West Bank of the Hudson


Geese on a Lake (I don’t recall which one)

I live on the east side of the Hudson River and seem to spend most of my time there. This time, however, I went across the Bear Mountain Bridge and turned north along Route 9w. Later I turned south on 218 (Storm King Highway) through Cornwall-on-Hudson. I didn’t know that this road existed, but it’s well worth the drive. There are some spectacular views.


Looking east across the Hudson towards Breakneck Ridge (I think).


Jetty on the same lake as above (I still don’t remember which one it was)


Looking south from Route 218


View from Route 218 of Pollepel Island and Bannerman Castle.

Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden


I recently posted about the annual blessing of the animals at the Hammond Museum and Stroll Garden. Even without the dogs this is an interesting place to visit. Although small it has some pleasant gardens. As its name implies it’s a nice place to just walk around. The museum is also the venue for “..Cultural Events; Weddings; Educational Events; Conferences; Galas; Meditation; Exhibits” etc.

Their website states:

The Japanese Stroll Garden provides a place of natural beauty and tranquility, to delight the senses and refresh the spirit. It is a place where aspects of Eastern and Western culture can be appreciated through art exhibitions, concerts, special 2010 Events and educational programs in order to promote global awareness and understanding. The museum also supports the efforts of artists and performers in the Greater New York Metropolitan Region.

Our Goals are:

To stimulate interest in Eastern and Western artistic traditions through presentation of exhibitions from the museum’s collections and through loaned shows; through music, dance and theatre, featuring historical and contemporary material representing Eastern and Western cultures; through general art classes, lectures, films and seminars, involving the public of all ages in specific learning experiences about the East and West.

To preserve and develop the Japanese Stroll Garden which serves as a model for teaching people about the environment, design, gardening, etc., through lectures, walking tours, classes and workshops.

To promote the efforts of artists and performers in the Greater New York Metropolitan Region, involving them in the presentation of work, performances and teaching opportunities, especially for school groups


Bamboo


Flowers by a pool


Fountain

Greenwich Point Park – Old Greenwich, Connecticut


Tide pool.

These are some of the first shots taken with my then new Sony Nex 5N. They were taken early on a November morning in 2011. The light was gorgeous. Unfortunately, I can only rarely make myself get up early enough to benefit from this kind of light. I usually shoot RAW but for some reason (maybe I wanted to see if the quality of the jpg image was such that I could switch to it and avoid the RAW processing) these are jpgs. Subsequently all of my images have been RAW so I imagine I must have either not liked the jpgs or (more likely) I just enjoy the extra freedom given through processing RAW files.


Grasses.


Tree by the beach.


Man with a metal detector


Footprints in the sand.


Benches.

Dogs


When I set up the menus for this blog I included a category called ‘Animals’. This seemed like a good idea at the time but looking back on it a see that I’ve actually posted very little related to animals. Browsing through my past pictures on a snowy day I discovered that I did have some pictures of dogs – so here are a few of them.

This post also provides an interesting comparison of two quite different cameras. The first three pictures were taken with a Panasonic ZS3 (at the time my carry everywhere camera, but since given to one of my grandchildren and replaced with a Sony RX-100). The Panasonic has, typically for a compact camera, a small sensor. It also has a ‘Leica’ branded lens with a considerable zoom range (25-300mm equivalent). The problem with having such a long zoom lens is that you tend to use it. Unfortunately it becomes hard to focus and lens shake can become a real problem. This, combined with the small sensor, can lead to less than stellar image quality. You don’t see it so much in these scaled down, internet ready images, but it’s much more apparent if you look at 100% crops of the orginals.

The last two were taken with a Sony NEX 5n and its 18-55mm kit lens. This uses a much larger (APS-C) sensor, which provides much better image quality. Of course, the NEX also offers interchangeable lenses.

The RX100 lies between the two and is a good (if much more expensive) replacement for the ZS3.

The first three pictures were taken at the Hammond Museum and Stroll Garden annual blessing of the animals.


Do you think there’s anything to owners coming to look like their dogs?


I’ve had enough of this snow!!!


Taken outside a Peruvian restaurant in Port Chester, NY


And finally our very own ‘Jackson’ seen here with my wife, Eirah