Ellicott City

Finally, despite the rain, I made it for a walk in Ellicott City.  Limited to the Fuji and 35mm becuase of tendonitis. First post being about the only decent shot of some musicans. Quick post here as the guy in the back asked if these would be on the web. So here is one, not so sure there are anymore of these guys worth posting or even one that includes the third guy out of the frame to the right. More a in a while.

Main Street musicians

8298 Main

A few more...

The typical Ellicott City snap

Stairs to the B&O

Apparently a typical Main Street stairway The elevator

Why drive to Cherry Hill

when M Street NW is so convenient.  Especially if you have to gas up here with a $1.20 per gallon premium. Not only not Cherry Hill but also not at 3:00AM either.  Corner of M and 22nd Streets NW at about 5:15PM. X100, f/2.0 ISO 640. Shutter speeds between 1/40 and 1/60.

A little different appraoach up M toward Georgetown.

DCFD Truck #2

Return with me now to those great days of yesteryear...

No not the Lone Ranger but the Erie Lackawanna Terminal in Hoboken. Ferry rides to Manhattan in the 50's and early 60's. Commuting with NJ Transit and PATH in the 70's and 80's. Haven't been in the place since at least 1988. Been redone, maybe a couple of times, not completely devoid of patina, but still very diferent. The Rail Head Bar, purveyors of fine hot dogs and Balentine Ale is still there minus more than a few layers of grit, grunge and grease and alas no more Bally Ale. Yesterday's dogs wern't bad and as another customer said, the mustard packs a bit of a punch.  

Spent a lot of time in this place especially after the all too often just missing the 7:00PM Boonton Line local and having to hang around for the 8:20 or missing the 8:20 and waiting for the 10:00PM.  

"8:20 Boonton Line local making all stops between Rowe Street and Lincoln Park, Allllll Abooooord".  Seems like only yesterday.

E-L Hoboken Terminal - Ticket Windows

Other than the trains themselves the most import parts of the terminal — the excuse lines and the beer recycling facility.

E-L Terminal - Mission Critical Facilities

Apparently still an important way point on the party circuit!

Track 12 - The powers to be think they are clever, libertarians unite.Seen from the High-Line

E-L Hoboken Terminal - From the High-Line in mid-Manhattan

Black Friday

So it is Black Friday '11 and another trip to Manhattan. Travelled light with only the X100 and some extra cards and batteries.  First real zone focusing experience — some good results and some misses. Anyway easier and much more stealthy than a DSLR.

Below is first snap posted — although it was among the very last snapped. Many more to follow, plus some more additions to the woodturning gallery from last weekend still to come. The first thiry or so of what will probably be about 150 or so are up in the the first gallery. Click here or on the snap below to zoom off to the gallery.

Thirty Forth Street side of Macy's

Clearing

well maybe.  A clouple of days with heavy rain and dense clouds.  The sun broke through for a while around lunch time. Time enough for a quick couple of snaps with the X100 — prepping for the second annual Black Friday excursion to Manhattan.  Still hoping to be able to pull that off dispite some achilles tendonitis.

The tall building in the middle of shot is Silo Point, a rehabbed B&O grain elevator that is now apartments and as of yesterday the other end of my 5GHz uWave internet access link.  Was pointed at downtown but they needed to upgrade the antenna and along with it came a different route.

X100 then smashed to smithereens with a a half dozen plus of Flypaper's Textures.

20 minutes after sunrise...

Heading back to the Marriott, 6:58AM on the Hertz rental's clock — 91 degrees on the thermometer.  It is going be hot here in OKC today. Going to be?  It isn't even 7:00AM yet and it is already hot. Reason for the trip isn't until this afternoon so out early for a few sunrise snaps at Stockyard City.  The first flight mosly of the Cattlemen's Cafe and Restaurant. (In)famous for its "Lamb Fries".

All with the X100, bracketed, HDR Efex Pro. Click here or on the sanp below for the rest.

Paging Mr. Brown

Mr Dan Brown. Mr. Dan Brown please. There is enough symbolism in this shot to be the cover shot on your next book. Snapped this AM at the National Building Museum, lots more to come I suspect. Right to a gallery when they are ready.

Fuji X100, three shot bracket off of 1/30, f/6.4, auto ISO (640, 1250, 2500) and of course at 35mm. Mild HDR with HDR Efex Pro (Odell's Natural Exterior 3).

Click here or on the snap below to see the rest in the gallery.

I think I

can remember what I did to this.  The same recipe as the pier, plus creme anglaise, plus Snap 2 oil, medium brush, with the saturation pushed and then Nix Color Efex Pro, Contrast Color Range, then Tonal Contrast, then bumped the canvas by 10% all the way around.  I really like the results.

Textured

I continue to want to move away from excruciatingly "sharp" images.  Textures appear to be one way to accomplish it.  Going to take a while to get it, for the moment using recipes.  This is a redo of the OOB  pier shot from mid-June.

The Flypaper Textures recipe:

Burnished Clay - Overlay @ 100%
Lime Plaster - Multiply @ 73% flipped vertically
Labyrinth - Overlay @ 100% Desaturated
Stygian tin - Soft Light @ 100% Desaturated with bottom brushed away.
Lime Plaster - Multiplied @ 55% flipped vertically
Nuriel Clouds - Soft Light @ 100% Desaturated
Nuriel Clouds - color @ 21% Desaturated

OOB

Old Orchard Beach on a not very nice day in mid June.  The "Carnival" is apparently open only on weekends, at least this early in the season and parkas were more appropriate and more in evidence than bathing suits. Cloudy and cold — empty streets, empty beach. The rest in the gallery, click here or the snap below to see. All with the X100.

Fort Williams

Better know for its big attraction — The Portland Head Light.  On Cape Elizabeth, south of Portland.  A typical port protection artillery battery that also happens to host a great looking lighthouse, a rocky shore and view to the Rams Head Lighthouse in the distance.  Click here or on the snap below to see the gallery with the rest.

All from the Fuji X100.  The all over the place white balances are the result of the clouds and my adjustment approach not the camera.  Some were done on the Mac Book Air some on the Mac Pro, different days different outlooks, whatever – so they just turned out different.

September of '62

Long, long time ago...  But right here is where I first met Messers Weber and Lowe all of us rising frosh at St. Iggy's, just at the top of the stairs. I haven't been there since December of 1963 and since the indoor-outsoor stuff hadn't been invented yet, or at least commercialized, I know it wasn't there.  The rest looks pretty much the same, although the chain link fence just to left out of the frame seems to be a replacement for what I remember as a rusty old one.  

Lots of rust in Sanford, ME, a town in the mid 1950's that Life Magazine said refused to die.  Well die is realtive, the mill buildings have been vacant for far longer than they were used.  Renewal efforts seem to result in money spent for little value, the bike path/curved parkway/elegant street lamps appears to have delivered little for the $2.2M spent.  

The last snap in the gallery is from Little Ossipee Pond in Waterboro.  Fifty year ago a rope hung from the tree — anti-progress through the use of tax dollars, I guess. For more Sanford area snaps, click here or the snap below.  All taken with the X100.

Footgear diversification

So... the SO, perhaps in honor of National Flip-Flop Day, that being neatly attached behind Bloom's Day, bestowed upon me last night, somewhat belatedly in relation to their actual date of acquisition, a pair of flip-flops, from Vineyard Vines no less, or maybe that should be of course. For a sexagenarian, recieving his first pair ever, this brings back pre-denarian memories of the first pair of ice skates and an equal measure, exacerbated and exponentiated by decades of risk management, of fear of an ER visit in the offing.  A Bloom's Day, Duke Street stop in at Davy Byrnes and a couple of pints would certainly increase the odds.

Well, the web-world does not need to witness the photo taken to memorialize this event, so instead, I offer, an analogous snap, featuring other footgear diversification, taken on Pennsylvania Avenue, in front of the Newseum, last weekend.  Done up in SilverEfex Pro's Film Noir preset. Now that make me feel artsy — as if flip-flops weren't enuf of a paradigm shift.  X100, after being Film Noired — the settings don't much matter.

Photo walk in Butcher's Hill

Out in the neighborhood with X100, late afternoon, on Sunday of the long Memorial Day weekend. Only two here one landscape orientation the other portrait,  Links to the rest in two galleries segregated by orientation. All with the X100, ISO 800, most at f/4.0.

The Landscape anchor, for more click here or on the snap.

And the portrait anchor, for these click here or on the snap.