From the Sacred to the Profane

I figure I should strike while the iron is hot! Here's one I took on my trip to NYC last December and forgot to post here...

Emerging from the quiet of St. Patrick’s Cathedral around sunset, I was greeted by this pre-Christmas rush as I looked across Fifth Avenue.

Toronto Skyline

On our visit to see my Toronto out-laws over Christmas, we flew from Boston to Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. The airport is on an island in Lake Ontario, very close to the edge of downtown Toronto, giving us a good view of the CN Tower and surrounding buildings.

The timing was fortuitous in terms of the position of the sun, and the weather was totally cooperative, with very blue sky and nice puffy clouds. As I shot, some of the clouds passed between us and the top of the 1815-foot spire.

Ritz Camera Camera

I stopped by the Ritz Camera near work the other day to buy a battery (hey big spender!) They have a big, colorful fake camera that takes up the better part of a display window, and I started playing with taking photos of it.

I soon noticed that the "lens" actually was capturing passerby, and I captured a few myself, with this one being my favorite.

Dahlgren Hall: U.S. Naval Academy

A mid crosses in front of Dahlgren Hall at the U.S Naval Academy.

Naval Academy Chapel Dome

Looking up at the inner dome of the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis.

Howard Reads Yiddish

A portrait of my friend and distinguished colleague, Howard.

Among other things, he's distinguished because when he joined our little team at the University, he was issued an ID card that says "Faculty," instead of "Staff," as it was supposed to be. So since then, I've referred to him as "Professor."

One day last December, as Howard and I arrived at our Light Rail destination in the morning, we got an alert from work that our building had lost power, and that they didn't expect it to be restord until late afternoon... so they were telling everyone to go home for the day. Howard and I decided to stay on the Light Rail and ride it to the northern end of the line - a nice 45 minute journey northward.

One the way back, I remembered that I had with me a copy of the "Forwarts" ("Forward",) a Yiddish newspaper I had brought back from New York some months earlier. I bought it strictly for photographic purposes - I thought it would be humorous to take pictures of people who you wouldn't expect to be reading a Yiddish publication - and Howard fit the bill. I still have to arrange to take a picture of it with one of my Asian friends.

For a while, we had this photo posted in our office between our desks as a way of showing how learned Professor Howard really was!

Island of Calm in a Sea of Chaos

Our 2-day NYC photo safari this weekend was a hit! I designed this photo tour for Washington Photo Safari and also served as the guide and instructor.

The last stop on our Midtown segment Saturday was Grand Central Terminal. I took the gang up to a balcony, where I knew they'd see an overall view of the main concourse. I suggested that besides some straight photos, they try some longer exposure times to catch the movement of so many people.

I didn't bring my normal photo rig, but I had my tiny Canon S90 in my pocket as usual, and I thought I'd try some of my own medicine. Noticing that one fellow was standing almost stock-still (just right of center in the lower third of the frame,) I concentrated on him as most everyone swirled around him.

Barns & Nobel Shadows

I headed crosstown the other day on a mission to Barnes & Nobel. The day was brilliant, and the sun was just about overhead - not normally a great time for photos.

But when I saw the pattern of shadows on the stairs, I thought it might make a good background for some people in an HCB-like setting. I took several as people came and went - this is my favorite of the bunch.

Taken with a Canon S90 digicam and converted to B&W via Channel Mixer in Photoshop.

The Babe - By The Dawn's Early Light

This one is for Eric, our favorite baseball fan ;-)

Goodrich River Delta

On a trip to Cape May back in April, I did a double-take as I passed through Elmer, NJ. Doubling back a few hundred yards later, I stopped in front of Fred Harz & Son, a full-service tire dealer.

Mr. Harz and progeny must have known a crazy photographer would be passing through that Saturday, as they had a neat stack of imposing, giant tires, treads nicely whitewashed, in front of their place. The old black tires, whitewashed stripes, and strong midday sun cried out for some photo-fun. I got several good views of parts of the stack, all with my pocket-sized Canon S90, and I'll put up some of the others over the next few blog posts.

Meanwhile, here's my favorite. The zigzagging channels reminded me of a river delta, hence the title of this post.

For those who are wondering, here's the "civilian" view of what I was shooting at.

Potbelly Chair Shadow

Walking eastward on Pratt Street after work today... the sun was just right to cast fabulous shadows from these wrought-iron chairs outside the Potbelly Sandwich Shop.

Wish I had taken this last month! ;-)

Art Deco Heaven

In the foreground is the 1936 statue of Atlas by Lee Lawrie and Rene Chambellan. The Art Deco statue greets visitors to 630 Rockefeller Center (the International Building) as well as passers-by. Through the spherical astrolabe on Atlas' shoulders, you can see 30 Rockefeller Center.

"30 Rock", since 1988, is called the GE Building. Before that, it was the RCA Building. The renaming took place after GE bought RCA (and thus, NBC) 27 years ago.

Prior to 1988, "the GE Building" was the beautiful 1931 Art Deco skyscraper at 570 Lexington Avenue. Oddly enough, the building was designed for RCA, and the original plans refer to it as "RCA Building." As it was being finished, GE and RCA were involved in some anti-trust actions, and in the settlement, GE got the building.

I was privileged to work in the "old" GE Building at 570 Lexington for 8 years. There was a company dining room on the 50th floor where anyone, from Jack Welch to the newest mail boy, could eat for a few bucks. The view to the West from the mens' room on the 50th was spectacular, until the Leona "Queen of Mean" Helmsley built her execrable Helmsley Palace Hotel.

Morning on the Magothy

We sold our house earlier this week and moved into a nicely-furnished basement apartment that we're renting from a very nice couple who live upstairs. That's where we'll be for the next six months or so as we wait for our townhouse to be built in a nearby "55-Plus" community (or as my brother-in-law Peter refers to it, "the Nursing Home."

Sandy found the rental, and I first saw it one evening late last month, so I had no idea that just across the street and down an incline was the Magothy River. I was out the door on my way to the car just after sunrise this morning, and having my ever-ready Canon S90 in my pocket, walked down to the water and snapped a few photos.

Three Uses for a Lawn

Canon S90

There were only two in this Yerba Buena Gardens scene originally, then the woman in the foreground walked up and plopped herself down for a nap right in front of me.

--Warren

Waiting for the Spring Blossoms

Canon S90

Seen at Yerba Buena Gardens last weekend.

--Warren

Sketch Artists

Canon S90

For the March Project: Diptych or Triptych, these were taken at Davies Symphony Hall during the pre-concert festivities. It was a special Chinese New Year performance.

--Warren

Reading Materials

Dan's Canon S90

I went out for a lunch time walk with Dan's S90 today, and I saw this person sitting between two rolls of newspaper dispensers reading something.

Hey, does this qualify as a "landmarks" project shot? That's City Hall in the background :).

--Warren

Late Night Light Rail

Channeling Dave Beckerman, I snapped this Friday night on the way home from Karaoke (yes, I suffered for my music, now it's your turn!)

Again, it was a nice test for my new Canon S90. At ISO 800, f/2.8 at 1/15 sec, its a very clean and sharp image.

Baltimore City Hall

I got to take some "landmark" photos after all. Having a pocketable camera sure helps.

I went to a karaoke meetup late afternoon yesterday. The bar is just 1/2-block from the back side of City Hall, and the dramatic lighting of the dome prompted me to get a shot for our forum.

At ISO 800, the resolution and lack of noise is remarkable. The exposure was f/4.5 @ 1/25 sec with a focal length equivalent to 60mm. The lack of motion blur testifies to the effectiveness of the modern digicam image stabilization.

This is image was taken as a jpg, but I decided to open it in Camera Raw to see if it needed tweaking of exposure, color balance, etc. I just gave it a smidge more exposure (interstingly, left to its own devices, the camera did not blow out the highlights on the dome) and left everything else the same. In Photoshop CS3, I only used the Distort filter to correct the vertical perspective. Then a little cropping.

The only sharpening I did was after I did a Save for Web, in order to counteract the inherent softening in the resizing process.

To so some more pixel-peeping, click on this image to see a screen capture of a portion of the photo viewed at 100% in PS C3.

First Day Out with Canon S90

Thursday morning, I put my new Canon S90 into the little Tyvek® envelope in which it came and slipped the package into my pants pocket. That was the whole point of getting this thing, so I could take it everywhere and never be without a camera.

So here's Dev, who along with his wife owns and operates the Loft Deli a few blocks from where I work. Dev always has a smile and a good word for me whenever I stop by to buy a sandwich or some trail mix.

Aesthetics aside, from a technical standpoint, the image is remarkably good for a compact digicam. The EXIF data says 1/30 second at f/3.3 and 10.7mm (which is almost exactly equivalent to 50mm on a 35mm camera.) More importantly the ISO is 800.

If you click on the screen capture at right, you'll see a pixel-peeping section of the image, displayed at 100% in Photoshop.

What impresses me is how little noise there is at this ISO value. With a typical pocket-sized digicam at ISO 200, and certainly by ISO 400, I would expect to see quite a lot of noise in areas such as Dev's face and the even-toned wall to his right.

Another nice thing is that this is the .jpg almost exactly as it popped out of the camera. I had only made very tiny tweaks to exposure and color balance at this point, and no sharpening.

So far, so good!