By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Sky, and the Weekly Photo Challenge is Let There Be Light! Putting the two together—
Crepuscular rays, also called “Backstays of the Sun” and even “Fingers of God”. Let There Be Light, indeed!
Posted in Nature, Photography
Tagged Clouds, Crepuscular Rays, Let There Be Light!, Photography, postaweek, postaweek2013, Sky, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Fragrant.
It’s not even Thanksgiving, but the first Christmas decorations have already made their appearance in NYC store windows, so it’s not too early for this post…
No plastic Christmas trees for us. We always have a real tree. Plastic trees can look pretty, but lack an essential element of Christmas—the fragrance of a real tree, especially when that fragrance is released by the heat of real candles…
More photos from Christmas 2011 are here, and from Christmas 2012 here. Looking forward to Christmas 2013!
Posted in Life, Photography
Tagged Christmas, Christmas Tree, Christmas Tree Candles, Fragrant, Photography, postaweek, postaweek2013, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Short.
Compared to the Red Herring (a Feathercraft Heron kayak, 17′ 7″ long, on the right in the photo below), the Baby Vulcan (a Feathercraft K-Light kayak, on the left) is absurdly short for a sea kayak—only 12′ 10″.
It must have looked ridiculous when I paddled it, as I did for years.
But Johna finds it to be a fun boat around town
and quite capable of crossing the seas…
Posted in Kayaking, Photography
Tagged Feathercraft, K-Light, Photography, postaweek, postaweek2013, Sea Kayak, Short, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Delicate.
I wanted to come up with a Fall photo, but “Delicate” keeps suggesting Spring…
… and we do have readers in the southern hemisphere :-)
Posted in Nature, Photography
Tagged Delicate, Photography, postaweek, postaweek2013, Spring Blossoms, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Stone.
Kayaking along the glaciated shores of Long Island, Block Island, and Cape Cod, it’s hard to miss the many glacial erratic boulders that dot the shoreline. Some are cool green stones awash in the sea. Others, more exposed, are the favorite perches of cormorants and human fishermen…
(click on any photo to start slideshow)
By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Brown.
I do like bright colors. So I thought this challenge would be difficult. But not at all. It turns out that many of the animals I have photographed over the years have preferred brown…
(click on any photo below to start slideshow)
Posted in Nature, Photography
Tagged Animals, Brown, Photography, postaweek, postaweek2013, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Deep.
You never know how deep it is until you wade in…
New York City, December 2010. More snow photos from that winter are here and here.
Posted in New York City, Photography
Tagged Deep, New York City, Photography, postaweek, postaweek2013, Snow, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Height.
When returning to New York City by plane, I always try to sit in a window seat. And these days, I look not so much at the land below, but at the water. One of the great pleasures of landing in New York is recognizing from above all the waters where we kayak, the bays and islands that we now know so intimately.
From a kayak, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge appears gigantic—look how it dwarfs Fort Wadsworth to the right of it, itself a massive structure…
… but from the air it is just a toy.
Here’s the southwestern tip of Staten Island…
… Gowanus Bay with the Loujaine
… and finally, the East River and its bridges!
Posted in Kayaking, New York City, Photography
Tagged Air Flight, Airplane, Height, New York Harbor, Photography, postaweek, postaweek2013, Sea Kayaking, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
Or is it Saturated Relaxing?
In any case, The Daily Post‘s Photo Challenge this week is Saturated, and Ailsa’s on Where’s my backpack? is Relaxing.
And the two came together very nicely yesterday, on the first day of Oktoberfest in one of the few remaining beer gardens in NYC.
Full story is here.
Posted in New York City, Photography
Tagged New York City, Oktoberfest, Photography, postaweek, postaweek2013, Relaxing, Saturated, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
By Vladimir Brezina
Ailsa’s travel-themed photo challenge this week is Relaxing.
On a paddling trip, we don’t paddle all the time…
Regarding the last two photos… we do seem to have a knack for finding, in the unlikeliest out-of-the-way spots, on tiny deserted islands, chairs.
We call them “dictator chairs”. We’ve probably all seen somewhere that iconic photo of the dictator—well, a would-be dictator at that stage—seated on a cheap plastic chair in his hideout in the jungle, flanked by menacing bodyguards with machine guns and mirrored sunglasses. (So as not to offend any dictators that might be following our blog, I’d better not show any particular photo of that kind here.) The first time we saw one of these chairs, on a little island, that was the image that came to mind. The white plastic chair gleamed in a sinister manner against the dark undergrowth. There was no dictator or bodyguards, but the chair was surrounded by a luxuriant growth of poisonous plants. And it did have a lovely view out over the water…
Posted in Kayaking
Tagged Kayak Camping, Photography, postaweek, postaweek2013, Relaxing, Sea Kayaking, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge
... 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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