New York, Manhattan Cityscape 03

Love those reflections...

Took a bit of post-capture work to get this one right. Perspective was needed because of my proximity to the building, and not one but three tweaks in levels were necessary to provide more contrast and detail.

New York, Manhattan Cityscape 02

...and who could walk by and not snap this one of the Chrysler Building?

New York, Manhattan Cityscape 01

Manhattan itself is the biggest tourist attraction we've ever visited. The history, the culture, the manic pace...it's just a neat place to be.

Naturally, photographs abound if one cares to open his eyes. Just as in Houston, I would love to spend days just capturing architecture, the parks, interesting people, or any combination of the above.

The hustle and bustle of making appointments and going places prevented the capture of many things that we saw, but occasionally an opportunity like this came along, many times literally snapped on the move.

New York, Jersey Cityscape 03

The same clock, just a few moments down the riverway headed back to the harbor...

New York, Jersey Cityscape 02

This was on our way back to the harbor. I remember looking down at this clock many times while on the observation deck of the World Trade Center back in the '80's...

New York, Jersey Cityscape 01

As part of an organized tour we took a boat on the Hudson to see the sights. It had been a while since I'd been to New York, so much what is in this scene was new to me, including most of the glass buildings. Well-developed cityscapes have always been a favorite, especially if they offer unique buildings and reflections off of glass. To my amazement, the cityscape of the Jersey shore across from Manhattan was more striking than Manhattan itself.

One advantage of capturing images across the water is that the rule of thirds pretty much takes care of itself. It would have been nice to have a polarizing filter, but being a compact, one cannot be affixed to the s7000. Nevertheless, with creative exposure control and some post-capture Photoshop work the gap was filled. This is a single capture, but while we were on the boat I managed to jockey a position that allowed a zoomed-in six-shot panorama. Immediately after completing those six shots I zoomed out and took a single exposure of essentially the same composition. During post-capture back here in Houston it was amazing to see the difference.

New York, Harbor 03

Photoshop Elements does an excellent job of stitching together panoramas...this is one of two photos.

New York, Harbor 02

The underside rigging of one of those tall ships was captured pierside. New York is definitely a city with the old and the new.

New York, Harbor 01

We went to the New York Harbor with a tour; this is from the inside of a tourist trap, looking out the window at the rigging from a couple of tall ships.

New York, Madison Square Area 08

Just a few steps away this image was captured. Lamp posts sometimes make an interesting subject in a composition.

That Fujifilm s7000 sure does a good job. I wonder how long it will be before I can (intentionally) do this with the big cahoona, my new Nikon D300s.

New York, Madison Square Area 07

The park is also an occasional refuge for the homeless seeking rest. It's hard to imagine that this person's first thought upon waking would probably be where he would find his next meal (or fix). The smiley face and good-day message on the bag gives an ironic smirk to the world as he lay sleeping.

To live like this must strip one completely of his or her dignity in a very short time.

New York, Madison Square Area 06

The statue of William Seward looks over the city beyond the park...

Not many people know this, but the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was a conspiracy which included the intended murder of other top government officials that shared his views. Seward was one of those, and during the same hour that Lincoln was shot someone broke into Seward's house and knifed him badly. Fortunately the man survived.

New York, Madison Square Area 05

This is what was left of the eight-person meditation group when we returned...

New York, Madison Square Area 04

A boy looks to his neighbor for guidance...

The wife and I took an early walk through the park, before the kids got up, and found a lot going on. One of those statues was the focus of a video being filmed, in which a circle of about eight people did meditation, including the statue as part of the group. Also, from a distance, I saw this group get started, with just the boy and what must have been his mother (who is standing to the left and was cropped out of this picture). As always, it is regrettable when I don't bring a camera.

We returned in time to grab the kids to join us about a half-hour later, and this time I brought the camera and captured all of the shots in this series on the Madison Square Park area. By that time, however, the circle of meditators had disbanded, and this group had grown by two.

New York, Madison Square Area 03

One of my favorite views of the Flatiron...looks like a ship determinately plowing through the turbulent waters of humanity.

Suppose it makes sense that cabling, which I removed, is used to keep the statues from toppling over the edge.

New York, Madison Square Area 02

A side view of the Flatiron...probably one of the most iconic buildings in the city (next to the Empire State Building and former World Trade Center). In the tradition of taking pictures of things through things this would have been better without the shadow on the left side of the building. And perhaps even better yet in wintertime.

We can see our fellow poking up again here on the right-side edge of the top.

I took the liberty to remove some ventilation pipes in both this and the previous posts. Also, the perspective tool was used to straighten out the edges a bit.

New York, Madison Square Area 01

This is the Flatiron building, taken on a morning walk in Madison Square Park - another reason the Hotel Giraffe is a great place to stay. Shortly after settling into the hotel we were startled to see life-sized, anatomically correct, male statues (naked no less) all over the place...some on the sidewalks but most on the tops of buildings, such as this one.

They were placed there by an English sculptor named Antony Gormley in a short-lived exhibit that was to be taken down just a couple of weeks after our visit. Not surprisingly, at first many calls were made to the police from folks who thought they were suicides.

New York, Empire State 02

This and the previous posting were taken at Madison Square Park.

New York, Empire State 01

Yes, the Empire State Building. Once the icon of American superiority, it sits now as just another of the huge buildings on the island, an afterthought of days gone by. We didn't go up to the observation deck...maybe next time.

New York, Strawberry Fields

This was in Central Park, at Strawberry Fields. It's interesting to know that Yoko Ono stills lives in Dakota overlooking this area.

As a younger lad, back in the '80's, I was walking around the Upper West Side one time when I came upon a long row of tables at this site. The people behind them said that they were trying to get enough signatures to persuade New York officials to designate the area as Strawberry Fields. I was one of God knows how many to sign, and obviously it came to pass.

New York, General 05

Naturally this store held the greatest interest for my son, though we never actually went in...too crowded! He reasoned that anything they had there can be bought online for the same or lower price.

New York, General 04

No one can hang around New York City for very long and say that it's not an interesting place. We were walking near Central Park when this music came blaring off the street. These guys were making a music video of some sort...

New York, General 03

Who would have thought that such a thing existed? Suppose if you're going to learn how to do trapeze there has to be a school somewhere. Out of curiosity, I went to their website and found that lessons are quite reasonable...$70 for two hours.

In reality, instructing at such a place must be a dream job. Imagine making a living at doing something that is so much fun, and getting paid to share it with others! My brother has a friend named Jeff that is just such an individual, except that his passion is with hang gliders and ultralights. Jeff maintains a heavy teaching schedule in Austin, and spends half the year in Mexico doing the same thing at a hang gliding resort down there.

New York, General 02

Gotta love this sign...

New York, General 01

By far the favorite part of vacation for all of us was New York City. Though I take pride in being a "small town boy", Manhattan has always held great fascination with me due to its culture and manic pace - the only large city I've ever fallen in love with. In fact, I endeavored to move there one time - back in 1984 - but ended up with a calling to return to Texas.

We were there just two nights...the hotels are frightfully expensive. One of the few that takes four people to a room is the Hotel Giraffe, on the corner of 5th Avenue and 25th Street. We'd recommend it to anyone, really a good place to stay and away from the huge crowds, tucked into an ethnic neighborhood with a local feel.

The first few postings here are general pictures that do not easily fit into a category by place or event. We really did a lot in the two days we were there, and found a few interesting surprises along the way...

Baltimore 03

Taken inside the aquarium complex, the focus on this shot unfortunately ended up on the rock wall just beyond the parrot. Thus, the unsharp mask had to be used to make it appear as though the bird's eye was in focus.

This is one area in which I really did wish I'd brought the big cahoonah...the new Nikon D300s. The extra zoom would have been great, as there were lots of birds amid natural-looking settings.

Baltimore 02

Swinging the camera around, this was taken from the same vantage point, of an enclosed walkway across the water.

Baltimore 01

The family went to Baltimore and other places for vacation this past July. I was afraid of bringing the new camera, so all of the next few dozen shots were taken with the Fujifilm s7000.

Why go to Baltimore? Because that's where we flew on the way to Washington, D.C. where my wife had a meeting, so did some exploring and discovered a fascinating city. Naturally, the aquarium was a primary attraction. This was taken while we were waiting to get in, from the pedestrian bridge that crosses the harbor.