A Trip to the Adirondacks

Ausable Chasm with a small guided tour group at the bottom


Ausable chasm with people looking over the foot bridge


Ausable chasm


Within one of the caves at Natural Stonebridge and caves


Whiteface mountain


View from whiteface mountain


Whiteface mountain climbing trail


Quiet on Lake Champlain


Kyle on the ferry on Lake Champlain heading to Burlington, Vermont


Old leaning shack in town of Jay


Old leaning shack in Jay


Barn and mountains in the background, Adirondacks


Barn in a field, Adirondacks


Barn and mountains, Adirondacks.


And yet another . . .

Last week I took my son Kyle up to the Adirondacks for some great sights and adventures. Although his favorite part is the pool back at the hotel, he had a great trip time climbing and exploring the Ausable Chasm and the Natural stone bridge and caves.
We also hopped on the ferry at Port Kent and took it across Lake Champlain to Vermont where we walked around and explored some more. They have a pretty cool aquarium in Burlington and was worth the visit.
I had my fun stopping alongside the road whenever I spotted an old shack or barn.
I hope to get back up there again in a few weeks on my own specifically for photography.

Dance photography slideshow

This is a sldeshow feed from my Flickr page which shows some of my latest dance photography. I find that shooting dancers and performers can be quite challenging, but at the same time quite enjoyable and rewarding. Getting the knack of nailing correct exposure and focus is something that takes time. I shoot in manual mode and also find myself manually focusing for best results.

New York water towers 15

So this is the 15th in the series. It is also one of my favorites yet as it incorporates everything that I love about the city, and the water towers that stand out againt the sky. There is grit, high contrast, shadows, subtle color, lots of windows with air conditioners hanging out of them, and sex. (I love some of these things more than others . . .)
These were found near Lafayette and Jersey street in lower Manhattan.

The print is available here.

New York water towers 14

This is the latest addition to my series. this one is located near "Little Italy" by Mott street in Manhattan.

The print is available here.

Coney Island Boardwalk

Part of the amusement park as seen from the boardwalk


The boardwalk at W10th street


A section of old boarded up building, still colorful and attractive in a way.


"Gory & Pauls" which should be "Gregory, I think. . .hope


A banner for the "Giantess" attraction where it appears that she might just be taller than a Giraffe. . .in her heels anyway ;) I had to place these up high in the frame to avoid the sun which was in front of me.


The snake girl and "She's Alive" on the right. The woman is holding her own head. . .


Here is the "Wonder Wheel" on a slow Thursday. There were actually people riding and the wheel is much larger than appears in this photo.


Shoot the live human with paintballs in an empty lot. There is an announcer that trash talks people here as they walk by trying to entice you to let off your steam by shooting this poor chap with paint balls.


Cha cha's wild women and wise guys bar.


Here is a place that sells "fresh smooties" lol


We saw the Macho man and his ladies. . .


We saw the girl on the sign offering hamburgers and Beer. . .The Brooklyn Lager that she is offering up is one of the best beers around, anywhere.


And then we saw too much. . .;)

Coney Island amusement park and boardwalk is very busy and full of excitement on the weekends. It is so run down though, but to many, that is part of its appeal.
We were visiting the New York Aquarium which is right next to the park and so after the aquarium we decided to stroll around the boardwalk. Kyle is not comfortable with being around amusement parks and loud sounds, excitement, etc and so for his sake we moved on quickly. He does love the aquarium, as do I.

The View from Within

These are a few works from the collection


Barn doors


Father and Son


Open Book


Boy


Under the Moon (Christmas day)


The Visitor


Below Deck (The Charles Morgan)


Girl and tree


Fishermans shack


Once upon a time


Drain pipe, self portrait

The "View from Within" is a series I have been working on since I had seriously started shooting in 2004. It is a collection of photographs which views the world from a psychologically dark and isolated perspective. For me, the sense of being hidden and unknown while being able to observe and look out into the world brings a certain feeling of solace and inner peace. Perhaps a reprieve from the daily struggle and hardships around us. . .
It is a series that continues to develop and evolve.

Stay thirsty, my friends.

One of my favorite commercials, but I just don't see them on much.

Enjoy!

Looking for a laundry detergent :0

So its getting time to tackle the huge bags of laundry that have been filling up and were pretending not to notice. Its hard to pretend when we are literally running out of clean clothes to wear, so we decided we would get to it tomorrow morning and get it all done. Clothes, sheets, pillow cases, cushion covers . . . everything. We have lots of fabric softener after I went to BJ's wholesale outlet a few weeks ago and thinking I was getting a 55 gallon drum of detergent, came home to have Nina tell me I bought a whole lot of fabric softener. She's not crazy about fabric softener either. . . So, we went to the local store here to buy a few other things mostly food items and decided to just get what we need tomorrow to get the huge loads done. We headed up the isle where the soaps and detergent were stocked. I thought this would be easy but nooooooo. There are so many different brands to choose from and each have their own claim to being the best. As we were looking at all the choices we started scratching our heads because we realized we were in over our heads here.

First we saw the brand that claimed its formula would keep laundry fresh, longer. Its actually called the "Keep it fresh- formula" well, we certainly don't want to do laundry all the time and so a detergent that can keep it clean and fresh longer is a big plus, I felt.

Then we saw the other leading brand that helped to reveal the "7 Signs of Beautiful clothes"! Jeez, I had no idea about these 7 signs and I suddenly realized I was walking around my entire life with my clothes most likely only holding up to 2 or 3 of these signs. How embarassing. Well, that would have to be the right choice, I mean 7 signs. Who could beat that and I certainly think they know what they are talking about.

Then there was "Power your Wash", and "Harnessing the power of nature", and " High Efficiency" Wow!

We looked through some more brands realizing how little we knew about buying the right laundry detergent.
We came upon "Loads of Hope". For every purchase of this detergent, they will donate some of the proceeds to a charity. Oh no, now we were starting to feel guilty about not buying this one. How can anyone with any good morals and concern for all that is good not buy a laundry detergent that will donate some of its profit to charity. But what if it doesn't work very well. . .who cares damn it, its ok to walk around with only 1 or 2 of the 7 signs as long as we know we have helped others and will wear our dirty clothes like a badge of honor! Hmmm, but we can just donate to a charity of our own choice later and buy a good detergent now . Yes, so we continued.
"Here it is", I exclaimed. "Stronger than Dirt" it claimed. Nina, this is what we need. I mean, imagine stuffing all our clothes into a huge machine and pour in a detergent that is weaker than dirt. We don't stand a chance. We will be there for a couple of hours waiting for the cycles to finish only to find that the dirt has won! No way, man. Above all and everything else, the detergent MUST be stronger than dirt. It has to be, to get the stuff clean, no? I insisted that we get the brand whose detergent was stronger than dirt. That has to be the right way to go.

So, we will be off to battle dirt tomorrow and were sure we made the right choice. . .I mean c'mon, it was a No-Brainer ;)