Fireworks

I was going to title this July 4th celebrations but being that the fireworks were done on the third I figured that it could be a little misleading....

We remembered the fireworks next door in Wayne NJ around 8:30 tonight and everyone wanted to go. I, of course, grabbed the camera, tripod and actually knew where my cable release was. We got to the HS at 9:05 but then parked in the mall parking lot about half a mile away. We walked to the high school and sat in the parking lot just after the first shot went off.

The girls loved the show and I got some good photos.

1)
2) I like this one because it fills the screen even though it is off center - I keep going back to it.

3)I am not sure where the palm tree came from but it showed up in the middle of the show

4)Then we went into the red zone...

Sleep Envy!

There's a reason this blog has its title. I am by no means a prolific sleeper. Quite the opposite - I usually get very little sleep. Today, for instance, I needed to be up a few minutes after 8 on a Sunday since I had to pick up the uniforms for my daughter's soccer team. No problem, I went to bed around 1 or 1:30 - a good 6 1/2 to 7 hours of sleep. I try and plan one night a week to catch up and this seemed like it. What happens at about 6 am? The power goes out. You might not think that this is much of an issue but since most of the equipment in the house is hooked up to various UPS (Uninteerupible power supplies) they started beeping. Needless to say that was the end of my sleeping.

My father, on the other hand, seems to be able to take a nap anywhere, which I envy. It's sort of like a Dr Seuss rhyme.

I will take a nap on a bed, or on a a couch,

I can sleep anywhere I don't go ouch.

On a park bench,

or a lawn,

morning, afternoon

or even dawn.

Silly Faces part 4

We met with the third of the 3 siblings yesterday. (My father, uncle and aunt) Aunt Elaine is the more mature of the 3 but that didn't stop her from contributing to the growing archive of silly faces.

Unc's Silly Faces

A lot of the reason we spend at least a day in Northport every summer is so that we can spend time with my Aunt and Uncle and, of course, the girls like to go out on the boat with them.

Unc usually spends as much time behind the camera as I do but he seems to have ceded those duties over to me. It doesn't stop him though from making silly faces when the camera is pointing his way.

D300, 18-200mm VR, 82mm, f/8.0, 1/320s, ISO 200

Not to much creativity here - so only a score of a 6.5 (An extra .5 for driving the boat at the same time)




D300, 18-200mm VR, 42mm, f/5.6, 1/320s, ISO 200


The baby look - a pout for for a 7.0 (or else he bit a lemon) D300, 18-200mm VR, 42mm, f/5.6, 1/320s, ISO 200


Utter surprise (faked of course) - a solid 8.5 due to the fact that you can see the tonsils.

Self Portrait

I was asked where I took my self portrait so I thought I would show the original photo along with my crop. When we went to Northport this past Sunday we spent part of the day out on the Long Island Sound on the boat with my Unc (you have to - its his boat!). I took a lot of pictures but I always wanted to try one in a pair of sunglasses - lucky for me my gorgeous wife was sitting across from me and I shot the photo in her glasses - its a good photo of her too except that her head and chin are cut off....

Self Portrait on glass!

D300, 18 - 200mm VR, 200mm, f/8.0, 1/500s, ISO 200

Bear - a handsome Mutt!

After we met Roxie and had some ice cream in Downtown Northport on Sunday we walked over to the park. My aunt wanted some quality time with the kids on the tire swing.

This was fine since it led to my meeting Bear. Bear is a very handsome and yet quiet mutt, although it is easy to see how they came up with his name. He is a bigggggg dog. According to his dad - he is part Chow and part Pyrnese mountain dog. Personally I think he might have a little German Shepherd in him too - he has the look in the face.

He is about 10 years old (if my memory serves me correctly) and has a relatively new human brother - about a year and a half old whom he loves.

Bear posed with a quiet dignity for me and let me get 2 good portraits of him.

D300, 18-200mm VR, 42mm, f/4.5, 1/320s, ISO 400
Click on photo for a larger view

Roxie – Bernese Mountain Dog

The whole family went to Northport NY on Sunday to see my Aunt and Uncle. In the afternoon we went for ice cream downtown. Northport has quite a few places to buy the food of the gods and as we were walking through downtown we passed the Northport Tasting Room & Wine Cellar and that's where we ran into Roxie.

Roxie is an absolutely gorgeous dog who was lazing by the window. I always thought Bernese mountain dogs were almost as large as St Bernards so I figured Roxie was a puppy. Of course I was wrong. She is a beautiful 3 year old although a little on the small side. Doogie came in with me to meet Roxie and they both behaved very well.

Roxie has her bed right by the window of the Tasting Room and she seems happy to meet all the customers. She was extremely friendly and I even got a kiss from her. Roxie, although very photogenic, had no desire to sit still - to busy being friendly but I did manage to get a few good photos of her.

If you happen to be in Northport and need a bottle of wine or just want to pop into to say hi to Roxie or Matthew the owner of the Northport Tasting Room & Wine Cellar I am sure they would be happy to meet you.

D300, 18-200mm, 34mm, 1/60s, f/5.6, ISO 200, Flash
Click on photo for a larger view

Yankees vs Red Sox

Well sort of....in the duck pin bowling way of looking at things at least. I still have a post left in me about duck pin bowling from our visit to Danbury this past weekend but I couldn't resist grabbing this photo while we were there and posting it.

I think pops will enjoy this one the most.

D300, 18-200mm, 32mm, f/11, 1/60s, ISO 200, Flash

It doesn't seem to matter how you slice it. The New York Yankees are always worth more than the Boston Red Sox. Of course a green Paramount ball is worth even more.

Best way to hunt a deer, for photos that is!

Friday morning I was up early and off to work before the sun rose. I watched it come up and almost stopped on the highway 3 different times to take some photos of it cresting the horizon but I had to be at work bright and early so I kept going. I still managed to get to my exit early and decided to take a quick detour to Sunset Lake in Bridgewater.

For those of you that don't know, I drive a hybrid - to be more specific a Toyota Prius. The Prius is really cool because at speeds less than 30 miles an hour it has a tendency to turn the engine off and use the electric motor. I found a spot to park and glided up and imagine my surprise when I saw a deer maybe 25 feet away. Her ears didn't even twitch. The silent mode of the car took her completely unawares. Of course, I then made my first mistake, I turned the car off. The smarter thing would have been to just open the window and shoot pictures of her from there. (The windows are electric - they Don't work with the engine off)

I decided to be a little braver and got out of the car without closing the door. She pricked her ears at the sound of me getting out and gave me the first shot.

D300, 70 - 300mm VR, 260mm, f/5.6, 1/30s, ISO 800
Click image for a larger view

She didn't like the camera noise but slowly started moving through the woods and since I wasn't moving at all she kept going. She grabbed something to eat but kept her eye on me. When she stopped and looked through the opening in the trees I grabbed my second opportunity.

D300, 70 - 300mm VR, 300mm, f/5.6, 1/25s, ISO 800
Click image for a larger view

I love the way the trees frame this shot. I definitely recommend a hybrid for sneaking up on animals. It makes it much easier.

More Flowers

Sometimes it is the closeup that matters and other times it is the background that makes a photo. My favorite from my mother's garden is this photo. The lily is a beautiful flower but the context that Black Eyed Susans give it make it better - at least to my eye.

D300, 18-200mm VR, 50mm, f/6.3, 1/400s, ISO 200

Flowers in Larchmont

While we were at my mother's this past weekend I couldn't resist taking photos of some of the flowers in her garden. She has been spending her summers in her garden for as long as I can remember and really enjoys spending time on her flowers.D300, 18-200m VR, 56mm, f/6.3, 1/1000s, ISO 200

D300, 18-200m VR, 50mm, f/6.3, 1/200s, ISO 200

Dinner in my Backyard redux

My wife was looking at the blog this morning and asked how the picture of the deer had come out so well since I had taken it through our kitchen window. I reminded her that I had turned off the lights in the kitchen to minimize reflections and then I showed her the real secret. You see I had grabbed the camera with the attached lens from the bag and had very little time to change any settings except for the shutter speed. Deer don't tend to stick around when you have a dog that barks at the site of anything encroaching on its territory.

You can see from the top photograph that the whole picture appears washed out and grey. I very simply opened the shot in Adobe Photoshop and reset the black point and white point on the photo using a curves layer. I used the black of the Deer's eye and the white from her ear and the rest of the colors aligned right with it.

Dinner in my back yard

Sunday afternoon, after the thunder storms passed through Wanaque, guess who decided to come for dinner. There was a tasty tree with some low hanging branches that she just couldn't resist. The photo was shot through a closed window.

D300, 18-200mm VR, 150mm, f/5.6, ISO 720, 1/10s

Sunset Over Wanaque - Cropping

I was looking back at my photos of the sunset the other night and I realized that I had been to much in a rush. I got some decent photos but I didn't get what I really wanted. I really like this first picture. The colors in the clouds mixed with the silhouettes of the trees works well but there is too much bland sky at the top of the photo and the silhouette on the left side is too tight. I decided to play around with the picture to see if I could make it look a little better. I only cropped the photo - didn't play with anything else.

The Original:
The first time I croppped the photo I used the the two trees on the sides to frame the clouds while reducing the emptiness over the clouds. They act like a great frame and focus the eye on the center. The second time I cropped the photo I decided to focus on the tree on the right. There is enough detail in the tree and the eye gets drawn to that tree. At the same time it brings the color of the sky out. Which one do you like best?

Sunset Over Wanaque

I have been working pretty late this week but on Thursday - despite all the rain we were having I figured I would put the camera in the car and see if I could sneak out during lunch. I didn't leave work until 7:45 and it was non-stop all day. On the way home I watched the sunset start to develop and right before I got home I went up the side of the mountain to try and get a decent vantage point over the reservoir.

These are untouched out of the camera except for some slight cropping.

D300, 70-300mm VR, 70mm, f/4.5, 1/500s, ISO 400
Click image for a larger view

I really like this photo due to the outline of the trees and the detail. It was taken at 8:19.

D300, 70-300mm VR, 95mm, f/4.5, 1/500s, ISO 400
Click image for a larger view

The sky was much better on this photo especially with the juxtaposition of the water and the dark mountains separating the two. This was taken at 8:23

D300, 70-300mm VR, 200mm, f/5.3, 1/200s, ISO 400
Click image for a larger view

The colors in the sky here were great but it needs a little more detail in the mountains. It was taken at 8:37.

Jumping off a cliff...

Katie, my youngest, used to hate the water. She doesn't like to put her head in and is afraid the water will get into her eyes and go up her nose. This is the exact opposite of how I grew up. I can't remember not being in the water as a kid. My mom used to take me and my brother to Grandma and Grandpa's on Long Island and we would go to the beach. I remember going in the Ocean and if I was tired of that they had a pool too. I insisted when I was four on going to a swim camp for the summer, Camp Badger - a day camp. Mom used to make me get out of the ocean because my lips had turned blue.

Katie has always been the opposite. She likes to go to the beach but isn't a fan of getting wet. She would rather build sand castles then let water get any where near her head. She has started to change her mind but is still afraid to put her head in the water and thinks she is going to sink. The swim lessons have helped and she is willing to put her face in the water for a second these days as long as her goggles are on (and yes, she counts to one).

One of the big things they have been working on in swim class is jumping off the side of the pool and Katie will do it as long as someone will catch her. That finally changed this past weekend. We were out at the pool with my brother and his family when Katie decided to jump in if I would catch her. I refused and said I would let her jump as long as all I had to do was keep her head above the water. The first jumped I grabbed her right before her head went in and the second too. Then I moved back and said she didn't need me but I would grab her if she got scared. Katie finally agreed and after counting to 3 numerous times 1...2.....I'm scared! 1....2....I'm really scared..but I want to do it! 1......2.......3....I'm scared! 1......2........3!

D300, 18-200mm VR, 60mm, 1/500s, f/4.8, ISO 220

She did it! She then jumped 12 or 13 more times all by herself and isn't scared anymore. Yeah Katie.

All Star Game Take 3!

My last post on the All Star game (Maybe). Yankee Stadium is a great stadium and what a place for the 15 inning pitcher's duel the other night. I surely thought that the National League was going to win the game when they carried the lead as late as they did and their pitchers were doing awesome. In all reality - both teams' pitchers were on.

As the game wore on it became unbelievable. My brother and I looked at each other at the end of the tenth when the National League escaped the bases loaded with no outs jam and said at the same time - "Can you believe it?"

We stay until the 13th inning and if I hadn't had to go to work early the next morning we would have stayed for the whole thing. We had a great view when Navarro was tagged out at the plate in extra innings and just didn't know if it was ever going to finish.

It still leads to the debate of whether All Star Games should end in a tie but on the other hand, when I was growing up I don't remember every player who made the All Star Team playing. Should the manager try to play everyone or should he have pitchers pitch to more batters? Does it make sense to use your bench up early to middle of the game? Does it make sense to take out Manny Ramirez, A-Rod, Ichiro early with their track record with their bats?All questions I know I am not qualified to answer. Maybe I will let my friend Paul do a guest blog on this topic - he lives his life for baseball and can recite almost any stat (actually for his son Zach and the twins they are having). He has a deep passion for the game. So deep - he missed a foul ball at the All Star Game because he was keeping score in his program (didn't do him much good since the score sheet ended in the 10th inning.

What an awesome game for my first MLB All Star Game ever!

Direct TV Blimp in the 10th inning

All Star Game Take 2!

The above photo is one of my favorites from the All Star game. We had our seats right behind the National League dugout and this is a shot of the players watching the first inning on-fold. They were as excited as the fans were and spent almost the entire first inning hanging out on the dug out fence. Surprisingly - Alphonso Soriano isn't in this photo since he spent most of the game hanging onto the fence talking to Wood.
The bottom of the first inning Derek Jeter decided to steal second and was successful. It ended up scoreless but it was still a great steal.
The National league took the lead 2 - 0 until this swing by JD Drew which tied up the game. I may not be a Red Sox fan but JD Drew had a terrific game at the plate and was the reason that the American League won this game.
Mariano Rivera came into the game and had a nifty strike 'em out throw him on the first batter he faced when Navarro threw out the man trying to steal second after Mariano struck out the batter.

What a great game. I ended up taking the wrong lens with me to the game - (do you ever have the right lens when you go somewhere?) but I got it to work pretty well in most situations. I could still run the photos through a noise filter but a lesson here is to make what you have work for you and know your equipment's limitations. All these shots were done with a Nikon D300 camera with an 18 - 200mm VR lens. I had meant to bring my 80-200mm f/2.8 lens but my mistake. I still managed to do decently well with most of the action shots at 1/400th for a shutter speed.

All Star Game!

On Tuesday night I got very lucky. My brother called me on Monday to let me know that he had managed to get 2 seats to the Major League Baseball All Star Game and wanted to know if I would like to join him. See - brothers aren't all that bad.

We headed out to the game a little late since he got stuck at the airport due to a canceled flight. We still managed to make it to the stadium by the National Anthem and it was so cool. All the Hall of Famers were still out on the field and what a great field of players.

They had 4 Hall of Famer Yankees throw out the first pitch after the Boss came out with the ball. Yogi managed to throw out the first real pitch - his other 3 cohorts waited until he threw to let their's go.

Yogi throws out the first pitch!

Yogi Berra, Goose Gossage, Whitey Ford, and Reggie Jackson

These guys were laughing and having a great time. There are all in good shape and let it fly. What a great start to the game. I will write more on the game later and share a few more photos.