp took off so the flying bird could land.  Such is life in the bird world

 

Copycats!

It's Tuesday so you know where we went for breakfast!  To the beach.  We had been sitting there for perhaps half an enjoying our coffee and donuts and tea when a car parked near us, and this couple got out.  They had beach chairs, and cups of coffee and a shopping bag, and were dressed for the cold.  Imagine our surprise when they set up their chairs on the beach, as we have done so many times, and drank their coffee!  The copycats!  I will say this, however - they are better people than we are.  It was not that warm and the wind was blowing - you can see a faint hazy area to the right of the brown shopping bag and if you enlarge the photograph you will see it was sand blowing down the beach!  These people are hardy souls, and hope they enjoy their breakfast as much as we do!

 

Walking The Dog

"Mom!  That creepy guy is following us again!  The old guy with the camera!"  Well, in my defense, I am not creepy.  :-)   But I did have a camera with a 400mm telephoto lens on it, and I DID follow them down our street for a block or so until they were in the perfect position and I could also see the dog.  The good news is that I was so far behind them that they never knew I was following them or taking their picture.  And they are on a public street.  So you be the judge...   :-)  What I love about this is the shadows on the street of the telephone wires looping between the utility poles.

Moonrise

This was my first view of the moon which I saw about 10 minutes into my walk.  It is the moon rising over Scudder's Pond, a place you are familiar with because of all the photographs I have taken of this pond.  What's nice about this time of month is, that the moon is nearly full so it rises about an hour or so before sunset.  So we get to see the moon in the sky, and yet the trees are illuminated by the setting sun.  That was yesterday.  To day the moon rose 50 minutes later, and so the sun would be so close to the horizon that the trees wouldn't be lit by the sun.  Glad I got this shot yesterday.  I love the blue of the pond on the bottom and the blue of the sky on top.

 

The Ball on a Wire

I went for my three-mile walk today for the first time in months and months.  It was too cold to ride my bike, and I realized that last winter I did a lot of walking to make up for not riding.  So I brought my camera, and found photographs everywhere.  One walk and eighty-seven photographs!  One thing that was fun, was that the moon was following me everywhere I walked!  It was nice to have a companion along with me.  You may see more moon photographs from this walk later on.  It suddenly occurred to me, that I could put the moon wherever I wanted, depending on where I stood.  So then I decided to balance the moon on a wire.

 

A Christmas Zoom Gathering

There is nothing that feels normal about this year's celebration of Christmas.  We should be in Los Angeles but we're not.  We are home alone having a Christmas dinner for two which has never happened ever - we have always had dinner with other family members, whether in Connecticut or Los Angeles.  But the one part of our day which brought joy to us was a Zoom meeting which included  Liz and Sarah and Amy and Gus, and the star of the video, Vivian!  It also included Kelsey from Maine, and my sisters, Karen, Joan and Betsey and our niece Jenny and nephew Jonathan and Lauren and their twins, Grayson and Evelyn, all in Connecticut.  And us, of course, in New York.  It was a wonderful gathering that finally felt like Christmas, at last.

 

Merry Christmas to All!

This was the photograph that I used for my Christmas Cards this year.  I usually try and find one of the best photographs each year that have to deal with the natural world.  But I didn't go anywhere this year, of course, so this is a photograph that I took in 2018, when a group of us camped overnight in White Sands National Monument, an astounding place to visit.  I chose this for Christmas because of the stars in the sky.  It is the constellation Orion the hunter.  These stars have no relation to the stars at Christmas but I love the feel of them in the photograph.  These are some of the words inside the card...

“A sacred place is one where the earth’s history can be heard more clearly.  Go to these places and listen. Once you've heard her, she can reach you anywhere.  -- Frederick W. Lehmann

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas, and we have the New Year to look forward to, and the hope that things will soon change for the better.

 

Our Favorite Santa Ever!

This is our favorite Santa of all time!  We first saw one of these at Amy & Gus' home a few years ago.  We fell head over heels for him.  So we came home and looked up the artist on the web, but there were no more Santas to be had!  We told Amy about not being able to find one.  She told two of her friends about us wanting one of these.  Several months later Amy told us that they had found one of these in a small shop and had given it to her!  We were thrilled!  And now we have our very own Santa which we love and want to share with you.  Isn't he something!

 

Shadows

I promised you that I was done with my "No Dunkin' Donuts" series, and I am.  But for many of you this will be a familiar scene.  It was our day at the beach for coffee and donuts, and I realized as we were finishing up that I had no idea what to do for a blog post.  Then I realized I had been staring at the snow fence which now had snow around it.  I could not see these shadows from the car, but I knew they would be there based on the angle of the fence and the position of the sun.  So I grabbed the toy camera, walked 20 feet and here was my shot!

 

Grace Wants to be Everywhere

Grace is so funny!  But you already know that.  Kathy had just gotten out of the shower, and Grace jumped up on the side of the tub, where she likes to be, and then she jumped into the tub itself.  I have no idea why she wants to be in there, but she wants to be everywhere.  Such a curious cat!

 

Sourdough Bread

Most Saturdays I drive over to the bagel store because we have bagels Saturday and Sunday for breakfast.  But with that blizzard that we had, with 8 to 10 inches of snow, there was no way I was going to risk driving over there!  I mean, 8 to 10 inches of snow!  So fortunately Kathy had made a couple of  loaves of sourdough bread.  Look how beautiful this is!  And the taste was exceptional!  So this was our breakfast instead of bagels.  A fair tradeoff!

 

White on White on White

This is a funny story.  Kathy said "Shouldn't we bring the Adirondack chairs in from outside because the snow is coming?"  "No, I want to leave them out.  The snow won't hurt them."  "But they have to come in for the winter, so why not now?"  "I want to leave them out so that after the snow comes, I can do a photograph of the white chairs covered with snow!"  So here is my photograph that I envisioned long before the snowstorm.  It looks better than I thought it would.  White, on white on white!

 

The Conjunction

This is a photograph of a crescent moon, in the upper left, and Jupiter and Saturn in the lower right.  You will need to click on the photograph to see it large enough to see both planets.  On December 21, Jupiter and Saturn will meet in a “great conjunction,” the closest they can be seen in the sky together for nearly 800 years.  This is rare celestial rendezvous, a cosmic gift of sorts, many lifetimes in the making. 

Tonight they were about 1/3 of a degree apart.  On the 21st they will only be 1/10th of a degree apart!

Unfortunately, the weather report for Monday night is for overcast skies.  Tuesday should be clear and they will be about 1/6 of a degree apart.  but even seeing them this close is a thrill because it is such a rarity!

Here is a close up, through a tree of Saturn, on the top and Jupiter underneath.

And here is a cropped close-up of the photograph from above.  You can see the brighter Jupiter and two of its moons, and above that Saturn and two of it's moons!

 

Evidence of the Snowstorm

We ended up with 8 to 10 inches of snow.  It was a heavier snow, and it was wet underneath, so it was a bear to shovel, because when you tried to toss the snow, it refused to leave the shovel.  But for the heavy lifting I have my monster snow blower which handled it with no problem.  After I did our driveway, I went over to our neighbor Judy's and I did most of her driveway.  One thing that was unexpected was that the snow on the car was nearly impossible to push off.  I finally started up the car and turned on the heat and about 30 minutes later I could push the snow off.

So I decided to post more artistic photographs, instead of photos of piled snow.  I love how the snow has fastened itself to the garage windows.  I have no idea why it ends up that way but I have seen it before in other photographs.  And of course, you need to see my favorite tree - seen from a second story window.  I love how the delicate branches can be seen against the fresh white snow.

 

Now it Begins...

The forecast is for heavy snow tonight, and light snow started at dusk today.  The sun had set already set when I looked out the window and saw the light snow on the ivy in front of our overgrown back gate.  It was really dark and this was a long exposure.  The blue light is what you get long after sunset.  When our friends the Gordon's lived next door, this gate did not exist and we walked back and forth all the time as we visited them, or they visited us.  The people who bought the Gordon's house installed the gate and we never went through it again.

 

Speaking of Orion...

Last evening's post was about Sirius, the dog star in Canis Major, which is Orion's dog.  I would like you to meet Orion the hunter, if you are not already familiar with him.  The constellation of Orion is probably the second most well known constellation after Ursa Major, the Great Bear, which we recognize as the "Big Dipper."  In Orion, there are four brilliant stars, the two at the upper left are his shoulders, and the two on the lower right are his knees.  But the most salient feature are the three stars of Orion's belt, and then extending down from that at an angle is Orion's sword.  It is magnificent to see him rising in the east starting in December, and he will be with us until March.

 

The Dog in the Tree

Last night was the main night for observing the Geminid meteor shower.  That shower is one of the best of the year.  The forecast was for cloudy so I didn't plan on driving out to a dark sky site to see it.  Bad decision.  It was clear for a couple of hours and members of the club saw a bunch of spectacular meteors streaking through the night sky.  So tonight was a possibility for some meteors on the tail end of the shower.  I drove out to Sunken Meadow State Park, and it was really clear.  I only saw one "fireball" which was beautiful.  So then I spent time taking a few photographs.  I thought this photograph of a bright star shining through a tree was really beautiful.  The star is Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.  It is often called the "Dog Star" as the brightest star of Canis Major, the "Great Dog" constellation. Canis Major was classically depicted as the dog of Orion the hunter. Please click on this to see in in more detail.

 

More Christmas Decorations

I have decided to only post Christmas decorations on houses from now until Christmas.  OK, Just kidding!  I was desperate because I had not done a photograph yet for today.  I saw this house a couple of weeks ago, and wanted to photograph it because it was illuminated completely by LED lights and I didn't like the lack of warmth in those types of lights.  Plus, these are Christmas decorations and they are in purple.  So that's why I am showing you this house. For that reason, and because I am desperate!  I will try harder tomorrow.

 

Foggy Foggy Day

I should have my head examined!  I was on my way to the recycling center and I drove past the large baseball field in town and saw this scene.  I kept driving and thought "I'll just come back from recycling and take this picture later."  Man, THAT is a really dumb idea!  Fortunately I did a U-turn, parked the car and took a bunch of pictures.  How many YEARS is it going to take me to know that if there is a picture, STOP NOW, or the  picture will be gone!  I was bringing a bunch of bags with leaves to recycling.  I had to make three trips, because there were so many bags.  On my last trip, most of the fog was gone!  But I got my photograph.  Lesson learned, I hope!  Whew!

We Have Our Christmas Decorations Up!

Well, we finally got our Christmas decorations up.  It was a lot of work and we did it all in one day!  But I am really good on an extension ladder, moving it all around by myself.  I needed the 30-foot one to reach the tops of the roof.  And I never worry about working on a ladder at all - what could go wrong?  OK, OK, there was that ONE time that the ladder went out from under me and I fractured a rib, but other than that...  Oh wait...  I just remembered something...  This is not our house!  That means we still have to get some decorations up because this is the first year in about 10 years that we are not going to Los Angeles, because of Covid.

 

A New Landscape

I first saw this scene several weeks ago, when I was in a hurry and couldn't stop to photograph it.  I put a note on the kitchen cabinet to remind me to get back here at dusk.  So I stopped by tonight at the right time.  This is the new giant condominium complex built down just beyond the old power plant.  The last time I photographed it, I used my drone to do an aerial photograph of the huge foundation.  I meant to get back long before this.  I do love the feeling of this photograph - it's kind of spooky and empty looking, including the road which passes by it.  The complex is only illuminated by work lights in the building which is still under construction.

 

The Levitating Leaves

It wasn't that windy today, so I was so surprised when I saw all these leaves flying in the air just outside the back door.  Wow, they are really flying around!  I wonder why.  Well, actually I know exactly why.  I was actually outside with my monster leaf blower back pack.  When I went to buy the blower, I asked the guy, as a joke, if they had one where the wind coming of the blower is supersonic!  He said "You don't want fast, you want volume."  So I bought a really big one that moves a LOT of air.  Here is the unexpected bonus of this machine - I can just keep it on idle for most of the time, and yet it really blows leaves around!  And the other bonus is that the noise it makes is much lower in frequency than most blowers.  There is no high frequency whine that you hear from some of the blowers that the neighborhood lawn workers use.  So I was blowing leaves from around the house, and noticed that when I aimed the air at the leaves in the corner, they all flew up in the air like this.  So I went and grabbed a camera and then had to operate the blower and the camera, and I managed to get this!

 

How About THIS Tree!

I was driving through the center of Huntington yesterday evening and noticed one of the side streets in the center of town was blocked off.  I assumed construction, and then this scene flashed by as I drove past.  I was on my way to an observing session at the Vanderbilt.  It was not a normal observing session - we each parked our cars away from other cars, and set up our telescopes away from others.  It wasn't the normal session where we visit each other and chat.  We were all alone, but we were observing from the same place, together.  On the way home I found a place to park and grabbed my camera and this was what I saw.  It was spectacular, and charming and uplifting.  Notice the snowflakes painted on the street.  I cannot find any story about this that speaks to the height of this tree.  I am guessing fifty or sixty feet.  But what a wonderful thing to see - there were people, keeping their distance, really enjoying this display.

 

Cloudy Day, Sunny Day

It was exactly one day after yesterday's cloudy skies photograph that I awoke to blue sky and sunshine!  It was such a wonderful relief after nearly a week of overcast skies.  So I did my walk as I had each day, looking for photographs.  And all I could think of was how beautiful the blue skies were, so this is a picture of blue skies.  Of course you need more than just sky in a photo.  I thought I would include a group of some of the buildings in the condominium complex.  They are really nicely designed and pretty to look at, and well made as well.  We had two days of sunshine like this, and then, on the day we drove home, it was overcast and raining the whole way...

 

The Beauty of Gray

Before we took this trip to Rochester and stayed for a week - nearly a whole week of overcast skies - I had forgotten how in fall, the skies can be overcast for a long periods of time here. So when I went for my walk each day I had overcast skies to photograph.  The interesting thing about the overcast skies are the beautiful tones of gray that they display.  So the trick is to find some foreground that adds interest to the photograph, because the clouds alone are usually not enough.  It helps that there is this wetland at the condo that is reflecting the sky, and it was perfect for the composition.

 

Energies in the Land

This may seem like a strange photograph to you.  I found this along my walk at the condo.  It is very subtle in its color and in its contrast.  But the wetland grasses are bent in such a way that it seems like a wave.  I see subtle things like this in the landscape.  Because back in 1989 I went to the Maine Photographic Workshop and studied with a famous photographer who does some of the most subtle and beautiful black and white landscapes I have ever seen.  Studying with him for a week changed the way I see the landscape.  Let me tell you what he wrote in his first book of photographs: "I am more drawn to that land where certain energies are closer to the surface...  Such places correspond to emotional currents within me."

 

The Tree Has Eyes

On my walks around the condo and the neighborhood a couple of streets over, I kept walking by this tree with a couple of squirrel's nests in it.  My first thought was that it looked like the tree had eyes.  OK, so it's not the world's greatest photograph, but something different from what I would have shot here at home.  At least you know I am looking everywhere for photographs.  I also love this time of year, with the tree branches stripped of their leaves - it allows us to see the incredibly delicate structure of trees.

 

Upstate Farm

This appears to be a large modern farm in Ovid, NY.  We pass these grain silos every time we drive up to Rochester.  I don't think I have ever photographed them carefully before and I certainly didn't do that here, because we had been driving all day, it was getting dark and I was anxious to finish the trip.  At this point, we were about an hour and a half away from Rochester.  The interesting thing is that abandoned farmhouse that I have photographed for 20 years or so, is just down the street from here.  Mainly this is a photograph about the sky, but without the silos it would not be a very interesting photograph.  We love taking the smaller two-lane roads after we leave Binghamton, because we both love the landscapes along the route so much.

 

Mystery in the Woods

When I was in Rochester I tried to get out for a walk each day.  Mostly about 2 1/2 miles in a residential neighborhood.  In the middle of the walk, looking at a map, I walked to a dead end street just to walk as far as I could.  The street ended at a woods, with a path, so of course I had to go exploring.  As I entered the woods, I could see this triangular shape in the distance.  It was interesting just because it is unusual in the woods to see triangular shapes.  So I had some fun trying to find the best view of this structure.  It's not a mystery at all, as far as I am concerned - the title is false advertising!   When I was a kid, there was a woods and pond down the street, and my friend Larry and I were always thinking about building a fort in the woods, or building a boat to row out onto the pond.  Fortunately for us, we did neither!

Doll Making

Jo Anne was thrilled to hear about Kathy's doll-making.  So we brought Kathy's sewing machine along with us.  So the two of them spent days making dolls and then making clothes for the dolls.  They were having so much fun together.  Kathy has been working alone on her dolls at home, so it was a lot of fun for her to have a friend to work with and to show some of what she has learned.  Two pals hanging out - what's better than that?

 

The Trip Home

Today was the trip home, in the rain.  We love taking the smaller roads through upstate New York because we love the land here.  This is Route 5 & 20.  We know not to travel on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, having made the mistake to do that many years ago.  So I chose Monday as the travel day knowing that the forecast was for rain.  I hoped for light rain, which we had for the first part of the trip.  Then we ran into heavy rain and clouds so thick it seemed that it was almost night.  Fortunately after about an hour the rain lightened and the rest of the trip was easy.

Cattails

 

I owe Vince big time for this photograph!  He was looking out the window after breakfast this morning and said:  "Look at how all the cattail hairs are blowing off the plants in the wind!"  So I got my camera and walked to the edge of the wetland behind their home.  It was like a snowstorm!  I always knew of these plants as "Cattails" or "Punks" as a kid.  When ripe, the heads disintegrate into a cottony fluff, from which the seeds disperse by wind.  There must have been a hundred of these in the wetland all within view.  Please click on the image to see it in more detail.  

So this is fun - I am friends with a neighbor of Vince and Jo Anne's and his name is Rick.  On other trips we have spent time talking about photography.  Rick is a really accomplished photographer.  After I came into the house from photographing the cattails, Vince got a photograph by email.  Rick had seen me out shooting, and we had a conversation, before I went back to photographing.  So what a fun thing to find he has snapped a shot of me at the edge of the marshland. with his phone.  This is fun, because I am an elusive photographer and am rarely photographed!

The Rising of the Moon

I was pleased and amazed this morning to awake to a brilliant blue sky!  I just figured it would stay overcast for the rest of our trip.  So I went out for my 2 mile walk at 2:30, and then thought to look at the Moon application on my iPhone and realized that the moon was going to rise at about 4:30 today.  So when my walk was over, I went to the car and got my tripod and telephoto lens, and then found a good spot to watch the moon rise.  This is the result.  I also brought along my binoculars, because it is always wonderful to watch the moon with my own eyes.

 

The Flight of the Geese

I have always found that seeing the flight of Geese in the sky in the Fall evokes powerful feelings in me.  I am not sure what it is exactly, but it is something deep inside me that responds to their flight.  Is it that they are leaving us?  Is it that Winter is coming?  It has something doing with the fact that the Geese are programmed by their DNA that come the right time, they are called by their nature to make the trip to warmer climates.  Whatever it is, it is beautiful to watch, and if they are low enough, and if we can hear their "honks" as they fly, it makes their passage an even more powerful experience.

 

We Hope You Had A Wonderful Thanksgiving

We are so glad we drove to Rochester to have Thanksgiving week with Vince and Jo Anne.  We have enjoyed hanging out together, inside for the most part, except for some walks around the complex.  We had a wonderful traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, thanks to the hard work of Jo Anne and Kathy.  So here we are, before we ate dinner.  Even though this year has been difficult, we are still so thankful for all our blessings.

 

A Brother & Sister Walk

We have been sitting around way too much since we arrived at Vince & Jo Anne's.  So yesterday we started out doing some walking.  Kathy and Vince decided to go out for a short walk, so I decided to join them.  This photograph is the result.  I really love this portrait of brother and sister.  It is not easy to get a photograph where both subjects look their best, and also that you get them both smiling at the same time!  I was going to say "I was lucky" but the truth is that I worked at it, taking a lot of photographs to get this one, and I am proud of how good they both look.  Be sure to click on the image to see it in more detail!

No Dunkin' - Swan Song

I have been doing my Tuesday posts of "No Dunkin' Donuts" for 38 weeks now.  I had no idea when I started how long this would go on for.  But it feels as if I need to stop now.  I realized the last couple of weeks that instead of having a relaxing coffee and donut at the beach, I spend most of my time trying to find yet one more photograph.  So our Tuesday ritual has become something else, and so I have decided that this is the last post in this project.  I had done a photo of me holding one of these donuts between by thumb and forefinger months ago.  I wanted to make the ultimate version of the shot, so later on I brought two chopsticks with me, stuck them into the bottom of the donut and took this picture.  Then I carefully retouched the chopsticks out of the image, and here is my surrealistic image that I really love.  It may be my favorite photograph of the whole series!

So here are our empty chairs on the beach as a way of saying goodbye.  We will continue our weekly ritual, and things will be much more relaxed for me, not having to find a picture each week. I mean, if I do find something wonderful, then I will do a regular post on the blog.  I first learned of the term "swan song" when I was in my early years at Newsday.  Someone talked about one of the reporters who was leaving, as "writing his swan."  I had no idea what that meant.  This is what Wikipedia says about a swan song:  "The swan song is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement.  The phrase refers to an ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful song just before their death, having been silent during most of their lifetime.  This belief, whose basis in actuality is long-debated, had become proverbial in ancient Greece and was reiterated many times in later Western poetry and art."

Upstate Skies

We left Long Island this morning enroute to Rochester, NY where we will be staying with Vince and Jo Anne for Thanksgiving week.  Not to worry, we have been hunkered down for 38 weeks, and Vince and Jo Anne have been doing the same.  So we will all be safe together.  We knew we were upstate when we drove from sunny conditions into overcast clouds, which is kind of a signature of the weather here.  The clouds are a beautiful silver gray, the only problem is when you see cloudy skies for weeks at a time.

 

Facetime with California

We decided to do a Facetime with Amy and Liz and Gus and Vivian this afternoon!  It was so nice to have a conversation in real life and and to see Vivian in real time.  She was good for a while, but then it was her nap time and she was tired, so I didn't get a smile from her.  But everyone else looks great, don't you think?  One of the reasons we wanted to chat with them was that we have decided to cancel our JetBlue flight reservations for Christmas.  The Covid infection rate is climbing through the roof in California and we think it is just a risk we don't want to take.  But we were SO looking forward to the trip!

 

Big Leaves, Little Leaves

I spent a few days trying to get this shot.  The driveway was covered with leaves from all the trees around here and I was trying to find a nicely designed picture that included the beautiful little yellow leaves from the Japanese maple tree and the larger brown leaves from the Hickory tree.  I must have taken my Nikon with the close up lens, out to the driveway at least four times, trying to get the best shot.  The rain was really helpful - I tried two different times when it was not raining, and those photographs were not as interesting as this one.

 

The Crescent Moon

I went out to photograph the crescent moon tonight all by itself.  The moon was one of the three objects in my photograph that included two planets that I posted the other day.  So tonight I celebrate just the moon.  Our moon.  It is such a wonderful thing to look at, either with our naked eyes, or binoculars or a telescope.  I think my favorite way to view the moon is with high power, through a telescope.  You would not believe  how battered the surface of the moon is.  It is battered because the surface was smashed by all the small rocks, and some not so small ones, that were left over after the formation of the solar system.  It is astounding thing to see.