Feb 23 2010
Cross Posted at Daily Kos, Firefly-Dreaming, La Vita Locavore and Progressive Blue.
No more snow job photo diaries out of me. Since it is midwinter and everyone can use a little break from the cold, I think a little Brazilian Modern is in order.
How about you? Join me below for more photos and see an amateur review of my South American trip from last year.
Feb 20 2010
Cross-posted at Daily Kos.
Welcome to a new but old series that is all about photography. Do you have any photos or information about photography to share?
Yesterday’s diary was about snow pictures on a perfect blue sky day in Van Cortlandt Park. Tonight’s represents something a bit more challenging, trying to capture the snow as it is falling.
It’s not so easy and I really should have worn a hat and some gloves.
So if your in the mood for another snowy park, than take a walk below the fold for a park in a blizzard.
Feb 19 2010
Good evening this is my second installment in an attempt to get a regular series started called Friday Evening Photoblogging. Cross-posted at Progressive Blue, La Vita Locavore and Firefly Dreaming, it is based but different from a posting from last week at DKos.
I often write about and I’m very much in love with the undeveloped parts of Van Cortlandt Park. It is the fourth largest park in New York City and just a few blocks from my apartment. I guess the most popular diary so far was called Just a Walk in the Park, Van Cortlandt Park.
Few Manhattanites know of the beauty of this 1,146 acre park located in the Bronx but this New York City oasis should be of special interest to visitors from drier areas of the nation. The green will just blow you away.
You won’t find much green in this diary that focuses on photographic composition but I found a little color to make it interesting. In this photo the underpass leads to the Van Cortland marsh where the story ends. An old bridge from the the abandoned “Old Putt” and an oak tree that likes to hold a few leaves each winter improves the composition.
“Old Putt” is the affectionate nickname that hikers and cross country bikers have given to the New York and Putnam Railroad. The right of way for the railroad bed is a trail that runs the length of the park and passes through almost every type of ecosystem that can be found in the northeast.
Below the fold are the best of the 465 pictures I took last Thursday. Most of them on the Van Cortlandt Lake and surrounding wetlands of the Bronx park. Mostly they are photos of geese but I experimented with ways to defeat the the most annoying property of snow, monochromatic and way too bright.
Feb 18 2010
I’m so burnt out of anything political to say but I still take plenty of pictures. I tried to restart Friday Evening Photoblogging a few weeks back at DailyKos and this is a repost. I’m going to post last week’s here tomorrow because it relates to this weeks and continue the series here on Friday night. I hope you enjoy these pictures.
Have you ever gone to a zoo in midwinter? This diary is a selection of of photos from a three hour trip to the Zoo on a sunny winter day.
I could tell you a winter’s tale or two about going to the zoo. I think it is the best time for both interaction with animals and photographic opportunities.
This is not my first Bronx Zoo diary. My point about a winter visit can be made by comparing the photos in that collection from about twenty visits to the zoo and these from a three hour tour.
Jan 29 2010
This is actually a repost of a week old diary but the tip jar is from today.
Somehow I got mixed op and in my confusion I decided that political blogging and Flicka are the same thing. I do many sunsets at Dkos and very often focus on the parks of New York City. My favorite being Van Cortlandt Park that was named after the city’s first elected mayor.
So I’m going to repost this little photoplay and see how it goes over here. Starting off with a picture from last week that has become my new favorite photo. This is the Van Cortlandt Lake in the afternoon sun.
The softer weather that everyone has been enjoying broke today. Before this morning’s snow it was some great walking weather. While I’m always taking walks on the nature trails of the Bronx and by the Van Cortlandt Lake, I’ve had some company lately. Some days the trails were as crowded as they are in summer.
Last week I photographed a father and daughter enjoying themselves feeding swans and below the fold is what I watched last Thursday. It was a very enjoyable sight and would have made a nice moving picture.
Do you remember William Marshall “Let…the cartoooon…begin!”
Jan 17 2010
Frederic Podoux/Getty Images
We are on the brink…so we are told and so we will see as the photographs roll in from Haiti, images of death, destruction, survival, conflict, and despair.
We are ready, as they will paint a whole people as thugs and thieves and we will consume these images with a shake of the head. These descriptions will come from all sources, whether believed to be “left” or “right,” “objective” or Fox.
But we remember Katrina. We remember the power of the photograph and the greater power of seeing behind the image. Experiencing the visual content in light of the context.
Dec 11 2009
A day for intense, personal irony.
The Nobel Prize winner explains how some wars are good and necessary. He’s not old enough to have ever been faced with being drafted. And he hasn’t served. He’s apparently not worried about things like quagmires. He wins an award for peace. The award it turns out was endowed by a maker of explosives who felt guilty about blowing things up. The prize winner explains to people interested in peace how war is sometimes necessary. He is not embarrassed to do so. And the sometimes when war is necessary, he informs us, is now. That does not embarrass him either. Or at least not very much. Has peace ever been so devalued?
Closer to home, well, to my home anyway, number 2 son is in Hanoi traveling and taking photographs. He’s a photographer. Forty years ago, I spent a lot of time and energy on trying not to get to Viet Nam. I could look at that big plane that flew weekly to Pleiku and plan on how I was not going to be on it. No matter what. Now he’s there. Because he wants to be. In of all places, Hanoi.
He sends me a photo of a fish dinner he ate for lunch in Hanoi yesterday. The fish was delicious but, he reports, very bony. What can I say? I tell him the best part of a whole fish cooked like this is the cheeks. You can use a spoon to get to them. How do I know that?
The Hanoi Fish
On docuDharma, a refuge from the craziness of a larger, group blog that is its “blogfather,” there are several essays on the recommended list at this very moment about that particular larger, group blog. And a bazillion comments, including some from me, on what its apparently self inflicted, fatal wounds might mean. And what is happening in that crazy corner of the Internet. A corner from which I am absent and hope to remain so. Except that I keep looking over my shoulder, rubbernecking at the crash. And wondering about the plane to Pleiku.
What can I say? Why is it that I think know I’ve seen these movies before?
Dec 10 2009
Nov 09 2009
Whether you are deliriously happy, incredibly sad, or still uncertain about how you feel about what has emerged from the House this weekend, it’s probably safe to say that one thing everyone is…is sick of the whole thing.
Of course, we’re far from done-but just to give us all a break, I’m going to abruptly change the subject.
I have a Flip Video camera-which I am still getting used to-and last night we ran up the hill to Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, ostensibly to test the camera’s low-light capabilities…but really so we could drive around in all the fresh new snow.
There’s plenty of time to get back to the political wars in a bit; but for right now let’s head up the mountain, see some cool stuff, talk about what the camera can-and can’t-do, and, just for fun, we’ll answer the age-old Seattle question: “how long does it take to find three places that sell espresso at the top of a mountain pass in the middle of nowhere?”
