Hello, that's right it took me until Saturday to ask that question about a community series by the author of "Got DKos questions? We've got answers." I'm a bit slow.
Unless I receive a cease and desist from dmsilev I'm thinking of taking over in these here parts. I'm not sure about Friday though, Friday is date night. I haven't been on a date since 1994 but you never know.
I'm perfect for the job being a true DKos photo buff. I don't just post photos here, I post photos because of the enthusiasm I've received here. From my first day I got my now worn out Canon PowerShot A630 and took this;
Kossacks have been telling me I have a knack for this sort of thing. I'm also perfect because I'm a photographic Luddite that recently opened my camera instruction manual for the first time. I've got a lot to learn.
So I'll start off with one of my overly long photo dairies, this one about how my day went yesterday, a day where either my eyes or my camera took total control.
Just a walk in the park.
The first Friday of every month is foot doctor day for me. Usually I sit in my car on West End Avenue for a half hour in a No Standing 7AM-10AM and have a free parking spot for the day. Then after the doctor preforms his magic, I'm walking on air and get to pretend that I'm an Upper West Sider. Every New York liberal either is or wishes they were from the Upper West Side. It's like San Francisco East.
Yesterday I had other plans. Recently I began browsing Flickr for photography ideas. Kossacks may tell me I have good photo skills but Flickr leaves me feeling very inadequate. The first group I checked out was The Bronx Group. There are some great photographers from my home borough. I was amazed at this close up of the fountain in the Bronx Zoo. I thought I took pretty decent photos in Van Cortlandt Park and I own the Van Cortlandt Park tag around here but check this out!
I learned that I could point a camera through a fence across the now closed Highbridge Aqueduct and I needed to give it a try. I saw a great photo of a place I remember from my childhood and where I purchased retreads for my first car. Another by the same photographer as "Flat Fix" of a fascinating composition I tried so many times but all I ever got was dark tunnels.
So my day started out Bronx bound with a first stop at a bridge I haven't crossed since I was a boy and then off to Gunhill Road for an attempt at the old flat tire place and a walk under some bridges but I was waylaid by a Blooming Cheery Tree in December! Getting on the West Side Highway at 79th Street I saw something that should not be. So instead of going home I got of at 96th Street and pulled into the only free parking I know of in Manhattan, at the riverside tennis courts.
I have a point and shoot that shoots in RAW, the Canon G-10. I don't know what to do with RAW and don't have a program yet that can really process RAW. I had Photoshop on my old PC but it was too confusing. I also had a thirty day trial version Aperture 2 on my Mac but it too was so much harder to use that my Microsoft Digital Image Pro that does work along the Microsoft logic I've become familiar with but does not support RAW.
But when I finally read the instructions and found out how to shoot in RAW, I found out that the free download Picasa does open and convert RAW to JPEG. I use it sparingly because of all the hard drive space that RAW takes up but when I do I see photos that stand out, I switch over. The tennis courts were my first comparison. I was trying to compose a shot of the overview and when a tugboat appeared in the background, I thought it rated RAW. The first is in auto and the second is RAW. What do you think?
Alright I'm walking here. I've got seventeen blocks to the blooming cherry tree. Except when it comes to the mission at hand with a camera in my hand I'm not very focused. So letting my eyes be my guide I'm walking on a perfect New York day and taking in the sights.
First stop the 91st Street Garden. Are you getting a little déjà vu here? Perhaps you are remembering the last scene from "You've Got Mail." This is where where "Shopgirl" learns the true identity of "NY152" or Meg Ryan finds that the Tom Hanks that put her Corner Book Store out of business and the Tom Hanks she was romancing via email was the same person.
A little different with winter just around the corner and the sign has been either stolen as a souvenir or just worn out but there is still plenty to see there. A lady came up to me when a northern mockingbird was sitting in some Japanese Beautyberry to say "He's posing for you." There were these daises in a fence and do you suppose, One Perfect Rose!
And not for nothing but what do you make out of this red flower?
I found another poser on the way to the cherry tree. This squirrel posed so long that must have thought he was getting royalties but which of the thirty shots is the keeper?
My main are of concentration with photos is framing and where the photo ends on all four sides. I don't try anything original and just copy the examples of great Directors of Photography in the movies I watch or the composition of magazine photos.
I find that familiarity is the best way I can come up with a good composition. There is a nice hill with a rustic trail in Riverside Park at around 82nd Street and I've been trying to get a photo that emphasizes the steepness without making the buildings on Riverside Drive seem like they are falling over. This was yesterday's attempt.
Here is another repeat composition. Something I would never notice until I get home and view the photo on a seventeen inch screen and then I just keep going back. It's the three trees that form a diagonal line and then the where the branches split it looks like three slingshots lined up. Ever since I watched an episode of Nova about fractal geometry I've been looking for views like this in nature.
I'm still walking to those cherry trees. Here comes 79th Street now.
And the main event the view that changed my whole day. I didn't think to go out on the on ramp of the West Side Highway to duplicate the view that would have stopped me in my tracks, except for a possible rear end collision.
I've seen a magnolia flower or an azalea out of season but this wasn't just a few flowers. Here are two more views of a pretty strange sight.
Time to walk back to the car. Oh how anticlimactic. Physical fitness, how depressing.
I'm not too good at Roman Numerals anymore but I know there are less that 87 public bathrooms for people in New York City.
Here's an unseen New Yorker watching the highway and river flow by. I take lots of pictures of people but homeless people can be tricky and confrontational.
And I'm pretty sure that crazy red flower is giving me the finger now.
But a little autumn color can still be found.
A few childhood memories. The showers are empty this time of year but I remember them so fondly.
I don't remember these at all and miss monkey bars but the new playgrounds seem so photogenic.
Hey this comes close, the P.S 75 playground across the street.
All that walking makes for an appetite. Time to leave the park and return to the city for for a lunch special.
I like this, New York City taxes hard at work. A new subway station springing up at the Broadway Mall and 95th Street.
Here's a new habit of mine. asking people to pose with their pets. Unlike flower photos I can't just keep on shooting or I'll just annoy people but sometimes I get lucky.
I have a favorite storefront to photograph and it right at 96th Street. The Plant Shed always changes.
Just one more stop, a movie location I remembered but never been to. The other side is interesting too. But architecture is so hard to photograph.
Do you remember a car crash in Vanilla Sky? I think this is where it happened. Once again buildings that look like they are falling over.
On top of the Bridge, where I can square the camera to the building, I have a chance. I wonder if you can get a digital camera with a bellows?
Time to go home and here's another problem I want answers to. How do you get the exposure on both the tunnel and the right? I'm hoping the answer comes when I pick a program to process RAW.
Well I'll finish off with my specialty, sunsets. One thing I do know about the sun, you just can't depend on it. Well you can if you live outside the earth's atmosphere but I play it safe and pull over twice. Once at around 145th Street.
And again at Ft.Tryon Park.
Lucky too because the clouds filled the sky by the time I got home.
Oh no. I blew it. I can't host a weekly series on photography. I already told you everything I know about pointing a camera.
All of those photos and all that fresh air in one day. Only thing I could say, it was a good day!