Bridge Base @ Night

Colorful Plywood Panels

Under the 59th Street Bridge, I believe this is a temporary construction platform for repairs on the underbelly of the bridge.

Loosening Up

Sometimes I just need to turn off my brain and take pictures. I need to put the fun back in  photography and not take myself so seriously.

In that spirit, I have finally joined the instagram crowd. This will be a place to post casual photography, snapshots, and all the stuff that is just fun to shoot. For now they will mostly be from my cell phone, since that's the only way I know to get pics to instagram, and the easiest tool for walking around and snapping casual photos - no feeling conspicuous or self-conscious because of a big SLR. At the moment blogger is not allowing me to embed pics directly from instagram, not sure why.

This picture is from a little playground with a giant sculpture overlooking the Queensboro Bridge. Just a snapshot, but I like the two people sitting apart from one another - I wish the one on the left were not in the shade...

Follow me, I will follow you...

NJ Transit Bus

Another wide angle from yesterday, this time with more dramatic motion blur. Composition still needs some work. Maybe the bridge isn't the best place for this kind of shot - the bridge elements are distracting.

Also note the sky here, about 10 minutes or so before yesterday's post.

Costco

Playing with the ultrawide today, I like the distorted, elongated effect on the 18-wheeler. Storm moving in from the north (left side of the photo if that's not obvious).

East River Bridges

Manhattan Bridge. maybe the first in a series. My bike path around Manhattan takes me past several East River crossings, and it occurred to me how odd it is that there's only one bridge crossing on the west side of Manhattan across the Hudson (the George Washington Bridge, which I have shot extensively).

Cables

They look so delicate at this distance. Cables suspending the George Washington Bridge, sunset highlights.

Another Sunset...

Another year. Another one rising. Let's hope it's a good one!

George Washington Bridge from the roof of my building. It was glorious. No, photos don't do it justice. Taken 2 days ago, but I wanted to post something finish off the year. Thanks to everyone who visits and comments!

Down by the Railroad Tracks

Another from yesterday's walk along the Hudson.

Exit 14

Around the neighborhood, sign directing toward my beloved GWB.

Clouds thru GWB Cables

A second entry in the "clouds" photo club assignment for the week.

B-sides: Electrical Conduit

Limited shooting at the moment, so I thought I'd throw in some shots that I considered and rejected from recent walks. As with old 45's, occasionally the B-sides are better than the A-sides, so maybe some of these will resonate.

GWB at Night

I'm pretty happy with this one - I mean, it's just a pretty picture of a bridge,  but I took a chance and went out late in the evening when it was getting dark and still raining and just hoped it would stop at the right time or my umbrella would keep the rain from blowing in onto my lens, and I lucked out.

This is on a tripod with 25 sec exposure. I had actually shot this scene the night before hand held (at higher ISO, faster shutter, and larger aperture), but the only one that came out sharp was badly composed with a slanted horizon too close to the bottom of the frame. So tonight I knew what I was looking for and when to go for it. Unfortunately I forgot the bug spray and got eaten up by mosquitoes or some such blood-sucking pest.

But, horizontal or vertical?

The Human Scale

Sometimes it's the last-second, what-the-hell-why-not shot that you wind up liking. Of course in hindsight I should have taken a few more seconds to compose it a little better, but it will do for now. I was just reading something earlier this week about the importance of including people just to give a sense of scale, and this is a step. That random beam sticking up there is apparently some kind of extremely minimalist sculpture - not a flag pole or anything else of any discernible practical use. There is a bit of graffiti near the top that some intrepid soul applied - that's about 10-15 meters up:

And yes, the sky and clouds really were that color (looking away from the bridge, where the sun was setting to the west).