By Vladimir Brezina
A few photos I managed to capture on Saturday in Manhattan’s Central Park before my fingers started freezing—
(click on any photo to start slideshow)
... kayaked the waters around New York for more than 15 years in his red Feathercraft folding kayak. He was originally from (the former) Czechoslovakia and lived in the U.K. and California before settling down in New York. He was a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. He died in 2016.
... is a kayaker and technology researcher at Nemertes Research. She's an erstwhile engineer, particle physicist, and science fiction writer. She was born in California and has lived in Italy, Norway, Hawaii, and a few other places. She currently resides in New York City.
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Wind Against Current 
These are truly stunning.
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Thanks!!
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Bright beautiful pictures, it’s better than mist and rain.
Enjoy every moment, Vladimir :-)
All the best,
Hanna
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We do, Hanna! Thank you! :-)
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Lovely! It was a bit chilly but a beautiful day to be outside. I went out to Sheepshead Bay to take bird pictures, haven’t put them on Frogma yet but they’re up on my Facebook page. Funny what you said about fingers freezing – I took off my gloves at one point to speed up a lens change to catch some brants who were heading away from me, I put them down on a rock and forgot them, but I remembered them VERY soon!
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Yes, the fingers are the weak link in winter photography :-) Happy New Year, Bonnie!
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Ah, winter memories! Great shots of frozen beauty.
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Thank you!!
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The sunlight is like a spotlight on the beauty. I’m not sure the ducks are quite as appreciative of the setting :)
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No, ducks have no sense of beauty ;-)
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Hard to keep that finger on the shutter button in cold temps! Worth the effort though! Winter can have such a beauty of its own.
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I try to get out there after every snowstorm we get! :-)
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Wow- beautiful photos! It looks mighty cold though!
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Not as cold as it is about to be in the next few days… If the predictions are right, this could be quite something!
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I ought to take this as a reminder I still need to sort out my thermals and lined trousers – it’s still quite mild here, despite the strong winds/tides that are causing flooding in some parts.
I like the exposures of the snow shots, as we have so little snow, it often takes me a couple of shoots to get my eye (and compensation) in order!
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Thanks, Stephen! I thought I would get out there before the real cold hit this week… :-)
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Strewth! :)
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These photos are gorgeous!!! But poor ducks. Rgs Anja :)
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The ducks manage—they may even be happy… ;-)
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Very nice words :)
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I can’t figure out where the first photo was taken from. I went out to take photos too, and my fingers froze so fast, even with gloves on, I had to go back inside.
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Photo taken from the jogging path around the Central Park Reservoir, from pretty much the most uptown point, in the northeast corner of the reservoir, looking downtown.
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Very nice capture of the ice–they’re like mini-sculptures.
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Glittering in the late afternoon sun… they attracted my attention right away :-)
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Very beautiful images. The ducks look cold!
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They must have been. But what are they going to do? And it’s going to get much worse tomorrow…
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You stay warm.
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Will do. Thanks—you too!
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Brrr! Hard to imagine it’s like that on your side of the world when we’re in the middle of summer here 😊 Lovely pics.
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And it’s hard to imagine here that it’s summer on your side of the world… (So they say—I’ve never been to the southern hemisphere ;-) Thanks!!
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Interesting ducks, indeed, guessing Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata) based mainly on the immense bill, also the males’ plumage. Attractive, hoping to meet a few on the water some day. No rush, looks like #2 is trying to sleep off winter, we must all be patient.
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We have quite an assortment of ducks in Central Park, it seems, most of which I can’t really identify. Just as I was leaving the reservoir for warmer parts, a man who looked like he knew what he was talking about said to me, “Did you get the ringnecks?” I nodded sagely, but had to look them up when I got home…
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Ringnecks? LOL — another duck I don’t know! From a description, “faint brown ring on drake’s neck never shows in the field; light bands at tip and base of bill are conspicuous.” Ignoring the characteristic that “never shows in the field,” the bill in the first duck photo lacks light bands, ruling out ringnecks. They were probably dabbling elsewhere. Hint — they are “similar in appearance to scaups,” if that helps.
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Looking at the photos back at home, I am not sure I got any photos of the ringneck(s)…. maybe he was just making it up (as I have been known to do on occasion) :-)
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I love the photos of the ice and the water. Great shots.
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Thanks!! :-)
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Magnificent. And we don’t have to suffer the cold!
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That’s a problem—you don’t get a complete feeling of the scene as it really was. I am just waiting for them to develop “Cold-o-rama”…
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Ice 3 looks like a bird caugtt in frozen time…lovely wing…Can you see?
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Or a little ice angel… :-)
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that could be!
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Beautiful pictures – I can feel the cold just looking at them.
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The real cold is today… haven’t been outside yet ;-)
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I feel really sorry for the wild things right now. It’s rough out there.
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It is, and many of them probably don’t make it…
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These are such beautiful images of winter in Central Park. Nature makes its own art. You have a great eye for capturing it with your lens. I love all of the light, shadows and reflections in your photos.
My cousins were visiting NY this week and took a lot of photos of people who looked as cold as those poor ducks.
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People fight the cold with all kinds of interesting costumes, too—worth photographing… :-)
Thanks, Robin!!
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The ducks look rather comfy, actually! Thanks for these great photos… Jean just got back from AZ today; needed to acclimatize, and your photos —and the wind outside right now, yikes!—helped a lot. Thx :)
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You are most welcome!
Going out paddling? Or is the Sound frozen?
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The Sound may not be frozen, but we are!
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The water would feel so much warmer than the air ;-)
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The black-headed gray duck behind #1 shoveler could pass for a scaup. If the light-colored bill has rings they’re submerged in duck soup. Sorry if I’m in too deep myself, but it’s a terrific grab shot, all your ducks in a row.
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Further examination of the photos shows that that one is an American coot, I believe:
Thanks, Michael!!
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Wow
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:-)
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Wow, that ice is quite a sight, but I think my favorite are the ice cones around the grasses in the water. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.
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They surprised me too… not entirely sure by what mechanism they developed…
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fantastic Vlad, wonderful photos, lyrical beauty!
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Thank you!!
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Happy New Year Vladimir – I trust you and your family have a fruitful and healthy 2014 – I am really glad to say I have seen nothing as cold as this this year.
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A most happy and productive 2014 to you too, Scott!!
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I won’t gloat – temps here are in the mid forties – because with the snow come bright, clean light and great opportunities for photography – I’m glad you took advantage! Have a fun New Year – both of you!
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You too! Thanks!! :-)
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From Florida to the icy cold in one week! Once again your photos are stunning. The little freezing “cakes” around the grasses are magical. Reminds me of the growing bubbles in the icy sands at Swift Reservoir near Mt St Helens when the temps were about 15 F. Have to go find them in the archives now…..
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Sounds like Florida got some of the icy cold (relatively speaking) this week too… we could have just stayed there ;-)
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Great group–I especially love the image you called “Ice 6”.
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Thanks, John! And welcome back—I missed your posts! :-)
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Beautiful photos of a cold day :)
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Thanks! :-)
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Ohh! Ahhh! Lovely, all!
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Thank you so much!! :-)
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Great shots!
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Thanks!!
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I love the shots of the frozen drips of ice….water put on pause and glittering beautifully in the low light. It all looks very magical, like something from Narnia!
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Narnia comes up quite often in connection with the park in winter… :-)
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I can imagine…it’s all so picturesque :-)
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Your ice photos are lovely, with surprisingly clean, bright ice. Wonderful to find a kindred spirit who finds natural ice sculptures not only worthy of photos, but of a beautiful post. Much of the ice we photographed last week, along the river, had a slightly muddy appearance and was more creamy than white. Yours is so clear and sparkling! Central Park looks like a winter wonderland ;-) beautiful photos of the waterfowl as well. Best wishes, WG
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The Central Park Reservoir (where these ice sculptures were) is pretty clean—it’s a reservoir of drinking water, even though no longer used for that purpose day-to-day.
A winter wonderland on some days, dark and damp on others. We’ve had some interesting swings in weather this winter… :-)
Thanks so much for your nice comment, WG—very glad you like this post!!
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Ooh how lovely. Central Park is at its best when its icy, its like a big meringue! :)
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Rare days… now it’s all dark and wet… Thanks, Ailsa!!
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Simply stunning photographs!
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Thank you!!
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Sheesh! Even if the photos weren’t so neat you’d get a whole bunch of points for endurance.
Up here it’s most been dark and damp. Hope you have more sunlit ice than we do!
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Actually, yes—it’s mostly been like it was on the day in this post, sunny and very cold. Sunlit ice abounds… I suppose we should be thankful ;-)
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