I still haven’t found a focus for my photography so it continues to be quite opportunistic. Rather than being passionate about a particular subject I tend to always carry a camera with me. Most of my photographs arise because I see something interesting while doing something else. However, as noted in last year’s post I did go out a number of times anticipating that I would find something to shoot. These included: Walks around Mount Kisco, NY; Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, NY (a few times); The Bronx Zoo (with two of our grandchildren. I haven’t been there for years. Great fun); Irvington, NY; New Hartford, CT.; Downing Park, Newburgh, NY; Cold Spring, NY; Wiccopee Reservoir, NY; Garrison’s Landing, NY; Fishkill, NY; Kingston, NY; Lyndhurst, Tarrytown, NY; Along Route 6 in Lake Mahopac, NY; and to close the year Geneva, Switzerland and Paris France.

I also started a new project with a friend of mine. We share an interest in military history, particularly the American Revolutionary War. Luckily Revolutionary War sites abound in the Lower Hudson Valley (where we live) so each week we’ve been visiting one. In 2019 we visited the site of a skirmish in Dobbs Ferry NY; Verplanck’s Point where Washington’s army crossed the Hudson on its way to Yorktown, Virginia; the site of a Revolutionary War Tavern in Peekskill, NY; Revolutionary War graves in Chappaqua, NY; The ruins of Fort Montgomery, NY; Sites in Yorktown Heights, NY associated with the Battle of Pines Bridge; Washington’s Headquarters in Newburgh, NY; The Stockade District in Kingston, NY; Knox’s Headquarters in New Windsor, NY; Sites related to Sybil Ludington in Carmel, NY and Patterson, NY; The Supply Depot in Fishkill, NY. These visits generated a lot of photographs. My intent is to make a photobook out of them.

My wife is an avid gardener. She loves to grow roses, particularly David Austin roses. This year she’s increased her collection and I’ve photographed each one. Once again my intent is to make a photobook out of them. Although these two books exist in intent only, I have managed to create two photobooks in 2019. Out of frustration that the New England Air Museum didn’t have a book on their exhibits I decided to do my own. I also did a second photobook of pictures taken around the lake where we live. I don’t print much and when I do it’s usually no larger than 8×10. This year I tested the waters with a couple of larger prints: 18×12. I rather like them and would like to do some more. Now if only I could find somewhere to put them.

In 2016 I made a New Years Resolution that I would try to 1) limit my old camera purchases; 2) use the cameras that I have more often. In 2019 I didn’t do very well on the camera acquisition front continuing to get my hands on both cameras and lenses. On using old cameras I did better than I had in the past – meeting my goal, for the first time, of using 12 film cameras per year (the equivalent of one per month).

I added quite a few items to my photography library including: Foursome: Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, Paul Strand, Rebecca Salsbury by Carolyn Burke; 50 Paths to Creative Photography: Style & Technique by Michael Freeman; Doisneau by Jean Claude Gautrand; Joyce Tenneson: A Life in Photography: 1968-2008 by Joyce Tenneson; In the Realm of Nature by Elliot Porter; Clarence H. White and His World : The Art &Craft of Photography, 1895-1925; Alfred Stieglitz: Taking Pictures, Making Painters by Phyllis Rose; The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis; and “Die Schöpfung” (The Creation) by Ernst Haas.

I continue to update this site, which now has 3,101 posts since I started it. About 521 posts were added in 2019.

All things considered it’s been a full year with much to be thankful for.

Happy New Year.

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