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here and there

Scenic shots taken everywhere, from sunup to sundown
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After spending the afternoon at the Staten Island zoo, I decided to take the long route home, and instead of catching the bus nearest the zoo, I decided to walk through Clove Lake and catch the bus on the other end of the park, which added about 45 minutes to my trip, but it was more than worth it. Besides the great health benefits from walking around in the beautiful sunshine, I got several nice pictures as well, this was the first one.
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After spending the afternoon at the Staten Island zoo, I decided to take the long route home, and instead of catching the bus nearest the zoo, I decided to walk through Clove Lake and catch the bus on the other end of the park, which added about 45 minutes to my trip, but it was more than worth it. Besides the great health benefits from walking around in the beautiful sunshine, I got several nice pictures as well, this was the first one.

fishingcandidStaten IslandClove LakessummerscenicNYC

  • Cropped version for Michael my mentor...
  • DSC_9056 Sunday afternoon at the Lake Club
  • Walking down this street in Battery Park City I was hoping to find a place to get a bite to eat when I spotted this magnificent structure and thought "Wow what a great shot it would make when the sun starts to slide just above the horizon". So after I finished eating at a pleasant little place a block or two up the street, I picked up my camera bag and walked out the door when I looked through the window and saw the sun starting to go down. It didn't take long for a nice grouping of people to enter the scene, and complete my shot.
  • dsc_9483 cellphone conversation at sunset
  • dsc_9497 Elisa
  • The many super yachts that dock here at the North Cove in Battery Park City, make for some great looking shots.
  • I find myself down around the general City Hall area on a semi-regular basis, as several shopping destinations I frequent are around there. Often when I'd walk through City Hall park on these sojourns, I'd look around and think how cool it would be to get a nice sunrise shot there, with the morning sunlight gleaming off of the front of the attractive large skyscraper to the left of City Hall. But after coming here mid-morning several different times throughout the year, I felt it was very likely that the sun might never rise far enough to the southeast to shine off the front of that particular edifice. My last visit here before taking this picture then confirmed that suspicion beyond any doubt, so that desired shot could never be.<br /> <br /> Now seeing as that final comfirmation was sinking into me at about 5am on a Sunday morning, (the only time of the week I could place my tripod partially onto the road and not get run over by a passing car), you can imagine my mood. But I decided I wasn't going to have dragged all this equipment on my first day of summer vacation here for nothing. So I swung my camera over here and there then looked through my viewfinder to see what other scene might tickle my fancy. "A shot almost dead center of the famous fountain of City Hall park would create a fantastic shot" I mused, however that would mean lifting up my tripod and stepping far over to the right, and instead of having one leg perilously close to the road, I'd have to have most of the tripod right IN the road. Well for sure I chose this particular morning - Sunday even better than Saturday specifically because it would have the least traffic. Still this is the city that never sleeps, and sure enough twice I had to pick up my tripod to keep from getting hit by one of our city buses.<br /> <br /> But looking through the viewfinder of my camera for just a split second at this new position sold me on getting this shot come hell or high water. After capturing the last of my images I packed up my gear and headed off to Central Park to look for nice candid's to add to my collection. This scene however sat on my computer for over a year and a half until I finally had enough money to purchase PhotoMatix HDR software, (there was no way I could afford Photoshop and its' HDR program) and even though I didn't take a large enough exposure range to get this image perfect, now it is at least good enough to take it out of hiding and join its' brothers and sisters here in my scenic gallery. A better shot of it is coming - someday...
  • dsc_0416 Conservatory pond, eastside view
  • On a warm summer evening I came out to the piers to capture the colors of the setting sun falling on a flower laden path that people traveled up and down, here on the this picturesque section of New York's West side. However even though the sky was clear, some well placed haze along the horizon where the sun was setting, kept the rich sunset colors from materializing, so my shots looked a bit more flat than I had hoped.<br /> <br /> But as I was walking around earlier looking for the best place to stand for my shot, I noticed that it was movie night at the piers, so I hung around for the start of the show to see just how low my shutter speed could fall before I could no longer record a sharp image. Turns out 1/10th of a second is my limit. And in this case that was just good enough to record this shot.
  • After spending the afternoon at the Staten Island zoo, I decided to take the long route home, and instead of catching the bus nearest the zoo, I decided to walk through Clove Lake and catch the bus on the other end of the park, which added about 45 minutes to my trip, but it was more than worth it. Besides the great health benefits from walking around in the beautiful sunshine, I got several nice pictures as well, this was the first one.
  • sailboats on the BayDSC_5098
  • Standing on the rearmost balcony of our cruise ship I gazed at the skyline of the city as we left New York behind for a week. There were 17 of us going on this cruise and I kept trying to get as many of them as possible to join me up here for a group shot with the city as a backdrop before it disappeared. But with the craziness of getting settled in, nobody managed to make it up here but me. As the strong air current wrapped around me, I still found myself admiring the grey skyline on this heavily overcast fall day. Sometimes grey can be pretty too.
  • Every year a group of friends from work go on different cruises. Not having recovered financially from joining them on the island hoping cruise in 07', I couldn't join them in 08'. However this time in 09' with generous help from Michael I could join them once more. One aspect of this cruise to Bermuda that I liked as opposed to the last one was that we wouldn't have to stop what we were doing every afternoon to rush back to the ship before it set sail for the next island on our itinerary. All the sign next to the gangplank of the ship said was be back by 4 pm Friday. LOVE IT!! <br /> <br /> Never having been to Bermuda before I knew it would be a good idea to join the gang on a tour they were talking about that took in the whole island. If I went on that then I'd have an idea where I like to go back to later with more camera equipment (of which I packed a ton). The third place our guides brought us to on the tour was Gibbs lighthouse. Built in 1844 it is the worlds oldest cast iron lighthouse. Impressive as it was I found the view from the top of the hill even more impressive. But with the all the telephone and electrical wires going every which way I couldn't find one single view of the bay that wasn't going to include a bunch of them. So I looked and found a spot that was least wire encumbered. Still there was going to be enough of them that I needed something in the foreground to take your eye off them. Ideally I just needed one of the gang to see what a great spot this was to take pictures from and then take a shot of them - taking a shot. <br /> <br /> Now with 17 of us on the tour you'd figure that ONE person would have stumbled across this spot naturally. But no such luck. So when our guides called us to get back in our two tour buses, I called Iris over and asked her to stand at the top of the steps and take a picture of anything from that spot that tickled her fancy, so I could complete this scene. As it turns out she pointed her camera almost directly in the direction of our cruise ship, (just a large white splotch looking at it from here) docked all the way out on the horizon. It wasn't a totally candid shot like I like to capture spur of the moment, but sometimes as a photographer you just have to fudge things a little.
  • DSC_6937 view of our ship from Gibbs Hill
  • After leaving Gibbs Hill, our tour guides took us to one of the many beaches in Bermuda. After a few minutes it was time for us to go, but I spotted this perfectly composed scene out in front of me, so I quickly ran to this spot, and knelt down and got as close to the sand as I could, then snapped a few quick shots before running back to the bus.
  • After returning to our ship from our bus tour of the island on our first day in Bermuda, I set out by myself with a small bag full of lenses to try and grab some pictures of the sights I saw while on the tour bus. Right off the bat I liked this view of our ship as the ferryboat pulled out from our dock headed for Hamilton.
  • DSC_7001 Royal Naval Dockyard
  • On my last cruise with the gang from work, I joined them mostly to relax and share the room expenses with my good friend Michael, who I really felt needed a vacation even more than I did, and would now only have to pay for half the room if I went. Taking my little point and shoot camera to capture fun moments as they happened was as much as I felt my photography endeavors would go. Little did I realize that it would reignite my photography passion. This time two years later I knew I was going to go hog wild with my camera, and having spent a small fortune on new DSLR equipment I was anxious to see what kind of shots I could get on a tropic island like Bermuda with a step up in equipment. After returning from the island wide tour I went on with the whole gang, I hopped on a ferry back to town so I could start taking more pictures. Stepping off at the main dock in Hamilton, it didn't take more than a minute or two to fire up the ol' Nikon.
  • Walking through tree's so thick that I couldn't see the sun, I kept following the bird calls that seemed to chime out all around me. As I did I slowly came to the conclusion that I was never going to get a clean sight of one of these avian songsters, let alone get their picture. And the deeper into the mini jungle I got the less chance I had of getting back to the picturesque bay in Hamilton in time to capture a super sunset shot (complete with a great moon to boot). So looking at my watch as well as what little sky I could see through the trees, I decided it was time to leave Sherwin's nature reserve and my hopes of capturing some photo's of those illusive exotic birds.<br /> <br /> Hurriedly I grabbed the next bus back to town. But alas it's hard to out race the sun when your traveling at 20 miles an hour, which is about the islands speed limit. (I'm guessing any native New Yorker driving here would blow their brains out). As I watched the slowly setting sun out race our bus back to town, it seemed to be laughing at me as it glided along in the sky over my left shoulder. But while I was now certain I wouldn't get back in time for a rich sunset shot, I held out hope that maybe I could get a kind of nice shot of an early evening sky instead.<br /> <br /> However that hopeful feeling did not last very long, because I had checked before leaving our cruise ship this morning for when sunset was here in Bermuda, I could tell by the large clock on the front of the bus (clocks inside of buses, how cool is that?) that there would be no nice left over color in the sky by the time the bus got back to the ferry boat terminal this day. And sure enough when I got off the bus the sky was pitch black, no colorful water, no nice light shining off the boats in the harbor, no nothin'. Just like the setting sun, the moon too seemed to look down and laugh at me. "Oh well, time to catch the ferry boat back to the ship and hook up with some of our group for dinner". "Now what time does the next ferry leave this place?", I half mumbled as I looked up at the big board at the dock that posted the ferryboats routes and departure times. My shoulders drooped as I read the map routes 3 different times - ONE HOUR?? THE NEXT BOAT LEAVES IN ONE HOUR?? You've got to be kidding me!!! In the middle of the week before it's even 9 pm and the boats run every 60 minutes ??? But as I looked around at the lazy little hamlet I realized I was lucky it ran THAT often. I'll never complain about the Staten Island ferry schedule again.<br /> <br /> With nothing to do and most of Hamilton shut down, I walked into town to see what might look nice to photograph, but unfortunately anything that did look that good required the use of a tripod. Just my luck I had left it back on the ship so I wouldn't be too bogged down with equipment. Soon I found myself meandering back to the bench at the ferry terminal, and decided to rest my eyes and let the warm night air relax me a bit - or try to. But after a few minutes I started going stir crazy again and opened my eyes, this time in the direction of that mini luxury liner still docked in front of me but now it was bathed in the light from the town and her own ship board lighting, which made for a fabulous image. "Boy what a great shot it would make" I thought to myself as I sat lazily with my arms spread wide across the bench. But how do I get it with the composition I desire, seeing that I have no support for the camera? Plus the moon will be over my right shoulder outside of the picture. "Well the moon isn't critical, and I can always add one later when I get home if the sky looks too empty". (This is one of only two shots in all of my galleries that didn't originally have a moon in the scene that I added one to it later).<br /> <br /> Dragging my butt off the bench I attached the lens I wanted for the shot onto my camera and then walked up to the railing and rested my camera there with the correct angle needed for proper composition of this night time scene. After looking at a few test shots I saw that the best exposure setting was at a 1/2 a second - PRECISELY the slow shutter speed I was afraid it was going to be. Hunching over slightly I carefully rested the camera on the railing again and looked into my viewfinder. I saw the limp flag, and waited for a breeze to come, then when it finally started blowing I had to wait for the wind to change directions so it would blow the flag on the right angle to be photographed from where I was standing. When that finally happened a large wave came by and moved the dock just enough to blur the picture. After that I pressed the shutter release button too hard and moved the camera enough to blur the picture myself.<br /> <br /> As you can tell, trying to capture this exact shot without a tripod required lining up a lot of ducks in a row, and two of them in particular. One, I needed plenty of room on my memory card for what was sure to be a lot of blurry shots. Fortunately my big compact flash card had me covered there. The second thing I was going to need to capture this scene, not surprisingly, was time - and LOTS of it. But thanks to the good people at the "Sea Express" ferry service, time was one more thing that I had in great supply.
  • DSC_7433 Spanish Point
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