If You Have To Travel…
…between Brooklyn and Staten Island this would be the bridge you would traverse. Although you may have to think twice as it’s also known as New York’s “most dangerous bridge”….yikes keep your eye on the road!
Turn It Into Art…
With a bit of Topaz Simplify…
I absolutely love what Topaz did for the sky in this shot. This might be a candidate for a metal print. What do you think?
Meet The Oldest…
….operational lighthouse in the United States of America.
Built in 1764, the Sandy Hook Light stood 500 ft from the lower mouth of NY harbor, it now stands almost a mile from the harbor due to something called littoral drift.
One of these days I’ll actually get to go inside this light, it’s just that whenever I’m there the tours are closed! What’s up with that? No one wants to get up at 5:30am to open the doors:)
By Request…
It’s not exactly the request that Ron wanted but it got me thinking about how I can make this shot more interesting. I don’t own a fisheye lens and although the Sigma 10-20mm can emulate a fisheye to some extent I had to push the distortion slider in Lightroom to achieve this look.
Many of these officers quarters are in quite disrepair and although I’d love to shoot the interiors I’m sure it’s near impossible.
In any event here it is, take it or leave it.
Yankee Stadium…
Not exactly…..
For nearly 80 years Fort Hancock, located on Sandy Hook, provided coastal defense for the harbor of New York City. From the first disappearing mortar batteries to housing Nike missiles during the Cold War Fort Hancock has housed some of Americas finest weapons and military men and women.
But on April 5, 1943 a defense of a different kind had overrun this military base. The finest athletes of Fort Hancock defended their home turf on this field against a New York Yankee baseball team that would go on to win the World Series 6 months later. The Fort Hancock team lost 7-2 to probably their most formidable opponent in their 80 years of occupancy of Sandy Hook. According to this plaque the only remaining artifact of this event is the backstop you see in the picture above.
Hope you enjoyed your visit today on Super Bowl Sunday and I’d like to say “Go Giants” but as a Dallas Cowboys fan that’s nearly impossible.
You Never Know….
My original idea to photograph the beacon and stars together(similar to this beautiful shot) turned out to be a bust so before the sun came up I was determined to find something to make my visit worth it. I walked around this damn lighthouse 3 to 4 times before settling on a few perspectives and this one turned out the best.
Shooting at this time of day can be very frustrating due to the low light environment. I wanted to shoot at an aperture around f/8 or so but with a light wind and bracketing this becomes difficult. A smaller f-stop would help with quicker shutter speeds but sharpness throughout the scene becomes an issue because of the shallow depth of field. Additionally my Sigma 10-20 did an awful lot of hunting too boot, eventually I found the proper focus I set the lens to manual and banged out 3 brackets.
In post I exported my 3 shots into Photomatix and after making a couple of adjustments to several sliders I hit the save and re-import button. Now the fun begins…. After playing with the clarity slider and the brightness adjustment brush I sent a copy to Topaz Adjust 5. Adjust 5 saves the last setting used and immediately loved the result. Wish I could tell you the settings but I imported back to lightroom to finish off the shot by adjusting the hue in the sky. This is the result, I hope you enjoy it.
A Gorgeous Vista of Sandy Hook and…
…and the rest of the world can be seen and heard(?) from some 200 feet above sea level at the Navesink Lightstation in Highlands, New Jersey.
Did you know that a bit of technology, one that has become part of our everyday lives, may have actually originated from this very spot during the turn of the 20th century? Yes, if my understanding is correct, it’s true and it’s definitely significant. In fact communication amongst many of the participants of the photo challenge at the Village can be directly attributed to this historic event……..better yet… I may have never met Ron if this event hadn’t occurred:) Anybody care to take a stab at the answer? Want a hint?………. A Nobel Peace Prize may be involved. Good Luck!
On another note, I’m pretty excited about 2 new pages to my site, they are located at the top of my home page and showcase some of my significant(IMHO, of course) work. Would love to hear your feedback…….Thanks!
365: Glowing…
I remember liking this shot from last winter and finally got around to processing it this winter. I love how the effect of the early morning sun on the sand and various plant life seems to give it a bit of a glow.
I actually blended 2 shots together in Elements 10 using the exposure of the sky and the lighting of the foreground to produce this image. Kind of old school HDR if you will.
365: Foreground…
Would be nice if I remembered a comment, huh? Well I’ve got to admit as much as I love the beach in the summer, it doesn’t get much better than taking photo’s in September/October. Other than the surf fisherman there’s no one else around. I guess being there at 6am helps too:)
I didn’t get to my Scott Kelby photowalk today(opted for golf instead) but I’m hoping some of you did so I can check out the pictures. Hope you had a great time.
In The Distance…
What a way to start the New Year!
Got up about 6:00am and drove to Sandy Hook(25 minutes) to catch the first sunrise of the year and wow what a morning. The temperature was 34 with little to no wind, the clouds cooperated and I even managed to get the waning crescent moon in the distance….. perfect morning for shooting!
I think this warranted Gallery status so I created the gallery post as follows: In Elements, I resized the canvas by 1.75 inches all the way around. Then I resized it again just for the bottom by adding another inch. I created a drop shadow at 127 degrees. Finally, I added the text by using the color picker to grab a color out of the sky for the Inkburrow letters. I like!!!!
On another note, I received my Xmas present from my wife yesterday, An iPad….this thing is amazing! One of the first apps I downloaded was The Photographer’s Ephemeris. A program that shows the direction of the sun and moon overlaid in Google Maps. It tells you the sunrise and sunset times according to your location as well as many other important geographical related notes. Google it and download for your desktop as well.
Golden…
I thought this one was worthy of a Gallery Series presentation. It’s quite similar to this post but I actually like this one better with the gentle wave approaching the shoreline and the shimmering water on the sand.. This is from Sandy Hook, NJ and I’d love to back but it’s been just too cold to go any where near the beach. Is anyone else finding it difficult to get out and shoot? I guess I better just man up and get out and shoot.
