Superfuzzy

Photo Safari: Coney Island

Winter Beach, 2/28/09

Yesterday I went on a photo safari with Trevor. He selected Coney Island as our destination, which was a great choice. I love the beach on a winter’s day. It was a little gloomy for photos, but just sunny enough. We started at the 8th Street/Aquarium stop, and walked to the very east end of the board walk, all the way to Sea Gate. (Talk about odd–I really need to figure out how to get into Sea Gate for some photos.) Along the way we diverted out to the end of the Steeplechase Pier. My eagle eye spotted a distinctive box in one of the trash cans, and sure enough it turned out to be the container that crematoria give cremated remains in. So we missed an ash-scattering ceremony. I wondered if perhaps the recently departed was one of the hard-core fishermen that hangs out there in the summer.

Looking for Male Fliers

Cheer New York is looking for male fliers. (Well, who isn’t?) Speaking of fliers, I’ve donated the use of a photo for their flyer (above) which you may see around town soon.

Thought of the Day…

Happy New Year to Me :)

Today, January 1st 2009, is day # 327 of my new-found sobriety. It is also one of the first New Year Days that I can remember waking up without a hangover, or for that matter, waking up while the sun was still shining. The physical hangover was never that bad, nothing I couldn’t sleep off or take care of with aspirin or coffee. But what really pleases me is to be free of the psychological hangover: that feeling of depression, guilt and fear which constantly lingered. Thanks to all my friends who supported me in the past year!

Mulberry Tree, R.I.P.

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.