In order to appreciate viewing this scene the way I ultimately want it to be viewed, it will need to be a wall sized enlargement. That will mean capturing this scene with either a medium format camera, or a mega pixel DSLR monster like a D3x. But until a ton of money falls down from the sky, I'll have to make due with what I've got.

  Compositionally speaking, for this shot to work I need an interesting collection of people on the far right, some more people on the steps in the center, and some more people off on the far left (by the waterline below that building). I always manage to get one or two of the three spots filled with people at the same time, but rarely all three, even after staying there for several hours. But it's a nice way to spend a beautiful afternoon, plus it's a great way to meet new people as whenever I setup my equipment on a tripod for a lengthy amount of time, people always stop by to chat.
The fall colors around  Staten Island were a little hard to predict this year. Sometimes flat sometimes colorful. And so I held out small hope that here at the Harlem Mere it might lean to more colorful than less, though I doubted it. But since I wanted to scout out locations up here for future reference for that inevitable fall where the colors were spectacular everywhere, I made the trek up north on this cloudy day. But it turned out that my first guess was correct and the colors were indeed drab and flat here as well, so I went into my scouting mode camera in hand to view the world through as I walked. 

As I took the long trip around the mere pausing at different spots while my minds eye imagined beautiful scenes that were yet to be, I stopped at this location as well, and as I did I noticed that the drab 'deadishness' of this autumn scene actually had an interesting charm about it.
DSC_4607 Harlem Mere on a cloudy spring afternoon
This shot sat on my computer for three years until I acquired some of Niks' software that helped compensate for my first street lenses terrible performance at capturing images from medium distances out. It's still not great but at least it's viewable. I was going to come back with my D300 now that I have my 16-85mm nikkor to shoot this scene with. But I decided to wait until Nikon comes up with a new camera to replace the D300, which will no doubt have several more megapixels to give we landscape lovers more horsepower for our shots.
If you live here in New York and traveled about Manhattan in the summer no doubt you run across those piano's scattered about the city in all manor of conspicuous places, which invited those naturally blessed with the ability to play them and do so while attracting a crowd of strangers, a chance to strut their stuff, while pleasuring we passersby. Well if these fortuitous placed public piano's require uninhibited people to play them, eventually they'll need additional people to tune them.
On this rainy June day I had to come into the city to see what my doctor could do to help me shake a cold that was doing its' best to take up permanent residence in my sore throat. Not surprisingly he informed me that I now had a throat infection an needed antibiotics. After eating lunch so as not to take the pills on an empty stomach (a strong suggestion from both doctor and druggist), I found I had some free time on my hands to take some more pictures (camera and a few lenses tossed in an all purpose bag this morning with that eventuality in mind).

There was little consistent sunshine to be had even before the afternoon bouts of rains set in, but such unsettled weather fronts can provide you with wonderful lighting conditions to photograph with, and since the restaurant I dined at was located on the upper west side, I took a short jaunt to the Harlem Mere and soon came across these nice flowering bushes sitting right in between the Mere and the lovely Conservatory Gardens that reside adjacent to it. This particular bush (what type of flowers are these I wonder?) provided me with a nice little shot as the latest deluge had just finished passing and the flowers were glistening with raindrops. 

After composing the shot similarly to the way you see it now, I started capturing photo's of it. Most of them however were just a little off focus wise as to which flower buds looked best to be in sharp focus as originally I was shooting with my lens almost wide open, as doing so made for a wonderfully moody and interesting visual with the cloudy rain drenched scene I saw in front of me - if only I could get those afore mentioned key buds into sharp focus.  As I played around with which group of buds to accentuate most, this young couple appeared out of nowhere into my viewfinder. Setting aside my original plans for this scene I slid my camera over to the left reducing the bush from about half of the scene to about one quarter, and again tried to find that magic focus point, while still keeping my propitiously place pair in the scene. Hallelujah I finally I found it, but keeping my neck steady enough so that my camera could lock onto those flowers this close up, proved to be frustratingly difficult, and every single shot was slightly out of focus. Then on the ONLY shot of the ENTIRE sequence that I managed to capture those key foreground flowers in sharp focus, the young couple, as if on cue from above, gave me their best pose.

For every shot that I screw up or somehow gets ruined by circumstances  beyond my control, I don't have a cow because of the times like these when fates' hand brings everything I want right into focus.
dsc_7406 summertime scene at the Mere
dsc_7401 outdoor tuneup
Today was about the 7th time I had a day off since mom's passing that I could fully devote to taking pictures. In the past every time I had a free day off with no chores to take care of first, I was out of the house at the crack of dawn or as soon after that as I could manage, but today just like the other six that preceded it, I couldn't manage to pull myself from my homey surroundings until after twelve. It seems that my emotional energy still hasn't fully returned, but fortunately despite the late start, the extra hours of daylight available this time of year still left me more time to grab shots before the sun disappeared in the sky. In this case I had enough time to hop on the train after the Bronx Zoo closed for the day and get off at the Mere in Harlem. And as a bonus the angle of light coming from the low racking sun meant if you wanted to add a touch of warmth to your scene with your editing software, the results would look natural and  pleasing.
In order to appreciate viewing this scene the way I ultimately want it to be viewed, it will need to be a wall sized enlargement. That will mean capturing this scene with either a medium format camera, or a mega pixel DSLR monster like a D3x. But until a ton of money falls down from the sky, I'll have to make due with what I've got.

Compositionally speaking, for this shot to work I need an interesting collection of people on the far right, some more people on the steps in the center, and some more people off on the far left (by the waterline below that building). I always manage to get one or two of the three spots filled with people at the same time, but rarely all three, even after staying there for several hours. But it's a nice way to spend a beautiful afternoon, plus it's a great way to meet new people as whenever I setup my equipment on a tripod for a lengthy amount of time, people always stop by to chat.
In order to appreciate viewing this scene the way I ultimately want it to be viewed, it will need to be a wall sized enlargement. That will mean capturing this scene with either a medium format camera, or a mega pixel DSLR monster like a D3x. But until a ton of money falls down from the sky, I'll have to make due with what I've got.

  Compositionally speaking, for this shot to work I need an interesting collection of people on the far right, some more people on the steps in the center, and some more people off on the far left (by the waterline below that building). I always manage to get one or two of the three spots filled with people at the same time, but rarely all three, even after staying there for several hours. But it's a nice way to spend a beautiful afternoon, plus it's a great way to meet new people as whenever I setup my equipment on a tripod for a lengthy amount of time, people always stop by to chat.
In order to appreciate viewing this scene the way I ultimately want it to be viewed, it will need to be a wall sized enlargement. That will mean capturing this scene with either a medium format camera, or a mega pixel DSLR monster like a D3x. But until a ton of money falls down from the sky, I'll have to make due with what I've got.

Compositionally speaking, for this shot to work I need an interesting collection of people on the far right, some more people on the steps in the center, and some more people off on the far left (by the waterline below that building). I always manage to get one or two of the three spots filled with people at the same time, but rarely all three, even after staying there for several hours. But it's a nice way to spend a beautiful afternoon, plus it's a great way to meet new people as whenever I setup my equipment on a tripod for a lengthy amount of time, people always stop by to chat.
See photo in original gallery.