LIght years from Friday when it was shorts, tees and a walk on the beach. Today it was boots, long pants, coats and I almost wished I had had my gloves with me too. Still not daunted by the rain or plummeting temps, DH and I tripped into New York City to check out the Affordable Artfair.
Initially I had been reluctant to go but once there enjoyed the visual feast and the ecclectic variety of art on offer.
I snapped a few pictures here and there, mostly for documentary purposes and a little inspiration. I mean what can you really do with photographs of someone else's artwork?
Since it was rainy and dreck, the camera stayed hidden under the coat for most of the rest of the jaunt about town. So just a couple of graffiti pics to share in addition to the compliation of Artfair images.
....the City never disappoints when it comes to awesome spray paint work!!
Oh! and I meant to say.... thanks to everyone who played along with "caption that image".
I chose "Daydream Believing" by Leslie. I liked the pun (think monkeys) and thought that it fitted just perfectly!
So Leslie, if you send me your address I'll put your CD in the mail. Thank you!! :-)
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.....
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 busy few days away from the blog. After the early morning Saturday spent chasing balloons there was a trip to the movies to see Dark Knight and then Sunday spent clearing out the basement and getting rid of all sorts of junk, old books, zines, papers, unused furniture and whatnot.
Then yesterday I skipped into New York City to attend a Photoshop Seminar which was good fun. No earth shattering revelations but the odd snippett of goodness here and there, enough to make the trip worthwhile and the entertainment value rated a fair 8+ which was good.
Today I've been volunteering at the local Art League for most of the afternoon and evening, accepting artwork (including my own) and sorting pictures so that they are ready for us to hang in the gallery tomorrow.
Hammer and tape measure ready to go for the morning.
... and if that's not enough, there's been a litte bit of mulling over in the mind about life, art, photography and the meaning of all sorts of things in the cosmic scheme....
... a little readjustment and reality check is never a bad thing now and again!
Here's hoping your week is ticking along in a peachy fashion!
Yes, I dragged myself out of bed at what would normally be not far from when I jump into it ... rising at 5am this morning to greet the dawn, heading out to see a merry band of Ballooner's puff up their rides and take off into the bright dawn light for a flight along the Hudson River and Valley.
The 6pm flight the night before had been cancelled due to massive thunderstorms that were buzzing about in the hot summer skies so there was a little anxiety about whether the event would turn out well. Thankfully the weather gods were smiling. Picture perfect clear skies this morning, no wind to speak of and we were treated to a full and splendid display of color and stellar "balloons-manship (and the odd ladyship too, just to be politically correct)!
It seems to be no mean feat to get these massive things airborne, requiring an injection of air propelled by way of huge fans before they start to further inflate the balloon using hot air directed into the mouth from a torch-like propane burner. Ropes abound, to tie the balloon down until it's ready to fly, to tweak and pull this and that, and there's always the ready heave-ho of the odd hundred pound (or two) human to balance things out.
Then things seem to reach that magical moment, the sweet spot where the balloon is filled, the basket is manned, passengers aboard and it just lifts off silently, magestically, into the sky.....
What can I say? Such a sight to behold and well worth the 5am roll call in every respect!
I hope your weekend was filled with a bit of color and sunshine too!
xoxo
Headed out of New York City today and have a cosy spot to sleep by the Husdson ready to get up at the crack of dawn to do some Hot Air Balloon chasing.
Since I have to be up BEFORE the crack of dawn I'll say cheerio for now and hope to have some "full of hot air" pix to post tomorrow!!
A busy day out, trying to maximise the opportunities for #2 son to take pictures while he is here. We covered a lot of ground.
Heading first to 5Pointz ....which is never disappointing with it's thousands of square feet of fantastic spray painted art ...
Then onto the Brooklyn Museum for a little more "high brow" culture....
and finally after walking the waterfront down by Fulton Street, a few more pix and a stop for dinner while we waited for the darkness to fall so we could grab some night shots of Manhattan across the water.
For some reason they forgot to turn the lights on on the Brooklyn Bridge which made the Manhattan Bridge the one to catch. Even managed to snag it while a subway train was passing along - see the teensy row of white lights all along the bottom of it?
Tomorrow we are headed into the City to do a model photo shoot and then pointing north where we are going Hot Air Balloon chasing upstate.....oh what fun!
So stay tuned :-)
Lately I have been trying to broaden my photographic horizons by way of joining various MeetUp Photography Groups both here on Long Island and also in NYC. So far there have been some interesting opportunities and a nice variety of photo themes on offer.
Today I joined the Long Island Photgraphy Group on an adventure to Innisfree Gardens where there was some 30 or so of us, faces all pushed against viewfinders, traipsing about the parts taking pictures.
I shot somewhere in the region of 250 raw images. Maybe 10% will be of any use as we were there in the middle of the day with harsh light and way too much shadow and highlight and let's face it, I am not in the big leagues when it comes to taking landscape photographs.
I was however fairly content with one panorama stitch and the second image which was an HDR file processed out of 7 bracketed shots, with a bit more tweaking and toning afterwards.
In some ways the digital world allows you way more latitude than if you were taking pictures with film. In the old days you would shoot one roll and hope you had a great image or two. Now I take 200 pictures and am happy if I have two that work out.
That 10x factor is surely a nice cushion.
(PS.click on each image for a fuller scale peek..)
