The Streets of New York 2

The Hotel Pennsylvania is a hotel at 401 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, across from Pennsylvania Station and Madison Square Garden. Opened in 1919, it was once the largest hotel in the world. It remained the fourth largest in New York City until it closed permanently on April 1, 2020. After years of unsuccessful preservation battles, it is currently under demolition as of 2023.  So I have been photographing this since I discovered six months ago that it was covered in black netting to make sure debris from the demolition wouldn't injure anyone.  I haven't been in the city for a while, so when I was there last week I spent an hour photographing what little I could see.  I briefly saw these workers closing the doors after a huge truck laden with debris left the building.  Stay tuned for more of my photographs from the other day.  I love the "dance" and the symmetry of these three workers for a brief moment as they closed the doors.

 

More Spring Color!

I first posted a photograph of this flower, when the buds were still down in among the green leaves and that was about 12 days ago.  I was thrilled to see the flowers in bloom, up and out of their green surroundings.  Of course the problem is trying to figure out what flowers these are.  Kathy she she knew, but just couldn't think of it at the moment!  We do a lot of that these days!  Not that any of you would have this same experience!   :-)   So these are Hyacinths, and they are different looking than the traditional ones.  These are about 10 years old and Kathy's sense is that Hyacinths only last 3 or 4 years.  But these have spread out and there are bunches of them in the garden.  In any case, I am just thrilled to see more color!  I love what my new macro lens can do.  I have always owned macro lenses for my Nikons, but not for my Canon 6D.  And I didn't have one for my new SONY a7, so I realized it would give me more opportunities for photographs, and I bought one.  What fun these lenses are, letting me get just inches away from my subjects, if I want to be that close.

 

Squall Line

About half an hour before dinner,  I saw the moon up high and decided to take a look at it with one of my telescopes.  I got the scope and mount out of the garage and set it up in the side yard.  I ran down to the basement and got my eyepiece case, and then used a low power eyepiece to find the moon.  I went to change to a higher power eyepiece, to see the craters in more detail, and suddenly the moon was gone!  There were some light clouds overhead moving in, so I looked to the north to see what was coming, and saw THIS!  The leading edge of a squall line.  So I quickly ran in the house, grabbed my camera, and jumped in the car and drove down the street to the beach where I could get a better view of the sky to the north.

Yikes, this was unbelievable!  Look at this cloud at the leading edge of a cold front.  I have left the color balance as the camera saw it.  It was getting dark and all the photographs have a bluish tint to them.

As the leading edge of the front moved over, there were a few sprinkles, and I looked back up the street and saw that the cloud looked like this from underneath.  It's not a tornado, but it looks like one from this view.  I am so glad I was able to react quickly and get this passage before it was gone.  I checked the timing on the photographs, and these three photographs were takin in the space of four minutes!

 

The Streets of New York

Mom!  There's a creepy guy following that woman, and he has a camera!  Yeah, I know.  But it wasn't creepy, it's called "street photography" and I am photographing the woman from behind so she never knew.  I was doing my normal walk from the Met down to the subway at 59th street and I saw this woman in her long flowing coat.  And since the wind was blowing up Fifth avenue it opened up the coat and made this wonderful triangular shape, and that it what caught my eye. It only works because the coat is black in color, which matches the shadows on the sidewalk.  So this photograph is about design and shapes.   And the cool thing, which I would not have foreseen, is that with her trailing foot off the ground it almost appears that she is floating.  So I love this photograph for all those reasons.

You know, after talking about the fact that this photograph only works because the woman is wearing a black coat, I decided to convert the color image to black & white.  I think I like this version better.  No color distractions at all!  What do you think, do you like this version better?

 

Subway Dog

I went to Manhattan today to meet Stan because we wanted to see two photographic exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It is always wonderful to just hang out at the museum, because when you go to see some particular things, you also discover other things that you didn't expect to see.  So when I leave the museum on the way back to Penn Station, I always walk the 26 blocks from the Met at 82nd Street, and the subway I take at 59th street.  I walk because there are always opportunities for photographs while walking the 1.2 miles.  In any case, I got on the N train that takes me to 34th street where Penn station is located.  On my ride, this woman got on the train and sat next to me with this incredibly cute dog who travels around in her pocketbook!  He was looking at me and smiling (Dogs do smile...) and so finally I asked if it was OK to photograph the dog and the woman said yes.  I did ask about the dog and I think she said it was a Pomeranian.  I knew you would like to know that.

 

First Flight

It was a beautiful day for flying!  Clear as a bell, visibility for miles and miles, not much wind, and everything worked perfectly!  It was my first day to fly!  This is my flight instructor Frank, on the left in the photo.  He is a great instructor!  He knows when to push me just a bit and when to lighten up a bit and always asks how I am doing, "is this too much?" and I always reply "Nope, I'm great!"  I did the "preflight" on the airplane with Frank watching, and then I ran through the checklists and started the engine.  He handled the radios and showed me where to go since it has been years since I flew out of Long Island MacArthur Airport.  I did the takeoff and we went to the north practice area and I flew around doing maneuvers that he asked including steep turns (45 degree bank, and don't lose altitude!) and then slow flight and turns during slow flight.  So I began to get the feeling for the airplane after all these years.  It was a great day and a great flight!

Here we are on the ground after the flight.  We were in the air for a little bit longer than one hour.  Notice the airplane - there is nothing broken on this aircraft!  There is an old saying that I have heard so many times in flying that makes me laugh every time.  "Any landing you can walk away from, is a good landing.  If you can use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing!"  I did the landing and I can report that it was outstanding!   :-)

So this is funny.  We flew up to the north shore of Long Island, somewhere near Port Jefferson, and as we were getting ready to do some maneuvers, I saw this scene.  I said to Frank: "Can you take the airplane, please?"  He asked "Is something wrong?"  "No" I said, reaching into the back seat to get my camera, "I just want to take a picture."  This is the Bridgeport-Port Jefferson ferry just entering the harbor.  How beautiful is the white ferry and the blue water!

And I took this photograph as well.  I just couldn't get over the beautiful blue sky reflected in the water, and I bet we were seeing more than 35 miles.  That's clear!  What a beautiful day, what a beautiful and rewarding flight.  I should mention that I am more "rusty" than I thought I would be.  So it will take time for me to get up to speed, but I have a great instructor to get me there!

 

Speaking of Varnish

This is a photograph of the Sea Cliff Fire Department, which is a volunteer department located in this beautiful, historic building.  Last year I saw members of the fire department sanding these beautiful oak doors.  That went on for quite a while.  This was a lot of work for them, given how large the doors are.  Then I came by and they had varnished them.  I have no idea whether or not they did more than one coat of varnish or not - I am guessing probably two coats or more.  But the finished doors are just beautiful now that they have been refinished.  They did a lot more work on these doors, than I did on the floors of the three rooms in our house.  I guess we are brothers in arms, so to speak!