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

4:35PM... 20 minutes ago!

The sun was heading down into a clearing sky after a days worth of rain.  Spectactular. Butcher's Hill, Locust Point, Fells Point, Domino Sugars.

Baltimore Harbor — November 29, 2011 at 4:31PM

 And around to the west five minutes later. Butcher's Hill, Fells Point, Domino Sugars, Harbor East.

Baltimore Harbor — November 29, 2011 at 4:36PM

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.

100 bowls

Off to event today for/by the woodturning Supiks.  Mark's brother Ed bought a live christmas tree in 1984 and after christmas planted it in his yard.  By 2009 the tree was 60' high, 30" around and encroaching on the house. Down it came and became the stimulus for a project by Mark to turn 100 bowls.  Mark turned some but most were turned by amatuers.  Ninety-nine bowls were on display at the Schiavonne Gallery in Highlandtown today and Mark was there to turn the last — number 100. I was there to grab some snaps. Those will get posted along the way tonite and tomorrow but... I decided to capture the bowl turning on video. Fortunately I had the 7D with me, which has an easy to understand movie button, I have no idea where it is on the 5D Mk II, should probably look that up.  I also left the tripod in the car, so this my first real attempt at at video has some shaky parts, visually shaky, the whole thing is artitically shaky. Anyway in for a dime — in for a dollar, stuck the 85 f1/2L on the front, dialed the aperture to, what else, f/1.2 of course, why pay for if you ain't going to use it. Great receipe, no experience, no support system and a razor thin DOF. Post processed with a trial version of Final Cut Pro and uploaded to a virgin Vimeo account. Don't know squat about them either.

Here we go....

Different ship, different time of day

Domino's again.  Same camera, a little longer focal length, techniques just early in the evening on a clear, finally getting cool night. The ship from the other night now high in the water and empty sailed around 2PM today.By 5PM there was a new low in the water, loaded ship in its place.

Pretty good color, 30 second exposure this time, figured out that the Vari-ND can be rotated to get the the exposure where you want it at the shutter speed you want it at — neat.

Domino Sugar — at twilight

Big numbers...

Long focal length: 310mm, Long exposure: 485 seconds, Decent sized aperture: F/8.0, ISO: 100, with a Singh-Ray Vari-ND on the pointing end of the 100-400. Vari-ND turned as dark as it would go — that is supposed to be about eight stops.  A little over four minute exposure, the little over is due to multi-tasking, was surfing the web on the treadmill, while the 5D Mk II was making the image — took a while to from the treadmill to the camera.

Domino Sugar with a ship at the dock.  Was looking for more cloud movement need to work on that.

Offloading at Domino's

Pearl Dive

Another stunner by SO. iPhone to Poladroid to the blog. No review on the place yet, just a snap of the gritty sign — in DC at 14th and Corcoran.  

Now...  as Paul Harvey would say, here is the rest of the story, a serendipitous story it turns out.  Sunday, I was talking to guy, a docent, if they call them that, at Longwood Gardens. I think he was dispatched to tell me about the professional photographic rules, assumed from the equipment, certainly not the photographic income level. Once we established that I was not an artist for hire, the conversation turned interesting and about DC. He tells me his daughter is the pastry chef at Black Salt, a place I have been known to frequent, and that she had taken on additional duties at another one of Black's restaurants, also in DC, somewhere near DuPont. I don't know that he told me the name but we did discuss the the prescence of a Bocci court upstairs. I now know the name, Pearl Dive. Have to check it out. Hope it turns out as good as Black Salt and the sign. Cheers Bill.

BTW, Bill gets around and we were also talking about the traffic jams and the lobsta' rolls at Red's Eats on Route 1 in Wiscasset, ME. 

Pearl Dive — 14th and Corcoran, Washington DC

Water lilies

5D Mk II, 70-200 f/2.8, with 1.4 extender and 12mm extension tube, with polarizer. Each single image pretty much standard Nashification the first two plus Alien Skin Snap 2 Impasto – the last without.

Longwood Gardens — Water Lilly, Study I

Longwood Gardens — Water Lilly, Study II

Longwod Gardens — Water Lilly, Study III

Longwood Gardens

Just back, only snap processed so far — for sure will be far better than any of my flower shots.  %D Mk II, 24-70 f/2.8L, at 52mm and f/10.0, ISO 400, with polarizer. Three shot bracket around 1/60, HDR Efex Pro and Alien Skin Snap2 Imapsto.

Longwood Gardens — Main Fountain Garden, Study I

Different look

Experimenting.  Snap2 oil filter plus a frame.

90 West

No not 9 West — 90 West Street.  Lower Manhattan, Mansard roof of 23 story 1907 terra cotta, Cass Gilbert designed "skyscraper".  Was HQ for DL&W RR.  Apartments since post 911 renovation.  Taken from 33rd floor elevator lobby of the Downtown Marriott.

90 West Street, NY, NY

NYC via KC and OKC

Had to be in OKC then NYC last week. One shot from KC, the airport, none from OKC, the rest from NYC. All with the 5D Mk II. The KC airport shot with the $25 Holga lens, the rest with the 24 - 70 f/2.8L.

Waiting for a connection — Gate 41, MCI

North River and Jersey City - Rainy afternoonNorth River and Jersey City - Wonderful fall morning

North River and Jersey City - DawnConstruction at the new 1 WTC — to be the tallest in the USConstruction at 2, 3 and 4 WTC

Buttin' off at the NYSE

Statue of Liberty from 17 State Street

Communicating the cadence — Occupy Wall Street