Just off to the right of the semi circle of drummers livening up the crowd at "Drummers Grove" was this spry fellow, who danced to the beat while balancing this bottle on his head. I'd like to say I hope I'm that spry when I reach his age, but lets get real for a moment, I'm not that spry now.
After I finished ironing the last of my spring and summer wardrobe last week I had to search everywhere for that box of extra hangers I was certain I stashed somewhere in the house last fall, but to no avail. So I went down into that giant dumping ground I call my basement to look for them there. I didn't find the box of hangers, but I did find an old box of camera equipment. Stopping to look through it for a few moments with nostalgic eyes, I spotted the box that once held my old manual focus 20mm nikkor. As I brushed the box off to one side it felt oddly heavy. I thought I took all my old lenses out of the basement a few years ago when I read somewhere they would develop fungus from being stored in an environment like that - and they did!  But with so much old stuff in numerous boxes, I couldn't find everything and my 20mm lens was one of them, till now. 

Dreading what the lens must look after all this time, I hurriedly opened the box so I could rush it out of the cold dark prison it spent the last 11 years of its life in. Surprisingly the old original bag of desiccate jell, and the UV filter I left on it, took the heaviest brunt of the fungus assault. The lens itself was barely affected. None the less I plan to send it out to Focal Point Inc in Colorado to be professionally cleaned as soon as I can  scrape up the money to pay for it, which is what I've had to do  with a half a dozen other old nikkor optics over the last 2 years. Cleaning it up as best I could, it looked so good when I finished that I decided to drop it in my camera bag today and see what kind of image quality it was capable of delivering in the mean time as I headed out to Prospect Park in Brooklyn to scout out a location for a future shot I had in mind.

Late in the day as I came upon a spot on my map called "Drummers Grove" (and once you arrive there no explanation is necessary as to how it got the moniker), I knew if I ever was going to have a chance to put my old nikkor to use today this was going to be the opportunity to so. Looking at the images it captured on my ride back home on the ferry, I could see this old lens still has a lot of good images left in it.
DSC_1720 pretty picture mommy
With another perfect weather night predicted, and the days of idyllic warm nights coming to an end soon from falls inevitable chilly appearance, I headed out to Jersey City in the hopes of getting that magic 'sunset couples shot' I have been seeking all year, before the arrival of autumn's nights made anyone walking down the rivers edge bundle up in layers of clothing from head to toe. But again my elusive prize failed to materialize. Still that didn't mean the trip was a total waste, and if nothing else it was surely a  wonderful way to spend an evening.
DSC_0626 Easter Sunday at the Botanical Gardens
Out to Jersey City again in my quest to get that perfect 'couples' shot at sunset. Still not quite good enough, but I'm getting closer. Maybe on my next trip over I'll hit that bulls eye.
When I first went to edit this shot in the spring of 2010 I had a few problems with it. It had too much going on besides the two having a pleasant conversation. I couldn't crop and clone the man out cleanly on the right using Capture Nx (the editing program I used with most of my shots for 3 years), and cropping out everything the the right of the young man, didn't satisfy my compositional objections either. Finally I decided it wasn't savable and left it unedited. 

But today after almost 2 years have passed I looked at it again, and though I still have pretty much the same problems with it, I also see again what made me lift my camera up to my face when I was viewing this scene live. A nicely lit scene of people enjoying a beautiful spring day, in a beautiful setting in whatever way that made each of them happy. Sometimes even when a scene is flawed, that's all the reason you need to keep it.
I found this scene not only fun and lively, but from a scenic stand point, I found it pretty as well.
dsc_4541 family enjoy's america's pastime
Just off to the right of the semi circle of drummers livening up the crowd at "Drummers Grove" was this spry fellow, who danced to the beat while balancing this bottle on his head. I'd like to say I hope I'm that spry when I reach his age, but lets get real for a moment, I'm not that spry now.
Just off to the right of the semi circle of drummers livening up the crowd at "Drummers Grove" was this spry fellow, who danced to the beat while balancing this bottle on his head. I'd like to say I hope I'm that spry when I reach his age, but lets get real for a moment, I'm not that spry now.
Just off to the right of the semi circle of drummers livening up the crowd at "Drummers Grove" was this spry fellow, who danced to the beat while balancing this bottle on his head. I'd like to say I hope I'm that spry when I reach his age, but lets get real for a moment, I'm not that spry now.
See photo in original gallery.