New Hamburg, NY

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St. Nicholas-on-the-Hudson church in New Hamburg, NY.  Formerly called Zion Memorial Chapel it is an historic Carpenter Gothic style Episcopal church in a picturesque location overlooking the Hudson River. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1987. To me the church seemed to have a somewhat “maritime” look to it. The kind of place you might come across in Moby Dick. Also something Scandinavian. I could see this overlooking a fjord in Norway.
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Weekly picks – 11/12/2012

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In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy I was sitting around the house (with no power) wondering what to do. Then it occurred to me that I had purchased a inexpensive macro lens (Canon 100mm F4 Macro SC) and hadn’t yet tried it. So I grabbed a couple of small figurines to see what it could do. This was the result. It did a great job of blurring the background and isolating the figure. However, the shot I liked the most (this one) had a second figure in the background – still blurred, but vaguely visible. The light was coming from a glass door to the left of the figure and the shot was hand held.

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Past and present – old and new Carvel’s

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Early in October I posted the black and white version of this picture of an old Carvel ice cream shop site. What struck me at the time was how desolate and abandoned it seemed. However, the single picture doesn’t really do it justice so thought I’d add a few more. At the time I took the pictures I thought that because the two buildings were of a similar style and color scheme they were both part of a small Carvel complex. However, a long time resident of the area told me that the small building in the background was the remains of the Westbrook Inn.

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The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze

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I haven’t been posting much over the past week or so. This was because of Hurricane Sandy. I couldn’t get out for a while. Two trees fell down very near to our driveway and took out the power cables. They also blocked the road on the right side of the driveway. Farther away, but on the other side of the driveway, some lines were down (I didn’t know if they were active, or if they were even power lines but I didn’t want to take the chance). These effectively blocked the way out on the other side. Neither of the houses had power for about six days. The power in the lake house came back last Saturday evening and I believe the power in Briarcliff came back Sunday evening (going back today to check).

These pictures came from the “The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze” at Van Cordlandt Manor in Croton-on-Hudson. It’s an annual event featuring over 5,000 pumpkins arranged in all kinds of complex shapes. Knowing that there would be little light I had taken along a monopod. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let me bring it in. So these were hand held with predictable results: muddy, blurred, camera shake, noise. Still I like them as a record of an interesting night out with our friends June and Diane.
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