I Was Standing in Line...

So I was standing in line at the fish counter while the young man behind the counter wrapped up my piece of salmon that I was going to have for dinner.  I happened to look down and saw all of these whole fish.  They looked as if they had been carefully arranged as if they were swimming upstream or something.  My next thought was "Oh man, I don't have a blog photo yet, and this may be it!"  Then I thought "Oh no, I don't have my toy camera with me!" Then I realized that I had my new iPhone with me and that has a really good camera built in, so I quickly got it out and snapped four photographs and then the man waiting on me handed me my package.   Whew, a blog photo, just in time!

 

This Magnificent Bridge!

I showed you my photograph of Manhattan from the Throgs Neck Bridge, which I took while stopped in traffic on the bridge.  So I have a confession here.  I love the new Tappan Zee Bridge which is named after a former governor of New York State, Mario Cuomo.  I actually got to photograph him once, before he was governor.  Anyhow this is a stunning bridge and deserves to be photographed when I cross it.  So before I cross the bridge I set the camera on manual focus and put it on the seat next to me.  If I see a shot I like, I pick up the camera and rest it on the top of the steering wheel and I keep watching the road and snap the shutter.  Easy Peasy.

 

The Ferns are Coming Up

I love when the first ferns come up out of the ground with their fiddle heads which then unroll.  These plants are so delicate and I never tire of photographing them.  The main fern bank is in front of the house, but some ferns have migrated under the famous Japanese maple tree.  I tried photographing these ferns with my normal camera in color, but I was not impressed with what I was able to get, so I got the camera converted to infrared and I knew these ferns would stand out against the background.  I love the sort of ominous black branches coming in from the top of the frame.

 

What a Mess!

I could also title this blog post "Fun With Plaster!"  We needed to re-do our upstairs bathroom.  We re-did the bathroom maybe 5 years after we bought the house, and I put down a new plywood floor and a new vinyl floor covering, and ripped out the lathe and plaster walls and replaced them with sheetrock, after re-doing all the plumbing and electrical wiring.  I used cement board around the bathtub and then I tiled the wall after installing new fixtures in the bath.  We wallpapered the walls with a beautiful dark green wallpaper with a nice pattern on it.  I also put new sheetrock over the lathe and plaster ceiling.  Over the years, I am guessing that it was the moisture in the bathroom that caused little cracks to form in the ceiling.  The edges of the cracks rose up above the level of the sheetrock, like tiny mountain ranges.  So I had to begin the process by sanding the entire ceiling to make it flat again.  Then I primed it and then did a finish coat so the ceiling looks brand new.  Man what a messy job.  I even bought myself this fashionable Tyvek coverall to keep a lot of the plaster dust off me.  Kathy stripped the old wallpaper off and I will be painting the walls when we are done.  I will be sure and post a photo of the finished bathroom.  Stay tuned.

Doctor Jessica Li !!!

I have talked about and posted photographs of Jessica a number of times on the blog.  The short version is that when she was a high school student and 14 years of age, she showed up at one of our ASLI meetings and said she wanted to join and that she wanted to build a telescope!  So after High School she went to Stony Brook University and graduated with three majors, including engineering and astronomy.  Then she worked at Brookhaven National Labs for a few years and then headed off to the University of Arizona to work on her PhD.  Today I received a post card from her that she had defended her PhD thesis and is now officially Doctor Jessica Li.  Man oh man!  How cool is that!  This photograph was taken at an observing session at the Vanderbilt in 2015.

She came home with her husband to visit their parents back in 2022 and stopped in one afternoon and it was really nice to catch up with what she has been up to. The FIREBall-2 ultraviolet balloon telescope for one thing!

And then in 2023 she came home again, and arranged to give a talk at ASLI where it all began, 15 years ago!  Because she was speaking she invited two of her High School teachers to attend.  Richard, on the left was her physics teacher, and Linda, on the right was her science teacher.   It has been amazing and a joy for me to follow along with her journey!  And what a joy to hear that she is now a PhD!

 

Whitestone Bridge and Manhattan

OK, DON'T PANIC!  I have always wanted to take this photograph, which is a view of the Whitestone Bridge with Manhattan behind it,  as seen from the lead up to the Throgs Neck Bridge.  This is impossible to do while driving of course, but on this day, with perfect conditions for the photograph, while I was on the approach to the bridge, I happened to be in the right lane and traffic stopped!  I was driving alone and my camera was on the rider's seat.  So I quickly grabbed it and shot through the closed window!  How lucky I was to get this!  I see this sight every time I head back to Long Island over the bridge, but it is impossible to photograph it.  Until yesterday.

 

Telescope Heaven!

Today was the first day of the Northeast Astronomy Forum, held at Rockland Community College.  I have been going to this event for more than 20 years, and perhaps 30 years.  It is a monster event for those of us interested in astronomy - I believe it is the largest event like this in the United States.  You can find anything and everything related to astronomy here, including telescopes!  BE SURE AND CLICK ON THIS IMAGE AND IT WILL OPEN UP TO FULL SCREEN.

This is one vendor's booth, as seen from the balcony overlooking the field house. I mean, look at all the stuff!

Here a couple has to run the gauntlet of at least a dozen refracting telescopes.  Not an easy thing to do at this event!

This is the Celestron telescope display.  Look at the size of some of these telescopes!

This is a display of classic Unitron telescopes, which were the kind of telescopes every amateur dreamed of opening back in the 1950's.

 

Hostas!

For some reason this year, I have been fascinated with the Hostas that grow in the garden next to the house.  There were tiny buds coming out of the ground, and suddenly they exploded up from the dirt!  I could not believe how quickly they gained height!  So I have taken pictures when they were small and then when they were taller.  When I was taking the taller photos from ground level looking up, I suddenly looked  down into the leaves and saw this beautiful image, with the water drops all over the leaves!  Maybe later on I will show you the short and tall versions of the plants but this is far more beautiful.  Be sure and click on this to see how beautiful it is!

 

Pick Your Favorite, Please...

After I photographed the tree at the Vanderbilt Museum, I walked over to these antique columns that are in a semicircle at the entrance of the Vanderbilt Estate.  The land drops away from here for several hundred feet, down to the water and it is a spectacular view off to the left of this photo. These six columns are a thousand years old and come from Carthage, now the modern Tunisa.  They stand 14 feet high and weigh 4000 pounds each and were installed when the estate was built in 1912.

So I am torn about which photograph I like best.  Color is such a part of how I see the world and in creating photographs, but I love black & white photographs a lot!  So I converted this photo to black & white and even now I can't decide which photograph is my favorite.  Please help me out here, and vote for your favorite photograph of the two!  Save me!  Thank you!

 

Tree and Sky at Dusk

I wasn't sure that I had a good photograph for the blog tonight.  I think I still have a photo or two from our trip to Rochester, but I was not sure. When I got to my astronomy meeting tonight just a bit early I decided to wander around the parking lot before walking down to the planetarium.  I spotted this tree from across the parking lot, and walked over to it and then started walking around it while shooting photographs.  This was the last photo I shot because the tree was the most silhouetted from this point. I love the shape of this tree and it's bare branches!   And below it in the background, that building is the Marine Museum and the Hall of Fishes.  Someday I should visit that!

A Waste of Good Land

                              

Look at this farmland.  Looks like the farmer grew corn here this past year.  What a waste of good land!  This land could be used for something really useful, instead of just growing some crops.  Who needs more corn, anyway?  You could put something beautiful here that would be much more interesting to look at!

Like THIS for instance!  Homes for people to live in!  Much more beautiful that fields of corn, right?  Believe it or not, this development is right across the road from the farm in the first photograph.  All I did was turn around to take the first photograph, after I took this one.  Seriously.

There, isn't THIS more attractive than a field of corn?  It is a huge development, with different kinds of housing.  I wouldn't dare wander on to the property, so I photographed everything from the road.

These structures on this part of the property are different from those in the previous photograph and they are closer to the road.  It will be interesting to see what the whole thing looks like when it is finished.  I had a sense that the use of the land was going to change, when almost exactly one year ago, I photographed a farmhouse and two trees next to it, that was located on the edge of this land.     So click on this link and read my blog post from back one year ago.  What's to Become of This?  By now, of course you know my comment about "a waste of the land" was facetious!  You know from my photographs that I love photographing fields and farmhouses and the beauty of the land.  Not so much giant new condominium developments.

Eastman House, a New View

This was George Eastman's home, and is now the George Eastman Museum, or at least the house part of it.  There are other structures attached to it at the back, including the Dryden Theater and then galleries behind that.  I don't think I have photographed it from this angle before.  If you want to see what it looks like from the front, click here:  Eastman House Front.  I am looking across one of the gardens and the Loggia, from the other day, is right behind me.  I need to photograph this view again when the garden is in full bloom!  The chimneys on the right side of this photo are so distinctive to this mansion.

 

A Nice Message

I am always looking for photographs.  Always.  I was returning to Vince and Jo Anne's after going to the Eastman House, and as I turned the corner I saw these two hand painted signs leaning up against this rock.  I thought that given the current climate where some people are no longer civil to one another, that these two signs were a welcome message. They are a nice reminder that there is always hope.  And I am also reminded, as I think about this, that almost all of the people we meet each day are kind to one another.  So we only hear about the small minority who behave badly.  So I celebrate all the rest of us who are kind, and help one another and who are a joy to be around.

 

The West Garden Loggia

Well, I had to look up the name of this structure!  And I learned a new word: "Loggia."  This is a photograph of the loggia in the west garden of the George Eastman Museum.  What caught my eye are the vines growing up on the open parts of the loggia. During the growing season, these vines all have leaves on them, so what grabbed my attention is the bare shapes of the vines which are striking with parts of the vines seeming to reach out. That's what I saw that made me realize there was a photograph here.  About the loggia: "A loggia (from the Italian word for ‘lodge’) is an outdoor corridor or gallery with a fully covered roof and an outer wall that is open to the elements. Traditionally, loggias either ran along the facade of a building or could exist as a stand-alone feature. The open outer side of the loggia is usually supported by several columns or decorative arches.  I hope you found this as interesting as I did.

 

Focus, Click, TOTALITY

I saw these T-Shirts for sale at George Eastman Museum and my first reaction was "I NEED one of these!"  Then I looked at the price, $29.95 and decided that in fact, I did not need another T-Shirt.  What's funny is that I rarely wear T-Shirts, but I do like to buy them.  And this would be particularly interesting because Rochester never saw totality.  So much for "Focus, Click, TOTALITY."  That never happened, so maybe that makes a shirt like this even more valuable.  And the design on the front of the shirt is really beautifully done.  It is very cool.  So cool, that maybe I should have bought one!   :-)

 

Route 250 and South Ave, Webster

We were on our way to dinner one night when we stopped at a red light for Route 250.  Fortunately, I was in the front seat and grabbed my iPhone and snapped this photo before another car pulled up alongside us.  I can't explain why I love this photograph, but I think it is all about the extraordinary light.  Gray clouds are to the east, in the distance and the sun was very close to setting, making the light a deep yellow in color.  It sure doesn't hurt that the building was yellow as well.  It is kind of a documentary photograph - a traffic light pole, a road sign, and a "don't walk" light, all with shadows on the wall.  Simple, but I think dramatic.

 

Optics Lesson. What?

Wow, this is cool!  What is it?  Any ideas?  It is kind of beautiful in a way.  It looks like it is made up of light or something.  What made this shape and these subtle colors?  You won't believe the answer!

We all sat down to diner the other night at about 6 PM and the sun was still up.  I had half a glass of red wine to go with my meal, and I happened to see a funny shape on the dark tablecloth.  I wasn't sure what it was so I went and got a piece of paper from my white pad, and when I placed it on the tablecloth, I could now see clearly what was going on.  The glass of wine is curved, of course, and it worked as a lens, and formed this image from the sun's rays and the image is red, because the sunlight was going through the glass of wine!  How cool is that!  If you are curious about the wine it was a 2021 Maddalena Cabernet Sauvignon, and actually I was not that fond of it.

 

Less and Less Each Time

Another trip to Rochester means passing by one of my favorite subjects, the abandoned and deteriorating farmhouse in Ovid.  There used to be a gable roof on the house but that has all collapsed.  I forget how much of the roof was still sticking up when I last photographed the house. 

It is nice that this early in the season, none of the trees have bloomed yet so we can see the building clearly.

The windows only look at the sky these days because the roof and floors and stairs have all collapsed inside.  This must have been a lovely farmhouse with nice architectural details, and I would love to have seen it when it was it was new.

 

The Eclipse - Clouded Out...

This is how to watch a total eclipse of the sun!  These are two of Vince and Jo Anne's neighbors in the community, and knowing that the temperature will drop they made themselves comfortable in their chairs, with some rocks for footstools!

I set up my 4 inch refractor on it's equatorial mount, which tracks objects in the sky, early in the day to make sure it was properly aligned to track the sun.  Lots of people in this community are walkers and so there were a lot of visitors who wanted to know about this and about the eclipse.  You will notice, sadly that the skies are overcast and it didn't look good for any clearing.

About ten minutes before totality, it started to get dark and you can see that the clouds were still with us.  You can see that some of the outside lights on the houses in the distance have already turned on automatically.  So it was even darker than it appears here.

I was expecting it to be dark during totality, even though we couldn't see the sun, but I was stunned at how quickly it got as dark as night and how dark it was.  It was wonderful to see, and in a minute or two to go from sort of getting dark, to this!

There is a phenomena during total eclipses that because the shadow of the moon is large, it is only about a hundred and fifteen miles wide, and even in clear skies, if you can see the horizon, you will see a sunset all around you because the shadow only goes out so far.  And the sky there is still fully illuminated.   So it was a big disappointment to not see the total eclipse,  but it was still incredibly exciting to see how quickly the night came on and how dark it was, so that was a pretty good consolation prize, and it was a joy to meet so many neighbors who saw the telescope and who stopped by to talk!  That may have been the day's gift!

 

Cattails

 

I have mentioned before that Vince and Jo Anne's property backs up to a small wetland, which is such a bonus. There are ducks and geese and all kinds of birds behind their condo.  These are Cattails and this is how they work:  the tiny unisexual flowers are borne on a dense cylindrical spike, with the male flowers located above the female flowers. After releasing their pollen, the male flowers wither and fall off, leaving the characteristic brown furry fruiting spikes. When mature, the spike disintegrates to release cottony masses of minute wind-dispersed seeds.  There was a gentle breeze today, and I could see small tufts of "stuff" "from the brown furry fruiting spikes" being blown away from the plant.  It was amazing to watch, and beautiful as well.

The Organist

I went for my usual visit to the George Eastman Museum, as I always do when in Rochester.  And it turned into a spectacular visit!  Why?  Because it was the weekend and the organist at the museum was playing the organ!  This organ is the largest organ ever installed in a home!  The main console, which is where the organist plays, is in the conservatory.  There are two chambers full of many ranks of organ pipes, one on the north end and one on the south end, both on the second floor.  I don't remember the last time I heard concert music on an organ, except at church.  The best part of the whole visit which included listening to the organist perform, was to have a chance to chat with him and ask questions. 

I mentioned to him that my grandfather Clarke was an organist and an organ builder and repairer. The organist told me some wonderful things, including what kind of music Mr. Eastman liked to hear, and that did not include Bach!  And then, with a twinkle in his eye, he said would you like to hear a toccata and fugue?  I said "Yes" and he was off and running.  What a thrill that was in such a relatively small space, compared to a church, for instance. Then when he was finished with that piece, he asked if I wanted to hear the kind of pieces visitors requested, and he then played a selection from "Phantom of the Opera!"  I mean, come ON!  That was awesome!

When I left, I thanked him profusely, for the performance and the conversation.  I said I came to Rochester for the eclipse, but listening to his music and talking to him made my day!

This is the North Organ Console, and the door to the right leads to the second chamber of organ pipes.  There is a bit of a sad story about this.  There was a fire in Eastman House just before it opened in 1947 and the original console was destroyed!  But due to the generosity of Dr. Richard Zipf, he donated this organ console from his home in California, to Eastman House and included the money required to ship and refurbish it!  What great luck for Eastman House to have such a beautiful replacement.

The Old Plough

I do a 2.5 mile walk each day when we are visiting Vince and Jo Anne, starting through their neighborhood and then walking into the neighborhood one street over.  Then I walk out to State Road and walk back to where I started.  I have passed this plow on State Road a number of times over the last four years. But in the past, this garden was filled with flowers, and you could not see all the parts of the plough fully.  But this is early Spring and nothing is growing and I was thrilled to see all of the plough visible!  So, finally, here is my shot!

 

April Flurries

We had a nice drive from Sea Cliff to Rochester today.  It was a cloudy day but the roads were dry and  traffic was not bad. As we got up south of Binghamton we did run into snow flurries and that made for some pretty scenes as some of the hills disappeared into the distance because of the flurries.  Now all we hope for is a clear Monday for the Total Solar Eclipse.  Fingers crossed.

 

The Pizza Was Getting Cold

I was on my way back from picking up a small pizza for dinner when I drove past this scene.  I have photographed these trees on the golf course before but in a different season.  I kept on driving then thought "I really need a blog post tonight" so with the pizza sitting on the seat next to me, I turned the car around, parked and took 5 minutes to take this photograph.  The Pizza was only a bit cold, but it was worth it!  I love the cool green colors, which were that way because it was dusk.

 

Purple and Pink

It was raining and I went to the store for a piece of salmon to grill. On the way home, this woman was at the top of Laurel Avenue with her dog and the dog was on a long leash in the street, so I was very careful driving around them.  Then I saw the bright colors and realized she was going to walk downhill.  When I got home, I rushed into the house and grabbed my 200-600mm telephoto lens and a camera and got back out to the street, waiting for her to walk by.  I waited until she passed and then did this shot.  Pretty colors for a gray and rainy day!  I couldn't believe my luck. 

 

Somedays, Overcast is Better

I like sunny days, but sometimes I think it is much easier to take photographs on overcast days.  When the sun is out, there are some directions, depending on where the sun is and what the subject is, when you can't take the photograph you want.  On overcast days, I can shoot in just about any direction I want. And that was the case here, with these broken stalks of marsh grasses.  I love the pattern and the reflections in the water that the stalks make.

 

Happy Birthday Liz!

It's Liz' birthday today!  Since she is in Los Angeles, we called her with Facetime and we got to wish her "Happy Birthday" in person, so to speak.  It sure is nice that things like Facetime and Zoom now exist. Not only is it good for birthdays, its good for seeing grandchildren as well!  I photographed this scene because it seemed incongruous, the electronics in the middle of some nice candlesticks.

 

The Sun

I spoke to a small group of students at the school where I gave the talk about light pollution a couple of weeks ago.  About six students were interested in telescopes and their design and how they work so I said I would come by and we would talk during the lunch hour.  It was a nice meeting.  As the students were leaving I saw this sun stitched on the left sleeve of one of the students!  I saw it and said "Did you make that?  It's really cool!"  He said he did and he is going to make the moon and put that on his right shoulder!  How cool is that, and look at his workmanship!

 

How Cool Are We!

OK  we are ALL SET for the Eclipse!  AND we look really cool!  Today, my friend Grace gave us three pair of these plastic eclipse glasses.  Usually these glasses are made out of cardboard, and don't stay on easily.  She is a photographer and will be traveling to upstate New York to photograph the eclipse from Buffalo, and so she decided to order some of these glasses so they would stay on while she was shooting during the eclipse.   So she was generous and ordered us some too.  I am glad that they are not boring colors!

 

The Flower Expert, Again...

It was only two days ago that I introduced you to the fact that I am an expert in flower identification!  So today I am showing you another flower, called "The Little Purple Flower."  Isn't it nice for all of you to have a friend as knowledgeable as I am?  I photographed these  blossoms in the garden right next to the house.  It was late in the day and it was raining.  So two things in my favor - the overcast light generally gives you better colors because bright sun can create too large a brightness range which is hard for the camera sensor to handle.  The other thing is, and you may have noticed this, that colors are brighter and more saturated in the rain.  That's what attracted me to these blossoms.