Superfuzzy

Photo Safari: East Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Newton Creek Superfish, 8/27/08

Three big photo-opportunities happened for me last weekend. (1) A long photo-hike through Sunset Park where we got harangued by a security guard and narrowly avoided getting bothered by police — luckily some law-breaking kids diverted their attention from us. (2) A four-hour marathon of fashion and flash photography at GMHC’s Latex Ball — a totally new experience for me. (3) Another long photo-hike through Williamsburg, where Trevor DID get busted — more on that later.

Unfortunately, on Monday morning my motherboard fried, and my brand new super-duper Photoshop computer is on it’s way back to Shuttle for brain surgery. So I won’t be posting many of the photos any time soon. My old setup is just too slow and painful to process the 25MB RAW files that the Canon 1DS MkIII makes.

Anyway, here’s one photo I took the time to process. After crossing a train bridge over the Newton Creek to see some graffiti, we noticed this effluent pipe with tendrils of black gunk slowly streaming out. Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea. Lots of fish swimming around it too — but they were too small to see if they had three eyes.

A post on yesterday’s City Room blog at NYTimes.com I see that the EPA is going to “develop a sampling plan” there, perhaps the first steps towards making it a Superfund cleanup site. Woohoo!

Photo Safari: Coney Island

Today I took my nephew and mom to Coney Island and the New York Aquarium. Overall a fun day, although a bit hot. Ate at Nathan’s, walked the Steeplechase Pier, rode the Polar Run, saw some freaks and Shot the Freak. Well, Joey did. I almost put a dollar in the Waterboard Thrillride but chickened out.

Photo Safari: Greenpoint, Brooklyn

It was fun to watch this group of intrepid boaters put their canoe in the water at the end of Huron Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It was a little tricky for them — this wasn’t an official NYC Water Trail landing site. After one dip in the East River, they managed to launch o.k.

Brooklyn Botanical - Spiral

I’m thinking of selling my macro lens and ring light flash, and perhaps even the 30D and 10-22mm wide angle zoom lens. I have only used the macro lens twice, and while the photos are impressive the technique itself doesn’t really interest me very much. I think part of the problem is that the focus needs to be excruciatingly precise for the images to work, and I just don’t have the patience.

Many more macro photos here

Breaking News! People Get Hair Cut!

This morning’s big above-the-fold headline in The New York Times is an important story about how people get short haircuts in the summer. No simple trend piece, this one took a writer, four reporters and two photographers to complete.

In other news, nowhere to be found on the NYT home page: McCain’s economics adviser, Phil Gramm quits amid scandal; McCain’s security adviser, Stephen Spoonamore, puts forth evidence that Diebold CEO rigged Georgia governor and senate elections in 2002.

I know it’s Saturday, but I’m still scratching my newly-shorn head over what the NYT is doing. They even admit right in the caption that “It’s not exactly news…” so why are they printing it? Someone please clue them in to the dirty trick of announcing embarrassing news on a Friday evening.

Can we afford another president who thinks it’s smart to be dumb?

As Bush has reminded us countless times, he’s not very smart. Here’s a video of McCain warning us that he’s actually a little dumber. From The Jed Report

Bulbous Bollards

Saw some bulbous bollards yesterday in the Meat Packing District. Don’t know why I find these things so compelling. The people eating brunch in all the surrounding cafes thought I was a little odd.

PS1 Warm Up 2008

Click here to view more from the series.

If you haven’t been to PS1 for a Saturday Warm Up recently, now is a good time to go. The current outdoor installation is P.F.1 (Public Farm One) from the WORK Architecture Company. Not as splashy as last summer’s art (groan — I know) but perhaps more visually impressive. Inside the museum there are so many great and interesting pieces, I’m definitely going there again in a couple weeks. Well worth a visit to Queens, but best viewed on a Saturday.

Other People’s Art: Shen Wei

Next in the series of photographers I admire is Shen Wei. I first noticed him when coming across photos from a recent project of his called Almost Naked, a series of amazing intimate portraits, with a few interesting environmental/still life photos mixed in. As with the Jesse Burke, the emotional frankness of Shen’s photos really speaks to me.

Happy Anniversary Charles Darwin

This week marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. The story behind his exploration has always fascinated me, since reading Voyage of the Beagle as a school kid. Two years ago the American Museum of Natural History in New York City had a great exhibit dedicated to Darwin — with live animals to illustrate. And last year I had the great fortune of traveling to the Galapagos for a ten day expedition.