Cosmopolitan Building

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“Situated on 50 South Buckhout Street in Irvington, NY, the Cosmopolitan Building is a three-story office building designed in the Classical Revival style. The building was modeled after the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park. The building has several key features: Corinthian columns on the north, south and west facades accented by fluted pilasters, three projected bays on the west elevation with elevated semi-circular porches on the north and south ends of the building with two story colonnades, six-over-six windows, and two small domes on the rooftop. The building was constructed with a steel frame and brick-bearing walls with lightweight cementitious coating to make the exterior appear as cut stone. Originally, the building was designed with three roof domes. The name comes from the Cosmopolitan magazine, whose owner, John Brisben Walker, wanted an office close to his home in Irvington. However, the magazine left Irvington in 1905 when William Randolph Hearst purchased the company.” (theclio.com)

The building designed by Stanford White and built in 1895.

Taken with a Sony A7IV and Tamron Di III VXD A056SF 70-180mm f2.8.

A garden

by Posted in Buildings/Structures, Gardens Leave a comment
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I was walking along the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail when I saw this garden. I found it quite appealing, although I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s because I was looking down on it. Most of my pictures are taken at eye level, down low, or looking up. I don’t often take pictures looking down.

Taken with a Sony A7IV and Sony FE 24mm f2.8 G.

Elena’s Quinceañera

by Posted in People Leave a comment
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I while back my friends/neighbors asked me to take some pictures at their granddaughter’s Quinceañera. I didn’t know what a Quinceañera was so they explained it to me. Apparently it’s the celebration of a girl’s 15th birthday, marking her passage from girlhood to womanhood. She was actually sixteen, but for some reason it couldn’t take place on her 15 the birthday and so had to be postponed for a year.

After giving it some thought I accepted allbeit with some reluctance. I don’t usually take pictures at events like this. In fact I generally don’t take pictures of people at all. I’m not good with things that move around a lot and prefer things like landscapes, rocks, buildings etc. that tend to stay still. However, I thought it might be an interesting experience so I warned the people who had asked me to not get their expectations too high.

I then spent a couple of weeks worrying that I might spoil the event by ruining the pictures. I also read a lot about how to take pictures at such an event and practicing as much as I could. Here are a few of the results. There were many more: pictures of people at their tables; headshots of many of the participants; welcome sign; visitors book; speeches; table settings etc.

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The family live close to the Hudson River so we started by taking some pictures at a small park right on the river. Here’s the celebrant with her parents and two brothers.

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Closer view of the celebrant, her mother and younger brother.

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With her grandparents.

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She’s a dancer and performed a piece at the party held at her home.

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With tiara.

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Dancing with her father.

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Dancing with her mother. I love the expression on the mother’s face.

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Gooooooal!

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Children’s group.

As it happened it turned out fine. The pictures we quite good and one of them, the first picture above is in my opinion one of the best ‘people’ pictures I’ve ever taken. Most importantly the family seemed to be happy with them. My thanks to them for allowing me to post them here. And I certainly learned a lot.

Taken with a Sony A7IV and various Sony and Samyang lenses.

Another spider. Or is it?

by Posted in Wildlife & Animals Leave a comment
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I came across this in my kitchen sink. A spider I thought, but then I looked more closely and noticed that it only had six legs. So some other kind of insect then. However, when I looked more closely I realized that it was supposed to have eight legs, but had apparently lost two of them. OK so it was a spider after all. I was wrong again. It is an arachnid, but not a spider. So what is it? It turns out that it’s something called a Harvestman and it’s more closely related to ticks, mites and scorpions than it is to spiders. How can you tell the difference? Well, spider bodies have two segments: a combined head/thorax and an abdomen. Harvestmen have a single body. Spiders also usually have eight eyes where Harvestmen only have two. Scientists have identified over 6,000 species of Harvestmen and estimate that there are probably over 10,000. They’ve also been around for a very long time: specimens have been found encased in amber that is over four hundred million years old, so I suppose they’re doing something right. This one had a leg-span (if such a word exists) of over three inches, but the body was only about 1/8 inch. Some people call them ‘daddy longlegs’, but that’s confusing as at least three different species are often called ‘daddy longlegs’: Harvestmen, Crane Flies (which are winged insects), and Cellar Spiders (true spiders).

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Taken with a Sony A77II and Minolta 50mm f2.8 Macro lens