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here and there

Scenic shots taken everywhere, from sunup to sundown
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It has usually been my luck these last two falls that when I had a free day off to shoot, it has been on a day that was grey or overcast. This time was one occasion when I could actually add a pretty blue sky to one of my fall scenes.
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It has usually been my luck these last two falls that when I had a free day off to shoot, it has been on a day that was grey or overcast. This time was one occasion when I could actually add a pretty blue sky to one of my fall scenes.

Silver Lake parkfallscenicStaten Island

  • DSC_1542 spring afternoon at Silver Lake
  • The lighting conditions that accompany passing storm fronts often do wonders for your photographic subjects. One's that approach or pass late in the day when the sun is low are probably best of all, so when I saw this storm approaching back in the spring of 08', rather than head home just a 30 minute walk from my present location, I chose to stick around and as the rain started falling I was amply rewarded with this pleasant scene. Editing these shots at times has been a much thornier problem for me. Just as Englishman Rip Van Winkle found his quaint village in upstate New York to be totally foreign to him after sleeping for 20 years through the intervening Revolutionary war, so I after a 20 year absence to photography found my world quite different from the one I left. No longer could I drop my images off at a lab and then happily pick up my slides a few days later. Now all my camera's shoot digitally and I have to edit all the bloody shots myself - eeech!! And so many techniques to learn. But over the last 3 years I've slowly gotten better. Also I have acquired superior editing software to the basic ones bundled with the cameras when I purchased them, as well as better plug-ins for them.<br /> <br /> Still there's several techniques I don't feel comfortable using, one of the biggest being the levels and curves editor, which for the longest made whatever exposure problem I was trying to correct look ten times worse when I finished then it did when I started, so I've avoided it like foot fungus. But often there are times when every other tool I try stinks out the joint as well, and so out of desperation on 10 or 15 of the last images I've edited I've unenthusiastically used it for one reason or another, with slowly growing success. So when I was faced with the low contrast washed out sky that originally was the signature feature of this scene I turned to my levels and curves editor once more. As it transformed my blanch sky into a contrasty brooding one, I was even more amazed to see blushes of red appear in some of the clouds that I didn't even notice when I shot the scene live. And so a shot that remained half edited out of the light of day for three years now joins its' siblings due to the editing tool I once liked using the very least.
  • I had my equipment set up for this scenic shot at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens on this beautiful spring afternoon, when a woman and her family walked by and she asked if I minded her taking some pictures here. I told her not only didn't I mind, but in fact her presence would only make the shot better.
  • It has usually been my luck these last two falls that when I had a free day off to shoot, it has been on a day that was grey or overcast. This time was one occasion when I could actually add a pretty blue sky to one of my fall scenes.
  • DSC_0126 fall afternoon at Silver Lake
  • Hey Venus
  • Yes possibly one of the most over photographed places in the entire city, yet I still couldn't help throwing in my two cents anyway.
  • Sunny days with beautiful blue skies and a thin layer of clouds blocking the direct sunlight, are coveted by we that love to shoot landscapes. But we also like overcast days when the clouds have expressive shades of grey, for they are great mood setters.
  • 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.
  • DSC_4607 Harlem Mere on a cloudy spring afternoon
  • dsc_6722 relaxing scene at Bethesda lake
  • When I originally purchased my first digital SLR equipment back in the spring of 08' money was a keen issue, and so to stretch funds, instead of buying a Nikon wide to medium tele zoom, I purchased a Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 macro. An amazingly versatile lens, it was useful in capturing a huge variety of shots, if they were from medium distances in, it sadly turned out. From medium distances out it was horribly soft, and after butchering more nice scenic shots than I care to remember, it got so bad I that I stopped taking scenic shots that required use of this lens. <br /> <br /> So I bid my time financially and purchased Nikon's 16-85mm zoom to replace it with the help of my 09' tax refund. Today was my first free day off to try it out and I was happy to discover that with this great street lens in my arsenal, scenic shots were once again on the menu.
  • ...and yes the view camera he's holding had a lot to do with why I decided to frame up this early summer scene for posterity
  • dsc_6852 summer scene at Central Park
  • One day (I confess I can't remember which) I was walking through my favorite area of Central Park on a beautiful summer afternoon and I stopped to take pictures of the rowboat dotted lake. While my eyes danced about looking for interesting rowboat occupants to zoom in on, I spotted a great white egret gracefully gliding by. I tried capturing pictures of it as it flew past the boats and under the bridge but failed miserably in my attempts. What an incredible shot it would have been if I succeeded, but ah such is life, and I went about the day enjoying the scenes that I could capture. <br /> <br /> Now sometime later on another equally beautiful summer day, again I was walking through the Bethesda fountain area, again taking pictures, and again I spotted this graceful egret gliding towards the bow bridge. Figuring two times was about all the luck fate was ever going to hand me in one lifetime, I raced towards the shore aimed at the bridge and hoped by some miracle one of the focus points would zero in on my splendid white subject. The reputation for excellent focus tracking bestowed upon my D300 turned out to be well deserved, as one of the focus points it selected along with the bridge was the egret. Still the bird did not come out razor sharp, and later when I was editing this scene the shot was decidedly lacking in overall impact so I never finished editing it. <br /> <br /> Fast forward to today as I continue to re-edit all my once completed shots which were lost in their entirety when my friend formatted my hard drive before I had a chance to stop him, and again I came upon this scene. Being that the Bow bridge is my favorite bridge in the whole park, and one of my favorite objects period in the park to capture on film, once more I tried to edit it, but now owning Silver Efex pro I converted it to black and white. Holy cow, what a difference that made!
  • dsc_7017 Belvedere Castle
  • dsc_7023 late afternoon at Turtle Pond
  • While coming home from the movies on a Thursday night last June, I ran into another movie filming at the historic Bowling Green park in lower Manhattan. They were filming a scene from the movie "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and kept saying "no flash photo's please". I wish I had my DSLR camera with me, but at least I do carry around my handy point and shoot in my backpack for just such occasions. While I didn't see Nicholas Cage or any other stars through all the mess of equipment I did see a pretty neat looking car. So when you eventually see it in the movie, you can remember that you saw it here first before most of the country got a chance.
  • Taken at the Battery Park City Marina with my Tokina 12-24mm f4, wide open no less, I can't begin tell you how impressed I am with the quality of this lens. It's the first non-nikon I've ever put on one of my camera's that I haven't lived to regret.
  • The color version added much to the contrast of this nicely side lit scene, lighting up the back lit leaves beautifully, and retaining some detail in the sky. Even so that couldn't overcome the sense that this was one of those times where tonal simplicity was the only way in which to really "see" this charming summer scene.
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