NEW YORK, NEW YORK – We had a dinner party for Michael and Penny Hayward, visiting Australian friends. This image was caught with my Nikon D700 and an 85mm f1.4D lens. For more pictures from this dinner see my flickr account: Dinner party for the Haywards.
On this day one year ago: Seagrams Building from the balcony of the Racquet and Tennis Club. This is one of my favorite images of the past year.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – We had a very quiet day with our family, making, then eating, turkey hash. My recipe comes from the Old Drovers Inn in Duchess County New York, which was justifiably famous for it. The Old Drovers Inn is, alas, no more: RIP Old Drovers Inn.
The day started with a light rain and ground fog. I got this with my Leica and a 135mm APO-Telyt on a tripod.
On this date last year: Thanksgiving 2009.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I promise that I’m going to quit this. I mean the wide angle thing. Quit it real soon now. Maybe it’s becoming a crutch. Or worse. My name’s Woody and I’m a wide angle junkie. But later. Maybe. For now I had my Leica and my super wide lens in hand as I walked by the Guggenheim earlier today. If you’ve been following these pages closely you’ll know that the Guggenheim is the one icon that I’ve been struggling with. Well today with Mr. wide I caught it – the first image of the museum that I’m really happy with. Here it is (this is another one of those shot straight up images that could be oriented any of four ways, but I prefer this orientation):
On this day one year ago: Warren Congregational Church.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – You’ve noticed by now that I’m experimenting with my superwide lens at extreme angles and extreme speeds. So far in this series the extreme angles have been in New York (and for that matter in the dark). Today I pushed forward to extreme angles in the countryside in daylight. Still interesting stuff.
Here’s one of a number of similar shots this afternoon from our woods. Note that the leaves are finally off of the trees so I’ve been relieved of the curse of beautiful fall foliage.
On this day last year: Washington Connecticut Congregational Church detail.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I’m exploring other daily photo blogs – I’m working on a page of links and critique that I’ll post here when its finished. There actually aren’t many of them. The one I like best is one polaroid a day over an 18 year period, to the photographer’s death. Someone has lovingly scanned and uploaded the 7,000 odd images, and built a very nice flash gallery. Here’s a link: hughcrawford.com. Anyway, I’ve been doing more in Manhattan in the early evening with my ultra-wide 12mm lens:
On this day last year: Telephones at Grand Central shot with the bokeh king.
NEW LONDON CONNECTICUT VICINITY – So here I am shooting out of windows again, but this time on the Acela train from Boston to New York. This is through the glass with my extreme wide lens shooting one second or so exposures. This is interesting – the clouds are sharp because their relative motion is small – but the foreground is totally lost to motion blur. The tint in the train window gives a slight ghoulish quality to the light. I experimented with these for the four hour ride.
On this day one year ago: Dorchester Avenue, Boston.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Feel free to go to one of those other daily photo blogs that you follow if you find that my voice is getting a little whiney. Yes, another week of all day meetings, at least through Wednesday, including a trip to Boston. You may ask “Why doesn’t Woody just quit the damn day job?” Actually I like my day job – it’s just that sometimes it gets in the way of photography – why I like it is beyond the scope of a two paragraph discussion. Today I spent some time shooting going to and from my meetings. Sometimes this is not very productive, but today it was, so I’m posting two images. They are both with my Leica and the 12mm Voigtlander lens – I’m getting more interesting results shooting wide right now. Let me know if you think it’s a gimmick.
Anyway here’s a night shot looking straight up at the facade of the New York Central building (now known as the Helmsley Building) at the foot of the North segment of Park Avenue. Wikipedia entry on the Helmsley Building. The Wikipedia entry is oddly ambiguous on who the architects were. It’s actually Warren & Wetmore, who were also responsible for Grand Central Terminal. Here’s a link to the AIA website.
Finally, patient reader, on this day one year ago: interred in the New Preston CT cemetary.
