Lost Aussie on the loose

Polo At The Park

Several weeks ago I was meant to join one of my Meetup Photography groups for an outing to Polo At The Park.  I think it was probably while I was away in Germany, anyway, never got to go, so today a little "googling" determined that I could take on this happy adventure independently.  Turns out that Bethpage Park is little more than 7 exits down the freeway and less than 20 mintutes from home!  Who knew?

After days of dreary and dreck weather, today was "picture perfect", even minus the horrible humidity we have been dealing with of late, and just a touch of Fall snap in the air.

Polo At The Park is a nice low key event.  No hoi poloi and plenty of opportunities to get up close to the horses, riders and pick any vantage point around the field that you would like.

It's a long time since I have been to a Polo match.  The last time would have been when I was living in Brunei (many moons ago - circa late 80's) and we would watch the Sultan of Brunei's team practice at his private park in Jerudong (long before it became open to the public). 
We even used to have the Argentinian polo players come and cook fire pit barbequed lamb for us in our garden...!!  Gosh, what a distant memory that is....

Anyway, today was fun!!  It's always a pleasure to watch horses and riders perform with such skill and enthusiasm, the perfect marriage of man and beast ....

I'll leave you with a few other odd snippets from my eye-catching afternoon.....

Contemplating Stuff and Maybe a New Class

Last Friday night I was dressed to the nines, long black gauzy thing, high heels, eating a lovely fillet mignon, sipping a bottle of great Napa Red in a posh restaurant, capping off the night dancing at a nightclub.
This Friday it's a reasonably nice Zin', leftover vegetable terrine for dinner and music courtesty of the Bose speakers in my studio.

I'm kind of happy with either scenario.

Tonight though, I am hunched over my tablet and pen and paper at the ready as I've got a spark for a new class idea and fancy dinners are far from my mind .....

It's still in the turbulent stages, image hunting to see what will work with what.  Lots of notes and scratchings on paper.....

But I have that little spark in my head.... and that's what counts.....

So stay tuned!.....

Having Fun With The Intrepid

On the walk out and about yesterday I had planned to visit the Intrepid Museum, but the queues were massive and I'm not the sort to stand patiently in line for much....

So a few pictures were snapped from land ....including this one....perfect histogram and utterly boring...

so.... from there.... we go to here....

Which is just a tad more fun, don't you think?
Just the one photo and nothing more than multiple adjustment layers and the odd filter or two!

I kind of like it.  A bit fun, funky and different from the usual....

Can you say "beam me up Scotty?"....

A Walk In The Park

Pirate Ahoy!

The other weekend I caught some crazy fun shots of folk all dressed up in pirate costumes.  Trouble was they were all in the middle of mad crowds and not too exciting by themselves.

Tonight I spent HOURS wielding my trusty pen tool and cutting one such handsome devil out.
But then what? 
Said pirate rather needed a ship and some land to bear down on..... enter a seaside photo taken on Friday at Jones Beach and a snap of a model ship found in a junk store in Intercourse yesterday.  Combining all three, I cobbled together my fake landing complete with period ships!
(It also took a darned long time to cut that jolly ship out too!!!)

So here's the before's.... just in case you are interested .....

....and here's the after......some layers of painting to diffuse the photo realism and then some textures added for good measure...

He does look a little too friendly for a marauding pirate... but can  you say aye, aye Matey anyway?

And there is a bigger landscape version with a few more ships and a bit more going on but I kind of like the crop - more pirate and less ship!

What do you think? Does he "float your boat"?

Off Into Amish Country

A little road trip today on this Holiday weekend, and aside from the fact that somehow the NJ Turnpike had been turned into a parking lot!!! ... it was a pleasant day's drive to Intercourse, PA and from then onto Delware.

I'd actually hoped to garner some shots of the local Amish people in the fields about harvest time.  At the best of times these are tricky captures as they are not fond of having their photo taken and despite taking a LONG lens and tramping throught the odd field, I did not have too much success.

Nevertheless the day was not a total loss as we HAD to stop at Woodside Farm for icecream on our way into Wilmington!!  It's probably a good thing that I no longer live 2 miles down the road from this fabulous little gem....otherswise I'd be built like the side of a house!!  MY scoop of Black Raspberry was dish delish and I wish I could have brought 4 quarts back with me!!

On our way back to NYC we stopped to visit a LONG time friend of mine, Helen, had a few G&T's on her porch before grabbing a bite to eat at the Ironhill Brewery and then heading back up the interstate.  (At least between 10pm and 1am the traffic is clear!!)!

Although I did not really garner too many of the pictures that I had in mind, it was a lovely day.  I seldom see Helen yet it's like we are two peas out of the same pod who met co-incidentally about 13 years ago.  We are both sort of Anglo/Australian, same professional background, we "speak" the same language and don't have to explain silly jokes we share to others.  That sort of kindredness of spirit is priceless really!

Anyway, here's hoping your Holiday weekend is just peachy ...(or would that be Black Raspberry?) too...