Focusing And Refocusing: Views From An Evolving Life

Holiday on the Hudson River

Rosh Hashana, I discovered, is not the best time to try to navigate the Greenway by the Hudson River -- either as an adult on a bike or as a little girl in a pink skirt going for a run. 

Glad I got in a bike commute today, after not riding all weekend.  And tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, so that will be a subway day too.  I wonder if the structure-builders will be out in the rain?

Today's structure picture looks distressingly like the one from the other day.  I'll have to figure out how to get more creative with these.  Sadly, though, the days on the Greenway are waning and soon it will be all Riverside Drive, all the time, through the winter.  By March, maybe the structures will have spread to RSD!

Bronx Bird Watching

Didn't do the ride today.  Stayed home and did some re-editing on the credits for the NYCC video.  Also looked out my window and reminded myself why sometimes the Bronx is nicer than Manhattan.  I have to say it took a bit of doing to get this one:

Another Rainy Day in New York City

And here I am at work.  Didn't ride the bike today.  Not particularly fond of this picture, but it's a little different ...  Or maybe the next one instead.  I can't make up my mind:

And then for variety on this gloomy day:

Not sure yet whether I'll do the Twin Lights ride as planned tomorrow.  Possible/probable rain is one issue. The huge amount of work I need to get done is another.  Kyle is a third, and I guess related to the first two. Oh, and then there's the matter of another ridiculously early wakeup time in order to leave home by 4:30a to get to Lower Manhattan and the ferry by 6a ...

(Interlude)

And now back home, after becoming fascinated by the interplay of fog, mist and city lights ... to the extent that these might be the last pictures I'll ever take with these lenses.  Ooops.   Here's the ESB, before I managed to get mist drops on the lens ...

C&O ride stuff, NYCC video

So much excitement.

I've made my second appearance as an AP photographer.  Of course, real AP photographers are rightfully appalled at this.  And of course, it doesn't really count.  But fun nonetheless, here in Cal Woodward's package for our Travel section about our C&O ride

And of course, my efforts to learn Dreamweaver and do a Web site for the ride are here ... sloppy, but it's a start.  I'll work on refining it as I get a chance.

And, my official videographer work.  The 16-minute  version (remember, it's for internal use so there's internal interest in a long version ...) is here

And the 10-minute version:

The Art of River Structures

Someone or some people construct little structures along the Greenway.  Heretofore, most have been modest, such as this one (intriguing though it may be to the observing ducks).  But today, my first trip down by the river in several days, I saw that a number of them have greatly increased in their complexity.

Thus I think I will do a supplement to my Studies On The George Washington Bridge:  Let's call it Observations of the Nature of Natural Structures in a Hudson Greenway Setting.  An ongoing series.

Here are two more entries.  All three of these also with the point-n-shoot; I had to lug my laptop to work today and no way was my back also going to put up with the DSLR.

The 1 Train

One of a couple of desperation shots with the point-n-shoot on the way back from the bike shop this evening. 

Let's just say I'd rather be looking up at this train than looking out of it.  In fact, that was the prime inspiration to get me and Surly back to the shop, after riding the 1 train to and from work: Did I WANT to ride the subway again tomorrow?  No, I did not. 

No commute on Friday or Monday, or for that matter Saturday or Sunday, since I took the time off to help put up route-marking signs for the New York Cycle Club's big ride, then be the Official Videographer (I'm not making that up) for the ride Saturday, then edit the video Sunday, then help take down signs Monday.   Watch this space for the video in the next day or two.

More desperation point-n-shootings from this evening:

Winter commute preview

Got a preview of my winter commute tonight after stopping at Toga to get a  higher-angled stem in order to shorten the reach on the  Surly CrossCheck I got for the  C&O ride last month.  I'd known the reach was too long from the start, and it caused a fair amount of discomfort on the C&O ride -- but it was when I started lugging the camera waist bag on my lower back that it became untenable.  (Who ever actually says "untenable" in real life?)

The combination of the weight on my back and the extended reach just didn't work.  The reach on the LeMond from Craigslist (no, I'm not going to link Craigslist -- you know where to find it) also was too long and this particular stem solved the problem.

Anyway, after all of that I was closer to Riverside Drive than to the bike path so I went that route (RSD to 16-whatever to Fort Washington to 180th to Broadway to home.)  Most of it was remarkably problem-free, except for the two oncoming vehicles that executed quick left turns immediately in front of me, cutting me off.  Fortunately, I expected this behavior and thus ended up only annoyed, not maimed.

Remarkably, on the stretch of Broadway that I despise, I made it all the way from 180th to Dyckman with no buses and only four or five double-parked cars in the way.  Dyckman to 218th was fairly unpleasant, just because the road surface there is so horrid -- worse than I remembered, since I haven't gone that way in a year or so.  The Surly was a big help, though.

All of this came after a guy on a pink, green and yellow Bike Friday drew alongside me to say he had the same jersey.  We bonded over the wonders of wool, and rode from 130th or so to the bridge.

As for today's photo -- this angle wasn't exactly what caught my eye as I approached Sakura Park, but getting what I wanted would have required standing in the middle of traffic, balancing my bike against my hip, which seemed not a good plan.  So I settled for this.

 

 

Darkness on the edge of town

I've been hugely enjoying these waning days of West Side Greenway commuting before darkness sets in, because -- much as I hate upper Broadway in any case, particularly at night -- I have no interest in riding the Greenway at night.  

Here's one reason:

It's dark in this section!

Briefly back to yesterday's photos.  

A caveat first -- the fact that we have these different settings is not, unfortunately, the result of any purposeful action on my part.  I wish.  No, instead, it resulted from my fiddling with the camera in the dark trying to get something to turn out right.  I have enough trouble dealing with Exposure Issues in the daylight.  Can I get it right in the dark?  I think not.  Especially when my contact is maladjusted and I can't even see the settings on the camera.

Still, I can backtrack after the fact and compare the settings vs. the result, and learn something from that.  When I have time, I'll modify this entry to add them.

But at any rate, I'm fascinated by this question they raise:  What is reality?  (Too deep for 5:18 a.m.)

What was the sky really like at that hour?  When does the scene become not what it is, but just what I say it is, simply by tweaking the exposure? 

This is differing from cutting a person out of one scene and putting him into another.  That one's obvious.  But just a little tweak of an F-stop or something, and all of a sudden the sunrise, sunset, moonlight, whatever, may be completely different from whatever reality there was to begin with.

Of course, the same question exists for any photo ever taken and tweaked ever so slightly in the camera or the computer.  And for that matter, for any story ever written.  And angles and detail and what to leave in, what to take out ... all of that. It just struck me that with three lightings of the same scene, it's more apparent than usual.

Exposing the moon

The above was three different exposure settings on my morning commute.  I will save the commentary until later because I'm tired.

The below are two from my evening commute.  It was a scenic morning and evening.

Listen to a Sunrise (with thanks to MorningSong)

When I lived in Manhattan, I never saw the sun rise.

On the other hand, I lived in Manhattan.

A mile or so later on my ride to work this morning, I was treated to a really cool view of the sunrise framed by the arches of the GWB.  But I didn't stop, because I'd sworn off more bridge photos.

Then I thought: Perhaps that's an extreme stance.  I'd been thinking the bridge was an easy way out of my daily photo assignment -- that it would simply save me from having to look for something else.  And truly, on the bike path at 6:30 in the morning or evening, you tend to get the same basic scenes most days and most of them don't have much in the way of people or action (the occasional large fish hanging from a tree notwithstanding.)

Unlike in, well, mainstream Manhattan.

But as for the GWB.  When it comes down to it, it's severely under-represented in the niche of Bridge Photography.  Unlike its brother in Brooklyn.  And I do see it from all sorts of angles, without even trying.  So perhaps there is indeed some benefit and virtue to making GWB shots a sub-set of my overall efforts.  If I see a potential bridge shot, I'll go for it, and see what kind of a variety I can come up with.

While at the same time looking for other subjects as well.

I think it's a plan.