NEWARK NEW JERSEY – I landed here on my return flight from Naples. This gave me a chance to drop by the airport customs office and complete the Global Entry process, which should speed going through customs and immigration on my return from foreign travel. There was very nice light for the ride on the monorail that connects the terminals at Newark. Taken with my iPhone, not the world’s best tool to shoot landscape with very high contrast lighting.
On this day one year ago: Macaroni Beach.
NAPLES FLORIDA – Another walk on the beach at sunset with my Panasonic. There’s a stretch of beach here where thousands of gulls gather to watch the sunset, along with the local residents, who bring out chairs to sit on as they literally watch the sunset. As the last rays of the sun fade they (the people) break out into applause. Really. The experience of being surrounded by a very large number of birds was pure Hitchcock. Here’s an image:
And another sunset.
On this day one year ago: Mustique rainbow.
NAPLES FLORIDA – Day two of the conference. There is a little more daylight in the schedule today so I’m carrying my Alpa TC and a 35mm Schneider lens. Toward the evening I found myself on the beach with the Alpa. Did I say that it’s hard to find an interesting photograph on the beach. Well yes and no. True. But – – – In the few minutes of the “golden hour”, which is usually not an hour – more like 20 minutes, it really doesn’t matter what you point your camera at. When the light arrives, stop what you’re doing and shoot whatever is at hand. Even a beach. I have to relearn this periodically. In landscape light is more important than landscape. Anyway here is the golden hour light etching the beach in Naples.
Earlier in the day I spotted a familiar looking steeple and indeed it was the local United Church of Christ (in round terms the Congregational Churches outside of New England), a sure sign that Naples has been colonized by New Englanders.
On this day last year: rainbow in Mustique.
NAPLES FLORIDA – Back here again, on a mission that’s unrelated to last week’s board meetings: attending the annual MFDF directors’ conference. Today is the first day of the conference and is thus busy, so I’ve limited myself photo-wise to my iPhone and what I can photograph within an easy walk. I caught this from a boardwalk through a local park with my iPhone. The image is my new lock screen image on my iPhone and I’ve adapted it to serve as one of this blog’s rotating headers. The over cooked quality is what comes out of the iPhone. I could dial it down in Lightroom or Photoshop, but who said this process needs to be serious. The image looks very good on a small screen. It demonstrates (again) that great light trumps every thing else (including limited equipment) when shooting landscape.
Another iPhone image from the top of the bar where I had dinner.
On this day last year: an immense image – three Hasselblad frames stitched – of the Mustique sky. I’m using a cropped version of this as one of my rotating headers. It turns out that fabuolous skies are my theme for January 24 in whatever year.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – It snowed yesterday and last night, for the first time in a long while. I put on my snow shoes and spent a couple of hours out in the fields around our house in poor, overcast light. This with my Alpa TC and 35mm Schneider lens.
On this day last year: Flying SVG, a not-quite-scheduled “airline” operating between Barbados and Mustique.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Last month I set my Alpa Max up to demonstrate its “tilt” capacity (the ability to tilt the focus plane to increase the appearance of depth of field) and got an somewhat poorly visualized image of our sundial. It’s snowing today (at last) so I set up trying to do a better of seeing and imagining the image:
On this day one year ago: a long skinny Third Avenue from my office.
NEW YORK NEW YORK – Out with my Leica and 90mm lens I caught this in the failing light.
On this day last year: 9-11 memorial.
