Blurred Highlights

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As I recall I was “fiddling around” while waiting for my food in the Executive Diner on Route 9a in Hawthorne, NY. The camera is certainly a Sony NEX-5n and I suspect the lens is an old manual focus Canon 50mm f1.4 in Leica Thread Mount (I think this was the lens because I know that other pictures taken around the same time were taken with it). It was taken through a glass partition – hence the lines, which were a pattern on the glass. There seem to be a lot of highlights in the background, but I can’t recall exactly what they were or why there were so many.

2015 Favorites – Color

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The British are coming.

The previous post highlighted my favorite black and white pictures from 2015. This one deals with my favorite color pictures (again in no particular order).

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Inside Tompkins Corners Church.

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New York airshow.

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Kikuyu Statues.

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Jami and Peggy at play.

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River Hudson from the Ossining Boat and Canoe Club

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Hydra 70 rocket pods on Apache attack helicopter

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Moonrise Roaring Brook Lake

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Abstract Shapes and Lines

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Rose

2015 Favorites – Black and White

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Light Beams

Lightbeams.

Another year has passed and it’s time to post some of my favorite pictures from 2015 – starting with some black and whites. Like last year I’m presenting my ten favorites – in no particular order.

I’ve been trying to find a focus for my photography, which at the moment is all over the place. I had thought that my primary interest was in old buildings. However, in looking at my favorites I was surprised to discover that none of them (black and white or color) contain old buildings. While I’ve taken lots of pictures of old buildings over the year it seems that I don’t consider any of them to be favorites. Just for curiosity I looked back at 2014 favorites and found that the same was true in 2014: pretty much no buildings. Go figure!

Last year I provided descriptions of each of the images. This year I provide only captions. All of the images appear in posts throughout the year and you can find the longer descriptions there.

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Abraham Lincoln Statue in Peekskill.

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Snowy Dog Walk on a Frozen Lake.

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Paul.

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Hudson View from the Ossining Library.

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Swan and Jade Plant.

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Bird in Flight.

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Drooping Roses.

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Shadows on a Wall

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Seagull

Nets

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I was walking across one of the playing fields in Briarcliff Manor when I came across a small goal. I don’t know to what sport it relates (it’s too small for soccer; maybe lacrosse?). I was drawn to the patterns made by the nets; the contrast between the white netting and the darker grass; and the straight and curved lines. I got out the camera (the Sony RX-100 that I almost always have with me) and took a few shots, only to notice an orange light flashing in the top left corner of the LCD: “NO CARD”. “Oh #*?!!” I thought “I must have left the card in the card reader (it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done this). Disappointed and annoyed I wandered off. Some time later I reached the far side of Law Park when it occurred to me that I had an old 4Gb card in the pocket of my camera bag. As I was changing it I noticed that in fact the original card had not been left in the card reader – instead it had just come loose (maybe because I had dropped the camera earlier – thankfully the camera was in its padded case and fell on something soft so there was no damage). After securing the card off I went back to nets.

Red Lips

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Obviously it was the bright red lips on this “faceless” mannequin in a store window that caught my attention. It seemed to me that I could get a shot where the mannequin faded into the background and the reflection of the building would make the picture more ambiguous. It wouldn’t, I thought, be immediately obvious what you were looking at. I thought it might look a little surreal with the red lips almost floating in the air. After I took the picture I realized that I’d had a little luck. For some reason the area around the face, lips and neck of the mannequin came out darker than the rest in effect framing the lips.