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here and there

Scenic shots taken everywhere, from sunup to sundown
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Even though at this point I had totally lost my sense of direction and had no clue which way led back to where our cruise ship was docked, my increasing nervousness still couldn't stop me from taking a picture whenever a nice scene developed right in front of me. Plus I figured sooner or later I'd run into SOMEONE here who spoke english, before our ship set sail in another 90 minutes, and left me stranded in San Juan .
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Even though at this point I had totally lost my sense of direction and had no clue which way led back to where our cruise ship was docked, my increasing nervousness still couldn't stop me from taking a picture whenever a nice scene developed right in front of me. Plus I figured sooner or later I'd run into SOMEONE here who spoke english, before our ship set sail in another 90 minutes, and left me stranded in San Juan .

cruise 07'San Juansceniccandidsld1

  • Another of my old slides I had converted to digital. This shot was taken in April of 88'. I had been living on Staten Island for 8 or 10 months by then, and I had been captivated by many of the sunrise and sunset shot possibilities I would see as I walked to and from the ferry terminal each day. Though this potential scene I first saw it while riding on the bus. Now with most scenes I have time to frame up with my fingers in front of my face like some movie director, but this one whizzed by the bus window so fast I knew I'd have to bring a few different lenses with me the first time, as I wasn't sure where exactly to stand to get the shots I imagined I'd like to capture.<br /> <br /> On this trip I wasn't even trying to get this shot, as when I left the house this morning I was hoping for a near cloudless sky and a rich blue and red sunset, which I was going to capture with my 28mm wide angle and aimed a bit farther to the west so the plant would start the shot on the right side of the photo and the Bayonne bridge would end the shot on the left. With that composition the sun disappearing below the horizon would create a beautiful curve of light in the sky that would frame those two corner objects perfectly. But that angle made little sense with this cloud cover, however instead of leaving I set up my tripod on the docks and waited to see what the coming sunset would do to this sky. When the purples started to develop in the clouds I excitedly switched to my 55mm lens and pulled back out my graduated neutral density filters and looked on in wonder at the beautiful scene unfolding before me as I fired off my camera.<br /> <br /> Now today this shot isn't even possible any more as the plant that owns the dock I stood on to get it, put up a fence around their grounds to keep the public out, and even more so, they also tore up the dock, so there's no place to stand to get this angle and include this much water in the foreground in the same shot. As I've said many times before, every shot is a unique collection of numerous things both seen and unseen that will never be exactly reproduced the same way ever again - enjoy them when you see them as they may turn out to be a priceless memory.<br /> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /> <br /> Nikon F3<br /> Fujichrome 50D<br /> 55mm micro<br /> 1/4th sec<br /> f8<br /> {2/3rd's stop graduated neutral density filters for clouds and water}
  • Taken in the fall of 85' this was almost certainly my first ever trip through Clove Lake. If any of you are already familiar with this gallery and my nature one here on Smugmug you've noticed this location come up many many times. On this occasion I was still living in the Bronx, but wanted to go to the Staten Island zoo to capture some pictures of the chunkiest prairie dogs you ever will see. I discovered them delightfully on my first trip to that zoo probably a year or so before this, but the round trip was terribly long and left little time for shooting once I got there. Now having secured a few days stay on the living room couch of my best friend Scott who was already living on the Island at the time, I could now take a quick bus trip to the zoo, shoot all day come back to his apartment and go home the next morning.<br /> <br /> The extra time was so abundant with this plan that I decided to take a bus that put me off on the far end of Clove lake, as opposed to taking one that put me right near the zoo like I did on my first trip. I was curious to see what Clove lake looked like in person, instead of on my Hagstrom map. As I walked through the entire length of this quiet park I cris-crossed this brook several times over the couple of small bridges that popped up at different points. This spot looked so nice I decided to pull out my tripod and capture it. I would have loved to use the slower film in my other camera for this shot, but the polarizing filter, small aperture, and constant low breeze wouldn't allow it.<br /> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /> Nikon FA<br /> ectachrome 200<br /> 28mm f 2.8 nikkor<br /> 1/2 sec.<br /> f16
  • The island hoping cruise I went on with a bunch of friends from work was responsible for me getting back into photography after at least a 15 year absence. The island of Tortola was our first stop, and with my little Fujifine pix point n' shoot in hand I started taking pictures literally from the moment my foot first hit soil. So joyous was I snapping photo's with a device that, compared to my old film camera's 36 photo maximum, seemed limitless, that I completely lost track of my friends as we explored the island. In less than 30 minutes I lost all sight and sound of everyone. After a fruitless bit of searching to find any of them, I decided to get back to what I really wanted to do - get some cool shots of the colorful local birds and lizards. But I found NONE. I did find some dogs, but who travels 1000 miles to take a picture of somebodies dog? <br /> <br /> After a few hours I had almost circled the whole island (which wasn't too tough as the island barely seemed larger than my backyard). As I re-approached our docks I encountered my first non domestic creature on Tortola - a grasshopper. Pitiful as that seemed to me at the time it was better than nothing and I chased after it. After much zig-zagging, I actually caught it, and even got it to rest on my finger long enough to snap a picture of it. But before that while I was chasing it down at one point, I zigged when the grasshopper zagged. As I looked around to try and reacquire that little green guy in all the tall green grass, I looked ahead and noticed that the Crown Princess, following us into the bay, was framed almost perfectly between two palm trees. "What an ideal tropical island shot to commemorate this cruise with" I thought, and after snapping a few quick shots, I went back after my booby prize hiding among the grass.<br /> <br /> Now the funny thing about this shot is that months and months later when I was editing it back at home, I spotted a bird with something it caught in its' beak, just to the left of the reddish rock in the center of the picture along the shoreline. "Well what do you know I got a picture of some local wildlife after all..."
  • dscf_0190 big cloud, little island
  • St. Thomas was the second stop on our island hopping cruise in 07'. Putting a camera in my hands (even just a little point and shoot one) for the first time in over 15 years turned out to be a bad idea for my friends as I went off cock wild photographing everything in sight, and loosing them numerous times in the process. The day before on the tiny island of Tortola it got so bad I lost our entire group completely and didn't find them again until dinner time back on the ship. Here on a much much bigger Island they were not having it, and told me to stay close. But within 10 minutes of reaching the shopping district they had lost me again. I tried finding them everywhere for a good 20 minutes or so with no luck. As I looked up and down the streets and shops 90% (well maybe only 80%) of my attention was spent looking for a familiar face, the rest of my concentration was on the colorful and interesting looking shops. I wanted to stop and photograph some of them, but I knew we all wanted to go sightseeing after our group finished shopping for everything they wanted to get here, and they wouldn't do that and leave me alone, so I restrained myself. Fortunately I spotted two of my friends coming out a jewelry store and as they yelled "there he is", we all joined up, and they formed an escort flanking me to keep me from wandering off again. After hitting several more shops here in this outdoor mall we headed for a large wine shop that some of the girls had patronized before. As they talked about all the great things they just purchased everyone temporarily forgot about me, and predictably I slid back, fortunately unnoticed to take advantage of the situation. Wanting some record of this colorful place I quickly turned around and slid over to one side of the banister so it would clearly look like a railing in the photo and not just a long black strip sitting annoyingly in the foreground. With that little bit of creativity out of he way I snapped the picture and hastily raced around the corner and caught up again with the group. As I tucked my point and shoot camera back out of view from my friends watchful eyes, I determined to behave for the rest of the day. A resolution I kept - for about 15 minutes...
  • dscf_0320 The Crown Princess pulls out from St Thomas
  • The weather had been fabulous on the cruise thus far and when we woke up and stepped outside after arriving at Dominica the weather seemed even more gorgeous, if that were possible. The blue skies, cottony clouds and richly colorful hillsides of the island begged to be photographed with a panoramic camera, or at least my 20mm wide angle using my old F3. No such luck as all my old equipment was in veritable mothballs, so however wide this camera went was going to have to do, and it wasn't doing enough...... My growing itch to burn a large chunk of my upcoming tax refund on a new digital Nikon was getting so big I was going to need a whole bottle of calamine lotion to hide the rash.
  • view of Dominica from our cruise ship
  • dscf_0463 Bishop Boghart Catholic Center
  • The day before on St. Thomas, I watched as loads of great shots whizzed by my window in our tour bus, too fast to capture them. So this time on Dominica I told everyone in our group to take the tour bus, but I was going to hoof it instead. I spent the whole day walking up and down the hilly roads, near the coast of Roseau, getting even farther out than this remote fishing village. From the moment we signed up for this, my very first cruise, I imagined some scene to capture that would personify the whole trip. When I saw this spot after walking for over 3 hours thru the old world coastal countryside, I knew I had found the perfect scene.
  • Even though at this point I had totally lost my sense of direction and had no clue which way led back to where our cruise ship was docked, my increasing nervousness still couldn't stop me from taking a picture whenever a nice scene developed right in front of me. Plus I figured sooner or later I'd run into SOMEONE here who spoke english, before our ship set sail in another 90 minutes, and left me stranded in San Juan .
  • IMG_0472 stone bridge in the fall at Clove Lake
  • IMG_0517 cloudy day at Clove Lake in the fall_Nik_DxO_DxO_DxO
  • It was November of 07', and I was still 4 months away from purchasing my first DSLR, so I took my brand new Canon G9 (purchased on St. Maartan's while on our cruise a month before) and headed out to Clove lake to take pictures there for the first time in almost 20 years. Nice as many of the shots turned out, most of them just didn't stack up to the shots I used to get with my old F3 using Kodachrome and Ectachrome film. (Was it fair to even assume any point and shoot camera could?)<br /> <br /> I determined then and there to find a way to scrape up enough money to purchase a new Nikon as soon as it was economically feasible.This shot however did not contribute to that decision as I was simply delighted with the results.
  • As one long time Staten Island resident remarked to me as I was capturing pictures on this nice fall day, "This is the most beautiful fall colors I've seen here in many years". - He said a mouthful. <br /> <br /> Too bad I had to record them with my point and shoot. I had to wait several months until I got my tax refund back to purchase my first DSLR.
  • IMG_0610 Clove Lake fall scene
  • IMG_0683 late afternoon fall scene at Clove Lake
  • IMG_0655 fall afternoon at Clove Lake
  • A fine spring morning out at the lake
  • We all take pictures outdoors during beautiful sunny days, but life doesn't stop when it's cloudy and we don't all stay inside when it's overcast. If we like to record life as it happens, shouldn't we record it even if the sky is bland and unphotogenic? Even a bland day can create a mood. Here at Silver Lakes park people played with their children and couples walked arm in arm with as much passion as we all display during those days blessed with blue skies and white fluffy clouds.
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