Category Archives: -Woody’s Picks

Welcome

This is a daily photo blog. I’m posting one image each day from now until I run out of space on my server. The “each day” refers to when the photograph was taken. Uploads happen when I have the time, typically a day or two after the image was captured.

I’m back from Kenya and Tanzania. I’ll be posting photos from the trip over the next week or so.

Please use the star rating system by clicking on one to five stars above each image.

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Thursday July 22, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – At last a decent landscape image. I’m primarily interested in landscape, which for me often means urban landscape because I live in New York. You can’t dress, stylize or direct landscape. You have to wait for it. The best light is often around sunrise or sunset. Sometimes when it happens no one is looking. Sometimes you wait for it and it doesn’t arrive. This is my 281st daily post since i started this project last October. About half of the images are in New York. No more than a dozen of them are landscapes that are actually of interest.

This was an unusually productive sunset, looking East out the windows of our apartment. I’ve posted my favorite out of the group. Some of the outtakes are interesting enough that I’m posting them in a comment – click on the date above to see and add comments.

Moonrise over Lexington Avenue

Nikon D700 with 70-200 f2.8 lens.

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Friday July 16, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – This is out the window of our 11th floor apartment, looking into our courtyard. Our building is doing “Local Law 10″ work on the exterior. Local law 10, which requires periodic inspection and repairs of building facades, was enacted in 1980 after a piece of terra cotta masonry fell from the facade of an Upper West Side building and killed a passing college student.

1185 Park Avenue - Local Law 10 work

Hasselblad H3D 39 with HC 300 lens.

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Tuesday July 13, 2010

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BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS – A break between meetings in my monthly trip to Boston.  This image picks up a theme that I worked on in Ecuador.

Bus Station, Boston

Leica M9 and 28mm Summicron lens – two images stitched in Photoshop.

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Thursday July 1, 2010

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QUITO ECUADOR – We’re not supposed to be in Quito – we had a 8:30 AM flight to Miami. It was unfortunately delayed for 13 hours so we found ourselves back in Quito for the day. We explored on foot and stumbled onto the National Assembly building. I say stumbled on it because it doesn’t show on printed maps or Google maps. Odd. Perhaps this is a residue of the long-running (60 years) border dispute with Peru in which Peru’s president, Alberto Fujimori, threatened to bomb Quito – a dispute that was finally settled in 1999.

This is Harvey Stein photographing a police show of force in front of the National Assembly building. They were there in response to a demonstration by teachers seeking more funding for education (as far as I could tell with my pidgin Spanish). This is the front gate of the National Assembly. At the rear gate there was a group of film makers and students seeking federal funding for the Ecuadorian film industry.

Demonstration - Ecuador National Assembly

Leica M9 with 28mm Summicron

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Sunday June 27, 2010

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ECUADOR – I’m back tired after a long day of shooting, with limited internet access.  I thought that I should post a photo from today – I’ll update the post with further information when I have a better connection.

Leica M9 with 35mm Summicron Asph.

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Tuesday June 1, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – This from the very early evening on Park Avenue.  The sculpture is newly-installed.  I don’t have any information on it but I’ll keep looking and revise this post accordingly.  Of course the background is Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building, one of the icons that I stalk.  The perspective is from the front door of the Racquet and Tennis Club.

Park Avenue Island

Shot with a Hasselblad H3D 39 and an HC 100 lens. Three exposures stitched. This produces a very large file.

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Thursday May 13, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Fabulous late afternoon light in midtown, with light reflected from buildings adding nuance.  I’m shooting with my backup Leica, and M8.2, because I left my M9 at Gary and Diana’s the previous evening (symptomatic of wine consumption).  I had a number of good images to choose among.  This is Mies van der Rohe’s iconic Seagram building – part of my effort to do a new take on iconic structures.  I have an ongoing project on the Seagram building and the plaza formed by it and the Racquet and Tennis Club (McKim Mead and White) and Lever House to the northwest (the “Hello Kitty’s” come from there).  Image taken with my M8.2 and a 90mm lens – three images stitched in Photoshop.

Seagram Building

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Tuesday May 11, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – My meetings are at Park Avenue and 53rd Street so I managed to commune with my old friend Hello Kitty for a few minutes.  You will remember from previous posts that  Hello Kitty is Tom Sach’s statue in the sculpture garden at Lever House.  See  March 19 blog entry and April 20 blog entry.  There may be enough going on at Lever House to make a project out of it.

Hello Kitty

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Thursday May 6, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – From a sunset walk on the High Line.  Here’s a link for more information about the High Line: Link to High Line site.  Leica M9 and 90mm Elmarit. I’ve changed the image on this page after having second thoughts on the selection of the May 6 image.

From the High Line at sunset

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Thursday April 29, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Once again I’m stalking the Chrysler Building.  This time from behind the UN Secretariat Building, in color, shooting with medium format.

Chrysler Building and UN Secretariat Building

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Monday April 19, 2010

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HARWINTON, CONNECTICUT – I drove to Harwinton today to visit the Connecticut DEP office there, to pick up a boat license.  Like most other Litchfield County towns Hawinton has a Congregational Church on a small green – the congregation dates to 1738.  The 1935 “Connecticut Guide” says this about Hawrinton

In Harwinton Village, the Congregational Church was built in 1806. The design is simple but pleasing, with the heavily molded cornice of pediment and roof. The 3 front doorways have rounded fanlights and pedimented hoods. Above the central doorway is a Palladian window, repeated in the tower. On the north of the Church is the stone Memorial Chapel, beautiful but incongruous, given by Collis P. Huntington, the financier of the Southern Pacific R. R., in memory of his mother. Huntington was born in the town in1821, and worked on a farm here until the age of 14, when he went to New York to seek his fortune.

Harwinton Connecticut

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Wednesday, April 14, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Congregation Shaaray Tefila (Hebrew for Gates of Prayer) at Second Avenue and 79th Street.   The current sanctuary of this congregation, which was organized in 1859, was dedicated in 1959.  It was converted from a Trans-Lux movie theater.  I’ve taken the liberty of posting the image twice – once in color and once in gray scale.

Congregation Shaaray Tefila (Hebrew for Gates of Prayer)

Congregation Shaaray Tefila

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Tuesday April 13, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Once again stalking the Chrysler Building.

Chrysler Building

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Monday April 12, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Back in Manhattan with my Leica.  This is more like it.  This image was stitched from three  frames and the perspective corrected in Photoshop.  It is very much emblematic of the women in my life.

Large Woman - Lexington Avenue

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Saturday April 10, 2010

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CORNWALL BRIDGE, CONNECTICUT – St. Bridget Church. A Catholic church. Late 19th Century gothic revival, The is very little information online, except that this congregation recently celebrated its 125th anniversary.  I took this because of the unusual point of view – the image is taken from a highway bridge that runs above the church.  The view is generally obscured by trees except for one spot where this shot is possible.  Because of the limited choice in angles there was no way to eliminate the utility wires.  May reaction at the time was “The wires are there.  We’ll just make them part of the image.”  I’m afraid that without a pole or some other indication that they are intentional, they look like a mistake.

St. Bridget Church, Cornwall Bridge Connecticut

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Wednesday April 7, 2010

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BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – Fort Green, near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Fort Greene near the Brooklyn Navy Yard

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Thursday April 1, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Magical light on West 42nd Street.

West 42nd Street

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Tuesday March 30, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK — Another day of terrible weather, so back to Grand Central Terminal to work inside.

Grand Central Terminal

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Monday March 29, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Grand Central Terminal. My new favorite rainy day place to photograph. I’ll be studying this over the next few months. Another icon.

Grand Central Terminal

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Friday March 26, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Post office building on Third Avenue.

Post office

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Wednesday, March 24, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – I captured this lovely morning light out my window.

Out my window

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Tuesday March 23, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Back home.  Once again the weather is cold and wet.  This is my second try of a post for this date.  The first was a personal memorial for a 24-year-old woman who was evidently killed when her bicycle was hit by a car – it was moving in person but not a good photograph.  On March 26 I took it down and replaced it with this image, also taken on March 23, of the Chrysler Building from a long ways away (just north of the UN), which I think is more interesting.

Chrysler Building from the far East Side

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Monday March 22, 2010

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NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA – A day on foot in New Orleans.  The French Quarter feels like a tourist trap – not much to photograph that hasn’t been done many, many times before.  Walked around the Garden District – there are still many Katrina-damaged houses and public buildings around the edges of the Garden District.  Again, this is an old (and mostly unfairly told) story so I skipped it.  I’ve settled on the following image (up to my old tricks) – Zion Lutheran Church on St. Charles Street.  This is a Missouri Synod church.  The congregation was founded in 1847 by German immigrants.  The present building dates to 1871.  Its gothic architecture bears a relationship to the churches that I’ve been photographing in Connecticut, which is what attracted me to it.

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Wednesday March 17, 2010 (St. Patrick’s Day)

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – At the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

St. Patrick's Day Parade

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Tuesday March 16, 2010

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BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS –

Cash for your Warhol

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Monday March 15, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Citicorp Center.

Citicorp Center

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Tuesday March 9, 2010

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Back home I took a walk in Times Square at sunset.  Times Square has lost its scruffy, sleazy vibe.  It’s now more like a cross between a Disney attraction and a corporate logo theme park.

Times Square

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Sunday March 7, 2010

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JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK – The hoped for rain turned into sleet, then snow at Joshua Tree.

Joshua Tree snowfall

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Friday March 5, 2010

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JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK – My old stomping ground at sunset.

Joshua Tree National Park

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Thursday March 4, 2010

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NILAND, CALIFORNIA – Salvation Mountain, near Niland. Right next door to Slab City.

Salvation Mountain

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