Views from Ossining Library

February 25, 2015 by Howard Dale Posted in Black & White, Landscapes Leave a comment

Ossining and Route 9 looking North.

I’ve lived in Briarcliff Manor, which is part of the town of Ossining, for about 17 years and have never once been to the Ossining library. I’d agreed to meet someone there and after we had met I decided to go inside and take a look around. Briarcliff has it’s one library housed in what used to be a train station. A few years ago it was enlarged. It’s a nice little library, but not in the same class as this one. As you approach Ossining going south on Route 9 you can see the library. It’s an imposing building up on a bluff overlooking Ossining and the the Hudson river. It’s quite modern and seems to spread over at least three floors. Apart from the study tables each floor has small reading areas with comfortable chairs. There’s also a periodicals reading area (I believe it was dedicated to John Cheever, the famous author who was a resident of Ossining from 1956 to 1982). This area had it’s own fireplace. The staff were friendly. All in all a very impressive library. The views from the library are superb.

Through a window.

Another view through the window with the Hudson River and the Pallisades in the background.

New York Times Exposes Peter Lik Photography Scheme – artnet News

February 23, 2015 by Howard Dale Posted in Photographers, Photography, Uncategorized Leave a comment

An earlier post reported on the new world’s most expensive photo. The New York Times questions this claim as it does Mr. Lik’s entire method of work.

Peter Lik may claim to have sold the world’s most expensive photo, with the $6.5 million Phantom (see $6.5 Million Landscape Is World’s Most Expensive Photo), but the artist is artificially inflating his market. (This is not the kind of cheating we had in mind in the story Does Photography Help Artists Cheat?)

via New York Times Exposes Peter Lik Photography Scheme – artnet News.

Some other interesting links:

Is That $6.5 Million Photo Sale for Real? Probably Not!

Artist Jeff Frost Inches Past Recently Set World Record for Most Expensive Photograph Ever Sold

Briarcliff Manor, NY – Benches in the Snow in Law Park

February 23, 2015 by Howard Dale Posted in Black & White Leave a comment

The title says it all. Unfortunately more snow, but even though I’m finding winter tiresome there is something quite magical about recently fallen snow. It washes out all the colors and makes the scenes essentially monochromatic. I love black and white imagery and with these winter scenes it’s almost unnecessary to convert them to black and white. In this case I also liked the curves implied by the arrangement of the benches.

In many ways I prefer the second image below with it’s two curves: the benches and the border of the now iced over and snow covered pond. Unfortunately it’s too tightly cropped at the top. I would have preferred to have had more room above the benches. I suspect that the only way to get this would have been to have gotten higher (to hide the distracting background when I wanted only snow) and unfortunately there was nothing convenient for me to stand on.

Old Building in Briarclilff Manor

February 22, 2015 by Howard Dale Posted in Buildings/Structures Leave a comment

Yet more pictures taken while walking the dog. Main street, Briarcliff Manor (otherwise known as Pleasantville Road) has a small number of shops, restaurants, municipal buildings etc. on either side of the road. I often take the dog for a walk there on Saturdays and then pass through this area on the way to Moonbean Cafe for a coffee while I wait for my wife to finish her dance class. On this particular day I decided that, for a change, rather than walk along the main road I’d walk behind the stores on one side of the road. As I did I came across this building. It looks fairly old and seems completely out of place with the other relatively modern buildings. I have not idea what it’s purpose is – maybe storage for one of the shops? It looks more like the kind of old red barn you’d find in a rural area rather than something you’d find tucked behind a shopping area.

Bali III: Temples

February 22, 2015 by Howard Dale Posted in Buildings/Structures, Film, Landscapes, Places Leave a comment

Pura Ulun Danu Bratan Temple

In an earlier post (Bali II: Around Ubud) I mentioned that I was disappointed because I knew I had taken pictures of some quite spectacular temples in Bali, but was able to find neither the negatives nor the prints. I later added a note that while going through some moving boxes I had found both the prints and the negatives. So here are some scanned images of the aforesaid temples.