Tag Archives: New York City

Favorite Spot

By Vladimir Brezina

Jakesprinter’s Sunday Post theme for this week, Favorite Spot, and the Weekly Photo Challenge theme, Mine, come together in this post…

On Sunday, Johna and I visited one of our favorite spots, New York City’s Central Park.

The trees are still mostly green, and late flowers are in bloom. But subtle signs of fall are everywhere.

We saw a late monarch butterfly, flitting from flower to flower.

Wandering through the park, we made our way, as we usually do, to our really special spot—the plot of ground that some time ago we picked out as the place where we could learn to observe and to see. And indeed, we saw there…

… a belated dandelion

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… somebody’s eggs

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… a strawberry?!

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It sure looked like a strawberry—a last lone strawberry at the cusp of fall.

We thought of how sweet ripe wild strawberries can be… And so, despite some contraindications —the strawberry plants bore, here and there, yellow, rather than white, flowers—Johna ate the strawberry.

It had very little taste. It wasn’t a true strawberry, but (as we determined afterward) a mock strawberry.

Still, it was a lovely early fall day at our special spot in the park…

East River Sunrise

By Vladimir Brezina

A Sunset is always followed by a Sunrise…

Paddling down the Hudson at Sunset…

By Vladimir Brezina

On Saturday, I was in the right place at the right time. A little rain shower gave way to a golden sunset over New Jersey, with golden reflections in Manhattan…

(At home afterwards, I stitched together a panorama in Photoshop. If I’d thought of it at the time, I would have made sure to take all the matching photos for it. Oh, well…)

… and then the World Trade Center tower glittering ahead in the purple dusk and the moon overhead…

Evening Light in the City

By Vladimir Brezina

New York City 2002-2012

Sunday Post: Autumn, Take Two

By Vladimir Brezina

This is a second post in response to Jakesprinter‘s Sunday Post theme of Autumn (the first post was here).

Fall is just starting here in New York City—but it’s unmistakably on its way. Here are some of the colors we can look forward to in a month or so…

Photos taken around New York City’s Central Park Reservoir in Fall 2011. More photos are here and here.

Travel Theme: Texture, Take Two

By Vladimir Brezina

Ailsa‘s Travel-Themed Photo Challenge this week is Texture. I’ve already posted one response, but here’s another.

A snowy day in New York City’s Central Park…

More photos are here.

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We’re Off to the (Tugboat) Races!

By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina

Sometimes the best ideas are the last-minute ones.

We’d carefully planned the Labor Day holiday weekend, balancing work, rest, paddling, and socializing, and after due consideration we’d agreed that the best strategy would be to work and run errands on Saturday, followed by a long paddle on Sunday, which had optimal currents and weather forecast.

Then Vlad said, “Would you like to go see the tugboat race this weekend?”

Well, of course! We both love everything maritime, and tugboats in particular. And we’d talked for a while about wanting to see this event—the Great North River Tugboat Race & Competition, hosted each Labor Day weekend by the Working Harbor Committee, in which a dozen or more NYC-area tugboats parade up the Hudson, race, and then engage in various contests (pushing contests, line tosses, and who knows what else). And it was all happening this weekend!

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Capture the Colour

By Vladimir Brezina

The travel site TravelSupermarket is running a contest to Capture the Colour.

They say a picture paints a thousand words. Well, rather than asking you to write a five thousand word blog post, we’re inviting you to produce a blog post with up to 5 photos that really do ‘Capture the Colour’… the 5 colours Blue, Green, Yellow, White and Red.”

We’ve been nominated to take part by Autumn in Bruges and also by Untitled Adventure. Thanks so much to both, and do check out their wonderful colors at the foregoing links!

Here are our five colors:

Blue

Blue twilight closes in on the frozen Central Park Reservoir in New York City, while on the other side the ramparts of the Upper East Side still reflect the last afterglow of the sunset. February 8, 2010. A few more photos from that day are here.

Green

We passed this metal recycling facility while kayaking along the Bronx River in New York City on July 2, 2011. Who says that industrial equipment can’t be brilliantly colored, apparently just for the fun of it? Apart from this vivid green, we saw some wonderful reds and blues. More photos are here, and the story of our trip is here.

Update, September 3, 2012: Michel, the founder of TravelNotes.org, has included this photo among his best 11 Green photos!

Yellow

Heavy snowfall in New York City’s Central Park on January 27, 2011. The photographers were out in force, photographing ducks congregating around the last patch of unfrozen pond water. Against the pristine white snow, the ducks stood out in brilliant colors. As did some of the photographers! A vivid reminder why yellow is a good color to wear if you want to be noticed… More photos are here.

White

With a tasty morsel in its beak, an egret stands out brilliantly white in the late afternoon light. This was one of many birds that I photographed over a few days in February 2012 while kayaking along the mangrove shorelines of the St. Petersburg area of Florida. Some other bird photos from that trip are here, here, here, and here.

Red

Red is the color of many powerful things, including things infernal. Here is an adorable little devil, on Halloween 2011 on the Upper East Side of New York City. More photos are here, and the story is here.

And now we nominate, in turn, five other bloggers whose photos we much admire (and who, as far as we can tell, haven’t been nominated already) to “Capture the Colour”:

We’d love to see their colors!

(Unfortunately, the contest has a deadline of August 29, 2012—only two days from now. Sorry about the late notice!)

Weekly Photo Challenge: Urban

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Urban.

Two views down the street…

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Merge

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Merge.

Blossoms and stone merge in spring…

Spring 2007 in Central Park, New York City. More photos are here.

A second interpretation of “Merge” is here.

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