Blue Mountain Reservation

by Posted in Landscapes, Wildlife & Animals, Woodland Leave a comment
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Blue Mountain Reservation in Peekskill, NY is a 1,538-acre park in the northwest section of Westchester County. It was acquired in 1926. It features miles of trails for mountain biking, strolling and nature study, and offers challenging hikes to the tops of two large peaks, Mt. Spitzenberg and Blue Mountain. The Sportsman Center at Blue Mountain Reservation is a recreation facility offering target ranges.

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Taken with a Sony RX10IV

A Recent Concert

by Posted in Buildings/Structures, Events, Houses of Worship Leave a comment
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Some friends recently invited me to join them for a performance by the Young New Yorkers Chorus (YNYC) Treble Ensemble. It took place in the Church of St. Mary The Virgin in Manhattan.

Not being familiar with the group, I didn’t have high expectations. However, the performance was excellent, and I really enjoyed it.

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Taken with my friend’s iPhone. I’d don’t remember which model.

Fixing my garden

by Posted in Flowers, Gardens, Nature Leave a comment
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I should start by saying that I dislike gardening. My late wife was the gardener in the family. She absolutely loved gardening (particularly growing roses) and spent a lot of time in the garden. My role was to dig holes and carry heavy objects. Because of this I’ve developed a bad back, which means even if I should get a sudden yearning, I wouldn’t be able to do it.

We had two houses and maintaining both gardens had already become a burden for my wife. Inevitably something had to give and the house we spent most time in (a house on a lake that she absolutely loved) got the bulk of her attention. So, even before she passed away the garden of the other house (the one seen in these photographs, and where I now live) was suffering a little from neglect.

After she passed away, I eventually sold one of the houses, thus eliminating the need to maintain the garden there. But, over time the garden at the other house (where I’m now living) got more and more overgrown. The grass was OK because we had someone come and cut it, but the former flower beds were completely overgrown – eventually I had weeds that were taller than I am.

I tried on several occasions to get someone to help me. But I didn’t have good experiences. Many didn’t want to do it. While, they were happy to come along with mowers, weed whackers, leaf blowers etc. zoom around for 15 minutes and then leave, they didn’t want to deal with the flower beds. Some came and didn’t do a very good job. Some came and then suddenly stopped coming without even telling me. I more or less gave up (it’s not as if anyone but me can see the garden. It’s not visible from the street).

But I was sure that my wife would have been horrified by what I’d done to her garden, so I decided to give it another try.

My friend and neighbor had given me the contact information for his gardener, who he strongly recommended. Unfortunately, I kept forgetting to call him or losing his contact information. I called my friend and once more asked for the contact information. This time I called the gardener before I lost it.

He (and his team) have now pretty much finished. And they’ve done a great job. He’s also agreed to help me maintain the garden, hopefully eliminating (or at least inhibiting) the re-growth of the weeds.

At the moment I’m very happy and optimistic that I’ll be able to keep the garden in good shape.

The garden is divided into two parts by a wooden fence which we had installed to keep the deer out. The picture above and the following five were all taken in the part north of the fence.

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As the weeds disappeared roses started to become visible. In all I counted about 22 rose bushes. A few of them can be seen below.

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Here are a few pictures from the part south of the fence, which borders on a meadow that is now turning into a forest! But that’s not my property so I don’t have to maintain it.

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Finally, as I was taking the pictures above this morning, a deer turned up in the meadow/forest, no doubt checking out what was going on.

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Taken with a variety of cameras and lenses.

A Cat falling asleep

by Posted in Wildlife & Animals Leave a comment
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This is my cat, Isa. I don’t take very many pictures of her, partly because there are already plenty of cat pictures on the internet.

This one came about when I was fiddling around with a vintage lens. When I bought my Sony NEX 5N back in 2011 one of my reasons for buying it was the I’d read that you could use relatively inexpensive vintage, usually manual focus, lenses on it with the right adapter(s). I did this for some time, but the allure of autofocus (along with other goodies that modern technology brought along) eventually took me away from manual focus lenses.

Since I still have a number of old, manual focus lenses I decided to give them a try again. This one is from the former Soviet Union. It’s a copy of a Zeiss f2 Sonnar and it’s called a Jupiter 8 It’s in Leica Thread Mount (LTM). There’s a review of it here: Jupiter 8 – A giant amongst the stars. For some older pictures taken when I first got it see here.

While many lenses are nowhere near as sharp of as contrasty as modern lenses, I feel that in recent times sharpness and contrast have been overemphasized. Sure, modern lenses are sharp and contrasty, almost clinically so, but to me they lack the “character” (whatever that is) of the older lenses. And I rather like that character, in certain situations.

My copy was made in 1963.

Taken with a Sony A7IV and Krasnogorsk Mechanical Works (KMZ) 50mm f2, Jupiter 8.