Happy Halloween!

Look what we made today!  Kathy loved the photograph I did of the ghost inside the Caumsett mansion yesterday, so we we made our own!  We wanted to hang our ghost, so Kathy thought of using a balloon as the head, which is brilliant!  We used gaffer tape to fasten a paper clip to the top of the balloon and we could hang our ghost from the opening in the front porch!

And last year, sad to say, I never got around to carving a Jack-O-Lantern, for some reason.  I have always made a Jack-O-Lantern as long as we have been in this house, I think.  Anyhow, this year I am back in the groove, and here he is!  Behind him is a skeleton hanging on the wall.  It doesn't look like much, but if you press the button on it's hand, the skull's mouth opens,  a church bell rings and it says "Welcome!  Don't be afraid....  Aaaaa hahahahaha..."  We have had her for almost 5 years now and enjoy pressing the button when we pass her!  Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!

 

Caumsett II - "Boo!"

This really made me smile!  I mentioned that there were some students and a teacher, I thought, outside the main house at Caumsett.  After passing them, I walked toward the mansion and saw this in one of the windows!  There were two of these ghosts, and a then two more elaborate three-dimensional detailed figures in other windows.  But I loved the simplicity of this!  And it has a feeling about it, as if the ghost wants to get out but can't!  This would be so simple to make, and we will get a ball and a sheet and cut two oval eyes out of felt!  Happy Halloween, everyone!

 

Caumsett I

Oh happy day!  Ken is done with his "Walk's" series!  Now on to something better!  Monday I drove out to Caumsett State Historical Park, up above Huntington.  It is a 1,500 acre park that was once the home to Marshall Field III, the grandson of Marshall Field, the founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago based department stores.  It is a stunning park and a favorite place for me to walk and photograph.  I was there for about 4 1/2 hours and walked about 6 miles.  Boy, I feel that today!  So I will be showing you some of the photographs I found there.  It was a stunning day to be there with crystal clear blue skies which meant the water, both in the pond, here, and in Long Island Sound, beyond the pond, were a beautiful deep blue.  And the colors of Fall were everywhere, both in the grasses and in the colors of only some of the trees.  You couldn't help feeling good on a day like this!

 

I Went for a Walk No. 8

This is an intellectual exercise in design mainly.  I was pointing the camera out over the harbor toward the sound and enjoying the delicate pastel light.  Then I noticed the single tree on the horizon in the distance on the left side.  Then I happened to see the single rock down in the lower right hand corner.  So I thought about the balance in the photograph, and the similarity of the shapes of the tree and the rock, and so I composed this.  It was interesting for me to think about.  So maybe it is another "non-photograph."  The good news is that today I went on a photo expedition in a park, and tomorrow I will start posting those photographs to give you a change of pace. Whew!   :-)

 

I Went for a Walk No. 7

Toward the end of my walk, the sun was just setting.  These rivulets of water are actually from that outflow pipe that I posted yesterday!  I just thought they made a nice pattern which we can see because the rivulets are reflecting the light from the sky.  Something different, I thought.

 

I Went for a Walk No. 6

We had a rainstorm the day before my walk, and there is an outflow pipe that runs under Shore Road to take water from the higher parts of Sea Cliff and safely let it get to the harbor.  There may also be salt water in these flows because maybe the high tide backflows into this pipe.  I am not sure.  But I was surprised to see how much water was running out of the pipe when I passed by on my walk.  So...  Seeing the running water, I used the oldest trick in the book - make a longer exposure and the water which is moving is blurred in a lovely way, and everything else is sharp.  It is a nice effect in a landscape sometimes, but it tends to be over done sometimes.  I am not sure what you will all think about this - is this an unusual thing to see, or does it seem normal?  For the technically inclined, this was a 1/2 second exposure.  I was without a tripod so I held my camera tightly on top of the railing and carefully released the shutter, and most of the photographs are sharp.

 

I Went for a Walk No. 5

Sometimes a photograph is not a "complete" picture.  I mean, it is a picture of something, but I want my photographs to be something more than just a snapshot.  In college one of the my great teachers would refer to  some pictures as "fragments."  That was a great term.  A fragment has parts of a photograph, but may not be complex enough or interesting enough, or may need some other element in it to make it complete.  So I think that this is not quite a complete photograph.  If I had a longer lens with me I could have zoomed in a lot and made an interesting composition of just part of the center of the photograph.  I am not completely clear, other than to say that I needed a blog post and here it is and it is not one of my better photographs.

 

I Went for a walk No. 4

I had walked all the way to the turn around place down by the old power plant, and it was later when I got back to here and the sun was lower in the sky.  But the light was perfect for these Sycamore trees, which you have seen me photograph about a billion times.  But for me I needed something other than just the trees, and lucky for me, there were three people out walking at the same time.  But I had to wait carefully and only shoot when they were evenly spaced between two trees.  That's a subtle thing I know, but it seemed important to me to make the photograph more interesting.

 

I Went for a Walk No. 3

This was the first photograph that I took on my walk.  I saw the runner in the far distance and started shooting. As she got closer, she moved to my left on the sidewalk.  I would rather the runner stayed in the center of the sidewalk because it makes a better balance in the photograph.  Because of that, this photo is only OK, sorry to say.  But it is a photo from my walk.

 

I Went for a Walk No.2

I walked about one hundred feet from where I took yesterday's photograph and crossed the street and here is the pond I have photographed so many times.  There was not a breath of fresh air, so the pond is as perfect as a mirror.  What makes this interesting are the shapes of branches both seen directly and as  reflections.  Some of the colors of fall don't hurt to make the photograph more interesting.

 

I Went for a Walk No.1

When it gets to cold to ride my bike, a few years ago I started doing my three mile walk down to where the old power plant was.  I walk at a good clip, but I do stop to take photographs along the way, so my average speed is not that fast.  It is still warm, but I was a bit under the weather from jet lag last week, so I decided to do my walk, instead of my bike ride.  A bike ride for me is a full-on ride, with me mostly going full blast all the way.  A walk is more gentle.  Anyhow, this walk lasted well more than an hour because I kept seeing photographs on this late afternoon.  So I will show you some of the things that I saw and see what you think.  I saw the woman sitting on a bench and then I noticed the silhouettes of the trees, and then the shadow of the trees on the grass. Sort of a mirror image.  I am thrilled with this shot!  Let's see what else I came up with in further posts.

 

Barber Poles

The architecture at the Getty Center is so amazing - wonderful things going on everywhere.  When I came out of the cafeteria at the north end of the complex, I saw all these shadows on the floor and walls and the supports, from the open lattice overhead.  I had never seen this before and I thought it was amazing!  Trust me, these shadows are not formed by accident!  I called this "Barber Poles" because I remember the red, white and blue curved stripes on poles outside barber shops, in my youth, and these curved shadows remineded me of that.

 

On The Beach

I was on the beach in Venice waiting for it to get dark enough to begin looking for the comet.  I had my 200mm telephoto lens on the camera, on a tripod.  The beach was pretty much deserted, and this woman came walking down the beach behind me.  I was just idly following this solitary walker after she passed me, when she stopped and got out her phone, I guess to photograph the scene.  Seeing the blue glow in the middle of this scene, I quickly swung my camera around and was able to only shoot two frames.  But I recognized this as a different kind of landscape, or even portrait.  Perhaps just a bit mysterious.  This photograph has a really nice quality to it, I think.

 

High Flight

I am still a bit under the weather with jet lag, so I wanted some exercise, but didn't feel up to a bike ride which is always full on exercise.  So instead I decided to do my three-mile walk down to the old power plant.  I carried my camera, of course, and I cannot believe how many photographs I found along the way!  You will be seeing them eventually.  Near the end of my walk I noticed this contrail in the distance, in the southwest. I always wondered where these airplanes are going. So here's the cool thing - there is now an app for my iPhone called "FlightRadar 24."  You open it and it shows all the aircraft in the air near me.  And that is a lot of airplanes, given  I am so close to JFK and LaGuardia.  Anyhow I look to see what airplane is right overhead, and there it is.  This  aircraft is SAS Flight 926, which left Washington Dulles International, enroute to Copenhagen.  It is at 37,000 feet and it is an Airbus 330-343 and it has 6 hours and 55 minutes to go!  How cool is that.  When I see aircraft like this and use the app to check on them, and see where some of these are going, I get a feeling of wanderlust.

This is a maximum enlargement of the original photograph.  I shot the original image with my zoom lens at 105mm which is not a long telephoto.  But when I enlarged the image to maximum size I was surprised that I could see the airplane in detail!  And it is 7 miles above me! Please click on this to see it larger.

 

Vivian Playing The Joker

I just realized this - I took this portrait of Vivian just before I took the photograph of "The Barking Lot."  we were finishing our snacks and drinks and when we left this outdoor patio, I photographed the dog.  So Amy bought a healthy drink made from all kinds of berries all blended together.  The finished drink was a bright reddish in color.  While Vivian was drinking it she was using a straw, then she took the straw out and put it in her mouth sideways, so it gave her face the look of someone running wild with lipstick.  I thought she looked so cute with this red all around her mouth, sort of like the makeup the Joker wore in the last Batman movie!

 

The Barking Lot

We made a trip to a small shopping area in Playa Vista because there was a Whole Foods there and we needed to get some stuff.  There was a Starbucks there and so we got coffee and some goodies to go with it from Whole Foods.  I looked across the way from our table and saw this scene.  It made me laugh because it was so clever of the shopping center people.  You could tie up your dog here if you wanted to go into one of the stores!

 

Winging our Way Back Home

You will have to forgive me, because I have done similar photographs before like this.  But I am always so astounded by the beauty of seeing the world from the air.  And then add the orange glow of the sun which had set some time ago.  Our world is such an amazing place but we don't get to see such spectacular scenes every day.

 

The Princess Helps Walk the Dogs

Vivian loves to be a princess and Amy is wonderful letting her wear whatever she wants.  She showed up at Liz and Sarah's house today, wearing this beautiful dress and a gold tiara!  When it was time to walk the dogs, Vivian wanted to help, so off we all went with Vivian being the best dressed dog-walker ever!  So we all had fun walking around the neighborhood together.  Maybe Vivian had the most fun of all!

 

The Getty Center - Garden

I went to the Getty center the other day as you know because I took my first Uber to get there.  There is always so much to see.  The exhibits, the special shows, the architecture of the center, and the gardens.  You cannot begin to see it all in one day.  This is the South Promontory Cactus Garden, which is spectacular.  There are so many barrel cacti in the foreground, going all the way into the distance, and then you have the skyline of Los Angeles!  I mean, come ON!  This is unbelievable, and wonderful!  It is always a joy to visit this museum.

 

Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS

The latest excitement in the field of amateur astronomy is the arrival of a new comet named C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS.  It was discovered in China and the name of the observatory where it was discovered means "Purple Mountain."  A comet comes into the the inner solar system from way out beyond Pluto.  In late September it could be seen under good conditions early in the morning before sunrise, but only for a few days.  Then the comet went around the sun, and now is the time to see it after sunset for perhaps two weeks, but it is getting fainter by the day.

So here we are in Venice California visiting Liz and Amy and tonight was the first night that the comet would be visible after sunset.  I had some hopes because I would be looking from Venice Beach out over the Pacific ocean where there would less light pollution.  So I went to the beach and looked and hoped.  I had about given up because it was getting really dark with almost no color left in the sky.  And then, scanning the sky with 10x50 binoculars I saw it!  So I started shooting and these are two of the best photographs I got.  And I am thrilled!  I poster larger than normal images so please click on them.

 

Gymnastics Class

We had fun the other day because we got to go to Vivian's gymnastics class and watch all the children go through their exercises.  This is called, apparently "The Turtle."  They had the children warm up and then bounce along on some long trampolines and work their way around a kind of obstacle course, and then, on a really soft spongy floor, do a forward roll.  Most of the children enjoyed their exercises, and every mother had their phones out to photograph their kids.  I was lucky and had brought a 200mm telephoto lens and was able to get this close up image.

I always take a lot of photographs of course and for some reason this was my second favorite one of the day.  Not sure why, except maybe it was to show the size of the children or something.  Here their coach is about to explain the next series of exercises that the children will perform.

 

My First Uber!

Today I took my first Uber!  It was really cool and easy and great rides in both directions, and great conversations with both drivers!  When we came to California we always rented a car, and it turned out that some days we never drove it.  So the girls suggested that they pick us up at the airport and then if I wanted to go somewhere, then I could get an Uber.  So I did that today for the first time and took an Uber to the Getty Center.  It was a great ride.  My driver was a woman who grew up in Mexico and we talked about our families and children and our beginnings.  It was such a nice ride. And my ride home was with a man who works for a company that makes and sells solid electric guitars and he talked about growing up in Russia and wanting to come to America and be in a rock band.  Two amazing conversations while riding in my first Uber!  What a day!

 

Princess Elsa

When we arrived at Amy and Gus' yesterday, we got a sneak preview of Vivian's Halloween costume!  She is going to be Princess Elsa from the movie "Frozen."  Vivian loves the idea of being a princess, and she has a number of princess dresses.  She also has a red princess dress as well, and maybe she will wear that one, but I am not sure.  In any case, she is cute as a button, whichever dress she wears.

 

Seeing Our World From the Air

New York to Los Angeles today, for a visit with our girls, and Miss Vivian.  I took a billion photographs out my window  all the way.  I had not noticed who was sitting in the seat in front of me.  But when we descended to about 5000 feet on our approach to Los Angeles airport, I suddenly noticed this young boy looking out of his window.  He never took his eyes off the ground as we continued to descend.  Fortunately he was not aware that I was photographing him.  Clearly he was riveted to the scene outside his window and how different the world looks from the air.

 

Resting Places

On Saturday we drove to New Haven, CT for a luncheon of my sisters and I and some of our cousins  who we haven't seen in years.  It was a nice restaurant on the shoreline of New Haven Harbor.  So before we went in, I took a look around and spotted these pilings.  I am not sure why they are there, perhaps at one time there were docks here.  In any case what I saw were that on top of almost every piling, there was a single bird, resting.  I know it is subtle, but I thought it worth a photograph.  So this was a bonus, a blot post and a lovely lunch with family!  Please click on the photo to see the birds more clearly.

 

NGC 891 Galaxy

I have done a post before about photographing the Ring Nebula, as I slowly learn how to use a special astronomical camera that I bought and the software that runs it.  I am learning in fits and starts, but last night it was exceptionally clear so I set up my big, complicated telescope and mount, and at the end of the evening managed to photograph this galaxy.  Most galaxies can be thought of as a fried egg, with a flat disk and a bulge in the center.  This is a galaxy like that, only it is tilted away from us  so we are seeing it on edge.  This galaxy is 30 million light-years from us, and it is about the size of the Milky Way galaxy where we live.  What a wondrous sight this is, isn't it?  I am including the photograph below, which you may remember seeing before, showing the equipment - the mount and telescope, needed to take this image.  These are larger than normal images so please click on them to see more detail.

 

A Snapshot of a Place and Time

I was testing an old lens that a friend had given me 40 years ago.  It is a 55mm f/1.2 Nikkor lens.  It is meant for really low light conditions.  I have a modern lens, a 50mm f/1.4 Rokinon lens, and wanted to see how they compare.  When I bought my Sony a7 III I also bought an adapter that would allow me to put old Nikon lenses on my new SONY camera.  So I went into the new back room and saw this scene and composed this shot carefully and shot with both lenses.  It was just a test.  But I was looking at this photograph yesterday and thought that it actually was interesting because it captured a place in time in our house, including the little Reindeer doll on the white table in the corner.

 

A Smal Tree in Our House

I was cutting up some cauliflower to eat as a snack, with, get this, cocktail sauce - you know, horseradish and ketchup!  I know, sounds weird.  But it tasted delicious, and we call it "poor man's shrimp cocktail."  Anyhow, I was cutting up these little florets, and some of the larger ones I cut in half to make them more bite-sized.  I happened to look down at this one and realized that it looked like a tree!  So I set up a little studio on the dining room table and got two pieces of black mat board to use as a background, and a small 150 watt spotlight and moved the light around until I got this!  So interesting how nature has these forms and sometimes giant objects are mimicked by tiny objects!

 

It Was Just Three Small Bushes...

I think when we moved into our house in 1970, there were some small pricker bushes growing in front of the latticework under our front porch.  I don't remember the details, but we eventually pulled them out and planted three small evergreen bushes.  They were only 18 inches tall.  

Well...  It turns out I was not aggressive enough in my trimming and over 50 years they just got taller and taller.  So we found a gardener who takes care of a couple of our neighbors.  He is a relatively young guy, but he really knows his plants.  So we asked him to trim these way back, which he did today.

Quite a difference, huh?  He couldn't cut them any lower, which would have been nice.  The hope is that in a year when they have filled in, we can cut them lower.  Or if not, pull these out and start with small bushes all over again.  Maybe the front porch with the relatively new latticework we had replaced about 5 years ago is pretty enough by itself, and we don't need any plants at all.

 

A Sky Full of Stars

Tonight's program at our astronomy meeting was a presentation by the director of the planetarium, Dave, under the dome of the planetarium.  This is a state of the art projector and the realism of the sky is amazing.  There are so many stars in the dark, that you can't find even the major constellations.  And that can happen in real life, as it did for me in Maine one year, when I went to a cemetery late at night to do some stargazing. But Dave took his time to show us individual constellations by projecting the lines connecting the stars of each constellation.  It was a joy to be under a dark skies filled with stars again.  When I was in Vermont this summer at the Stellafane Convention, we were rained out both nights, so it has been a while.  Being under a sky filled with stars is good for the soul - it connects us more deeply to the universe.  My spirits were lifted when I left the meeting tonight.

 

Prehistoric

It was high tide today when we had Dunkin' at the beach and so we sat at the water's edge.  We saw this dead Horseshoe crab in the shallow water.  We watched it and it didn't move and it was moved by the small waves coming ashore.  I just remember learning that these are prehistoric animals.  So I looked up what "prehistoric" means and it just means before written history.  So I came home and looked up Horseshoe crabs.  The modern Horseshoe crab made its appearance 250 million years ago!  At that time on Earth, all land masses were grouped together in one continent, and the dinosaurs were just beginning to roam the Earth!  The Horseshoe crabs pre-date the dinosaurs! Wow, THAT'S OLD!  Horseshoe crabs in the modern era are only found on the eastern coasts of North America and South Asia.  So we are lucky to have them here, to remind us of what amazing creatures they are.  Unfortunately, they are caught for their blood which has a chemical in it useful in detecting endotoxins in medical applications.  They are used as fishing bait in the United States, and eaten as a delicacy in some parts of Asia.  Their population is in decline due to coastal habitat destruction and over harvesting.

As humans, our blood is based on iron-based hemoglobin, but horseshoe crabs transport oxygen with a copper-based protein, giving its blood a bright blue color!  Horseshoe crabs are found on the ocean floor searching for worms and mollusks which are their main food and foraging usually occurs at night.  Their breeding season is Spring and Summer.  Nesting happens at high tide around New or Full Moon.  They spawn on beaches and salt marshes.  The female digs a hole in the sediment and lays between 2,000 and 30,000 large eggs.  I am completely blown away by this information!  I was unable to find out how long Horseshoe crabs live, unfortunately.