Tag Archives: Photography

Once More Round Manhattan

Posted on April 30, 2012 by | 18 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

When the tide or the weather doesn’t cooperate or we simply can’t think of any other trip we’d rather do, we default to paddling round Manhattan. It’s our version of the run round the park. Yet no matter how many times we repeat it, each time we see something new. Manhattan and its waterways look different on a cold, dark day in January and on a mild gray day in March. And they look different again on a beautiful, bright blue sunny day at the end of April: here is a slideshow from yesterday’s Manhattan circumnavigation.

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18 Comments

Posted in Kayaking, New York City

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Together

Posted on April 27, 2012 by | 77 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Together.

And even though I’ve posted them already, not too long ago, I just have to use these—

The full series of photos is here.

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Other nice “Together” interpretations:

77 Comments

Posted in Nature, Photography

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At the Bottom of the Food Chain

Posted on April 24, 2012 by | 32 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

In the harbor ecosystem, kayaks are definitely at the bottom of the food chain.

Still, sometimes they remind me of those frisky little mammals scampering under the feet of the great lumbering dinosaurs…

Continue reading →

32 Comments

Posted in Kayaking, New York City

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In Memoriam

Posted on April 22, 2012 by | 30 comments

By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina

The old World Trade Center…

It was the posters that finally made it real.

Everyone has a 9/11 story. Mine isn’t all that exceptional. I was in Midtown Manhattan that morning, preparing for a sales trip to New Jersey. I’d been awake since about 2 AM, working on a project for work.

… and the new World Trade Center

When the sirens first started, I didn’t think much of it. At least at first. But they kept going… and going… and going. Finally I looked out of the window and saw the column of smoke rising into the clear pale-blue air—and realized something serious was going on.

Then I turned on the TV and saw what everyone else did: the smoke, the helicopters, the collapse of the towers one by one.

Continue reading →

30 Comments

Posted in Architecture, Art, Culture, Life, New York City, Society

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Sun, Take Two

Posted on April 21, 2012 by | 29 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Sun. I’ve already posted one response, but here’s another one.

Here comes the Sun!

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes

But you never see the same sun twice…

Two successive sunrises at Amelia Island, Florida. More photos are here.

29 Comments

Posted in Nature, Photography

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Sun

Posted on April 20, 2012 by | 34 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Sun.

Suspended lion face
Spilling at the centre
Of an unfurnished sky
How still you stand,
And how unaided
Single stalkless flower
You pour unrecompensed.

The eye sees you
Simplified by distance
Into an origin,
Your petalled head of flames
Continuously exploding.
Heat is the echo of your
Gold.

Coined there among
Lonely horizontals
You exist openly.
Our needs hourly
Climb and return like angels.
Unclosing like a hand,
You give for ever.

Philip Larkin, Solar

(Cape Cod Bay, July 2011; more photos are here)

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My second interpretation of “Sun” is here.

Other nice “Sun” posts:

34 Comments

Posted in Literature, Nature, Photography

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Two Subjects, Take Two

Posted on April 14, 2012 by | 16 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Two Subjects. I’ve already posted one response to this challenge, but I can’t resist having another go.

A few days ago we had occasion to take the Circle Line boat ride around Manhattan. The boat was packed. I came ready with my camera. But I couldn’t decide whether to focus (figuratively as well as literally) on the magnificent sights of the city coming into view one after another, or on the activities of other passengers. They, too, were snapping photos of the sights but even more of each other…

You just know what is to the left of the frame in the next photo, don’t you?

That’s right—the money shot!

16 Comments

Posted in New York City, Photography

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Two Subjects

Posted on April 13, 2012 by | 39 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

This week’s Photo Challenge is Two Subjects.

Irresistible force meets immovable object!

Two of my favorite subjects, the ocean and the city, come head to head: huge storm surf batters San Juan, Puerto Rico, in March 2008.

More photos as here.

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My second interpretation of “Two Subjects” is here.

Other nice “Two Subjects” posts:

39 Comments

Posted in Photography, Travel

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Beastly (and Avian) New Yorkers

Posted on April 11, 2012 by | 12 comments

By Vladimir Brezina and Johna Till Johnson

After more than 15  (Johna) and 20 (Vlad) years living in New York City (in Vlad’s case, just one block away from Central Park), we finally managed to visit the Central Park Zoo.

The Central Park Zoo was New York City’s first zoo, starting in 1859 as a menagerie of exotic animals given to the Park. (Nowadays, owners of exotic animals that have grown uncomfortably large for small New York City apartments are too impatient for donation: they simply dump the animals in the Park—that’s how we get alligators in the sewers…) The zoo is small (6.5 acres) but manages to house a surprisingly large number of animals—we didn’t get to see even half of them—in “natural” enclosures, some of them walk-through, that do not feel at all cramped.

As it turns out, the Zoo’s inhabitants are some of the most quintessential New Yorkers: The birds and beasts embody all the characteristic New York attitudes, from vanity to boredom to slit-eyed suspicion.

Continue reading →

12 Comments

Posted in Nature, New York City

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Spring Blossoms Catch the Evening Light

Posted on April 8, 2012 by | 16 comments

By Vladimir Brezina

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
……………………………….A.E. Housman, from A Shropshire Lad
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OK, the cherry blossoms are already mostly over at Easter in this remarkably early Spring. But there were still plenty of trees in bloom, or with the first tender green leaves just appearing, as I walked out with my camera a few days ago at sunset …
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New York City’s Central Park, April 5, 2012
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16 Comments

Posted in Nature, New York City

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