Capture This, Photography

I have photographed this tree several times over the years. You can see 2 of those shots here and here. This tree stands alone in this spot which is just a little spit of land , a jetty more or less, that sticks into the bay across from NY in the Atlantic Highlands. You used to be able to go onto the jetty but they recently replaced the fencing and gates which now extend into the water preventing access, unless you don't mind getting wet to get there. I shot this from a restaurant parking lot that is adjacent to the jetty.

NIKON D700
1/500 second
Tokina 80-200mm f2.8
F/8.0
ISO 200
100 mm

Labels: birds, D700, Landscape, trees, winter

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Bird Feeder

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I took this in the Great Swamp a couple of weeks ago in a light snow storm from an observation blind in the Great Swamp Wildlife Refuge.

The birds kept flitting back and forth and it seemed no matter how quiet I tried to be they sensed it as soon as I raised my camera and darted away. I was hoping to catch them in flight as they went to the feeder. But I did not have any luck with that.

I had been trying to catch this Blue Jay for quite some time but he was too fast and by far the most cautious. Just as I was about to give up and move on I caught sight of him coming back to the feeder so I raised the camera to the viewing slot and grabbed this one shot just a split second before he bolted again. I stayed a bit longer but pretty soon I got too cold to stand still so I moved on.

I did not have my long lens on at the time since I had not planned on taking this type of shot which might have worked better with the longer lens. I had set out that afternoon with other ideas in my head.

The cold weather brings lots of photo-ops but I find it difficult to stand still long enough to get the shots I want. I am not a fan of cold weather.

NIKON D700

Nikkor 28-70mm f2.8

1/250 second
F/2.8
ISO 200
70 mm

Labels: birds, D700, Landscape, New Jersey, winter

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Garden Bench

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This is another shot from Breuer Hill - built c. 1800 in Princeton's Battlefield-Stony Brook Settlement Historic District. I just love benches. I do spend more time photographing them than actually sitting on them.

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News:

This photo of the Bucknell Football field is a 2 page feature photo in the Fall 2008 issue of Bucknell Magazine.

This photo of the Bucknell Quad is a 2 page feature photo in the Summer 2008 issue of Bucknell Magazine.

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As of July 2008 I have decided to post the same photos on "Parallel Universe" as I do here. It has become too complicated to maintain two different photoblogs on a regular basis. Feel free to visit "Parallel Universe" and look through the portfolio/archives since there are quite a few photos there that were never posted here. I will continue to post on both since each one gets different viewers. I have also changed the title of Parallel Universe to Capture This Photography 2.

Check out my other Photoblog portfolio/archives:
"Capture This Photography 2"

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Labels: D700, Garden, Landscape, Princeton

Friday, July 25, 2008

Just Five More Minutes

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This is also from Marsh Creek. It was shot at about 8:50 PM in the last few minutes of waning light as I was walking back to the car after the Park Rangers had come to chase us all away. I would have loved to just sit there a few more minutes. The girl standing in the water was reluctant to leave as well. Who could blame us?

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News Flash

This photo of the Bucknell Quad is a 2 page feature photo in the Summer 2008 issue of Bucknell Magazine.

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Labels: Lake, Landscape, Park, Pennsylvania, sunset

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Dockside Dusk

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This is another shot from Marsh Creek Park taken at about 8:45 PM about 15 minutes later than the previous photo. I love how the color shifts at dusk. It's like an ever changing painting.

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Labels: Lake, Landscape, Park, Pennsylvania, sunset

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Do Not Disturb

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This was shot last Friday evening at about 8:30 PM in Downingtown PA. I went to the Eagle Gallery to see Betsy Barron at the opening of her group show. She is such a sweet person and just a pleasure to meet. I really enjoyed talking to her and seeing some of her beautiful prints. They are indeed beautiful.

She told me about this beautiful little park that is just around the corner from the Eagle Gallery and she mentioned that sunset is particularly beautiful there. It was late but I caught a little bit of light and a few photos before the Park Rangers chased us out. Some day I will have to go back.

I found this little birdhouse with it's lovely view of the park to be quite amusing with it's "Do Not Disturb" warning penned on the outside. There were several like it with #'s. I do not know what kind of birds are or were nested in them. They certainly had some prime real estate with great views though.

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Labels: Lake, Landscape, Park, Pennsylvania, sunset, whimsical

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Finding Peace Under the Old Tree by the River

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This is an old gnarly tree along the riverbank in my little Mohawk Park. It's a lovely little spot, so serene and peaceful. It's the kind of place that I could easily sit and read, or just let my mind wander.

Wow...10 days since I posted last. Well, it's been kind of busy here. I always say that things will calm down soon but they never do. I will try to catch up with everyone in a few days.

Rob will be home very soon, exactly when? I still don't know. I have a link to the incoming flights and the welcome ceremonies. There are now 5 listed in the next 10 days or so and more are added regularly, but I don't have a clue which one is Rob's. They said they would let me know as soon as they could. I'm really hoping I can be there when he steps off that plane in Georgia!

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Labels: Landscape, Park, River, trees

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Finally Snow! 4

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This is probably the last photo I will post for this series. Once again it is from Hoffman Park. Now I am not certain but I believe the low building on the right is for the cattle to seek shelter in times of extreme weather. I walked over and there isn't much left to the lean-to type shelter but it definitely looks like that is what it was used for. If someone knows better please let me know so that I can offer the correct information.

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Labels: farm, Hoffman Park, Landscape, New Jersey, snow, winter

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Finally Snow! 3

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This is a view of Hoffman Park from up at the entrance taken from the parking area looking toward Manny's Pond on the left and Heron Rd. in the middle of the frame. Off in the distance, after the tree line, and before the mountain on the left you can see Spruce Run Reservoir. The farmhouse from the previous photo would be over my right shoulder, behind, and above me.

I rarely saw my Aunt's Farm in winter since she spent her winters in Florida and Nassau in the Bahamas. We only spent summers there when I was little. In fact I actually don't remember ever seeing it with a blanket of snow. The transformation is wonderful!

My Aunt and Uncle started aquiring properties in the county in the 1930's. They would lease the land to farmers for livestock (cattle) at a monthly per animal rate. They owned land in four other townships in Hunterdon County as well as in Florida and the Bahamas. My Uncle was one of the Hoffman's from the Hoffman Beverage Company from many years ago.

As I have mentioned before here, the farm and her other properties in the county were transferred to the county by my Aunt with the stipulation that it remain "pristine parklands".

If you would like more information about Hoffman Park click here.

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Labels: farm, Hoffman Park, Landscape, New Jersey, snow, winter

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Finally Snow! 1

Finally we had a real snowstorm! I am not a big fan of winter but I figure if it has to be cold and dreary at least let there be some snow. I got my wish Friday and so did the kids since school was canceled because of the snow.

This was shot in my own backyard on Friday while the snow was still lightly falling. I managed to get out Saturday and take a ride in the country for some more winter scenes. The snow was indeed beautiful but I was hoping for the sun to make a late day appearance to shine some golden light on everything. That never happened as it remained very gray all Saturday. I still managed to get some halfway decent shots from my travels. I will be sharing them over the coming days on both of my photoblogs.

I am hoping that this afternoon I will have a chance to get out and get some photos of the snow in some late day sunlight. It looks promising right now. I just hope the skies co-operate later.

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Labels: Landscape, plants, snow, winter

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Abandoned Mill Near Princeton

This is from a couple of weeks ago. It was taken on a chilly winter morning near Princeton. It was really cccold that day and I was having a hard time finding inspiration and motivation to shoot.

I've been really distracted lately with lots of stuff going on around here. It's been difficult to focus on photography lately and to find the time to get around to visiting all my photoblog friends. I must apologize. I keep thinking I will get caught up but it just isn't happening right now.

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Labels: Landscape, mill, New Jersey, River

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Maple Ave.

This is just something that caught my eye somewhere in Hunterdon County. I liked the combination of the colors and the stark whites in the stone. I was at te bottom of a small hill near a river looking up and the little vignette caught my eye so I took a quick snap.

I have been really, really busy lately. I was working on a few things to do with the Youth Orchestra and a Music Camp that the director runs in addition to the usual craziness that goes along with having busy teenagers.

Jon has some exciting news...Last Saturday he auditioned on Viola for the Central Jersey Regional Orchestra and made it! His audition was pretty solid too. He scored in the top 7 out of 34 in sight reading, which he thought he was not very good at. His overall score was 191 out of a possible 300. The high -low score range for the kids who made it was 242-134. He made the Symphony Orchestra 14th chair out of 16. They have a string only orchestra that took an additional 12 kids. So out of 28 kids he was 14th overall.

Auditions were open to all music students 6th-9th grade (depending on the instrument) in Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Somerset and Union Counties in Central Jersey. There were about 700 students trying out for one of 3 ensembles; Symphony Orchestra, String Orchestra, and Band.

Rehearsals start this Saturday, and the concert is in March, so he's going to be a pretty busy kid for the next few weeks. (Sorry for the brag.) Unfortunately I will not be able to take photos since they hire a photographer.

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Labels: Landscape, nature, plants

Monday, January 21, 2008

East Point Revisited

This is a shot from the archives that I found when I was doing some housekeeping on my computer. It was shot at the same time I shot the East Point Lighthouse series last June. Its a really beautiful place and I met this gentleman in the early dawn hours of what was a pretty overcast morning when I was there shooting. He said he comes there every morning with his coffee and his dog saying that there was really no better way to start the day. I can see why. I would love to be able to start each day in such a peaceful and tranquil spot, but this place is about a 2 1/2-3 hour drive from me.

It was a pretty busy weekend. I didn't do much shooting for the blogs. I did shoot a concert and might be able to post some of those. I did post one from a concert last week on Parallel Universe which can be seen here if you are interested.

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Labels: beach, Landscape, New Jersey, people

Friday, January 04, 2008

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

I'm not kidding! The last 2 days have been cccold! It didn't get out of the 20's...Brrrr! I know it's pretty "normal" for it to get that cold, but I don't have to like it!

My internet was being funky for a few days. My router burned out and was seriously limping until yesterday when it wouldn't hold a connection for more than 5 seconds at a time...fun! Anyway I got a new router and I'm back in business so I will be catching up with everyone soon.

This photo was actually from a few weeks ago, but it really fits considering how cold it is. This is one of the paths along the Rahway River in Mohawk Park after an ice storm. It was a little scary walking there because you could hear branches starting to give way to the weight of the ice. I decided to stay on the wide paved path.

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Labels: Landscape, winter

Friday, November 09, 2007

Autumn

I want to thank everyone for all the well wishes on Rob's welcome home post. It really means a lot to him and to us. It is just so good to have him home. I have been and intend to continue to spoil him rotten while he is here.

His first order of business when he got home was to kiss the Missy (his cat) and take a real shower. I am happy to report that he is quite well and hasn't seemed to have changed a bit. It took him all of about 30 seconds to settle in and pick up where he left off. He is tormenting his brothers once again, all in good fun. He's taken over my office and set up both of his computers next to mine on my desk...I'm not so sure about that one! Good thing I have a big desk!

I hope everyone has a great weekend. It promises to be a busy one for us since we are also celebrating Jon's Confirmation this Sunday and having lots of family and friends here to join us in our multi-faceted celebration.

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Labels: Fall, Landscape, trees

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

More Power

This was shot a couple of weeks ago up in Northwestern NJ near the Delaware Watergap. The fall colors were really starting to show although it's not really obvious in this photo. I took this from the car because I had seen this cyclist coming up the path and wanted to get him in the shot so I didn't have time to get out of the car to get it. There was only time enough to pull over and shoot out the window.

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Labels: Fall, Landscape, New Jersey

Monday, October 22, 2007

Happy Birthday Rob!!!

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1(800) IM AWARE

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http://www.cancer.org

Today, October 22nd, is Rob's 22nd birthday and he is celebrating it over in Iraq. He is supposed to come home in a few weeks for R&R and we are so excited to be expecting him home soon. We miss him so much.

So Rob if you read this just know how much we love you and miss you. We think of you every day and pray for you every day. You are a true hero and we are so proud that you are our son.

This is a photo to remind Rob of home. It is the woods near our home where he sometimes played when he was a boy. If I had a scanner I would have scanned a cute picture of Rob from when he was a little boy. He was so cute!

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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month so I just wanted to remind everyone of the importance of regular self exams, mammography, and anual checks by your doctor. For more information here are several links:

Please pass on this information to your family, friends, and co-workers. It's very important and could save the life of someone you love.

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Labels: Landscape, New Jersey, Park

Friday, October 12, 2007

The Quad at Bucknell

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On Monday we took Russell to visit Bucknell in Pennsylvania. It was unusually hot but not unbearable, just strange. The campus is quite pretty although there was very little fall color to enjoy.

Russell definitely likes Bucknell and will be applying there. At this point he is pretty much on schedule as far as the college process goes. He has narrowed down his search and we only have to focus on a couple of "safety schools" now. He has picked his "likely" schools and a "reach" school or two.

This is the quad at Bucknell. The building in the distance is the library. I shot this at about 5 pm after the info session and tour were done and we were heading back to the car.

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Please pass on this information to your family, friends, and co-workers. It's very important and could save the life of someone you love.

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Labels: Architecture, colleges, Landscape

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Foggy, Smoky Morning in Ft. Benning

This is a shot taken as we were leaving Uchee Creek campgrounds where the cabin we stayed in during our visit to Ft. Benning GA was located. The campgrounds is part of the base and is actually located in Alabama. Ft. Benning is both in Alabama and Georgia.

During our visit there was often a thin veil and sometimes a thick veil of smoke shrouding the area. My son said it was because they were doing controlled burns in order to cut down on the chance of wildfires later on as the warmer dryer weather approaches.

This particular morning we were treated to some mist mingling with the smoke over the marsh. Unfortunately it was the morning we were leaving to come home. This was actually shot from the parking area of the camp store. I grabbed this shot while Mark dropped off the key to the cabin. I had no time for a tripod, or to look for the best vantage point, and could only take a few quick snaps before jumping back into the car for the 19 hour ride home.

The rest of this post is really long, even by my standards, so bless you if you read it all the way through. It covers the details of our visit with Rob. Much of what is written here was also on my other photoblog, with slight editing.

The visit was wonderful and the boys fell into a routine of being brothers within minutes. I got lots of snapshots of them together, but not much in the way of photos that I will post. I never did get to do the family portrait I had wanted to get, but oh well. The boys didn't want to pose and Rob was being his usual when it came to the camera. He hates having his picture taken so suffice it to say the snapshots of them playing cards and just hanging out are good enough.

The first night there we spent in a local hotel. The remainder of the visit was spent in a pretty nice little cabin at the campgrounds that is located right on the base. The cabin had both heat and central air, a kitchenette and large bathroom, a master bedroom and bunk beds in the living area for the boys. You have to be military or military family to use the cabins.

The only problem, which wasn't really a problem, and was actually kind of cool, was that the airfield was just the other side of the campgrounds which made it interesting since we were often in the flight path of some very large, very loud military aircraft. The Airborne jump school is on Ft. Benning. The planes came so low that the shadow covered the cabin and when you looked out the window it appeared as though they were almost skimming the pine trees. Fortunately it wasn't constant and only occurred a couple of times at night and early morning when we were sleeping.

I wasn't able to take many pictures on the base for obvious security reasons and I didn't even try since I was unsure of where it was ok and where it wasn't. I figured better safe than sorry and limit it to the places I knew would be ok like the campgrounds. Even so, I didn't take that many photos. I was really too busy running here and there getting things taken care of.

A lot of the photos I took were on the dull side. It was somewhat overcast and the entire area was shrouded in a thin veil of smoke much of the time that we were there. They were doing controlled burns all around in Georgia and Alabama, which was actually where the campsites were. Ft. Benning is in GA and AL.

We didn't have time to explore much outside of Ft. Benning either. The only thing we really saw were tons of shopping. Strip malls with chain stores and restaurants were everywhere. I've never seen so much shopping outside of the cities in one place in my life. It was big box store and discount store heaven.

There were more restaurants than I can count all of which were along the lines of the chains like Applebees, Chilis, Ruby Tuesdays, Outback and others that are found down south. My stomach is paying the price for it all. It was hard to find "healthy selections" at these restaurants and we only BBQ'd at the cabin a few times.

The visit ended much too soon and was emotionally draining when it was time to drop Rob off at his apartment for the last time. He had to run up and get me some papers for me to take home so that I could look after his affairs while he's gone. After he gave me the papers, we said our heartbreaking, tear filled goodbyes and had a silent ride back to the cabin which is nearly a 30 minute ride.

When we got back to the cabin I took the packet of papers to file them away with all the other papers I had. I opened the packet and in with the assorted pages was Rob's Will. At that point my heart tore in two and I lost what little composure I had left. I couldn't stop crying and it still brings on the tears to think about it. I had refused to think about that possibility but that document haunts me now and has forced me to think about the previously unthinkable.

To avoid thinking about Rob leaving I did most of the driving on the way back to NJ from GA. I probably should have split it more evenly with Mark since I think I really overdid it driving more that 13 of the 19 hours. But it was the only way I could keep my mind off things especially after Rob called us late afternoon when we were driving to let us know that he'd been bumped up yet again and was leaving in only hours. He was going to be boarding the plane before we even made it home.

I have actually spoken with Rob on line twice since arriving home, thank God!!! I know he is safe at least for now. He has sporadic internet connectivity, but we will take what we can get. Thank God he brought his laptop!!! I spoke with him Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning.

There is a bit of good news though. For those who may remember the ongoing saga of our leaking underground heating oil tank, the light is blaring at the end of that tunnel. We were told that the water samples all came back clean!!! That is really excellent news since it means that all that is left is one more sample in 3 months, which should come back clean. This means no well to monitor the water so we can start to put the property back together and repair all the damage done by the remediation. The homeowners insurance adjuster came out today to look at the property and see what repairs will need to be done, which includes our driveway, the curbing along the driveway, front steps, walkway, sidewalk, and repairing the landscaping. At least that nightmare is pretty much over. I'm sure the neighbors will be happy as well, since our property looked like hell for so long, a little over 1 year in fact. I will be so happy to have a real driveway again and no more mud, huge holes, and smelly piles of contaminated soil!!!

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Labels: camping, fog, Landscape, Rural, sunrise

Friday, February 23, 2007

Revisiting the Great Swamp

I've spent a lot of time this week revisiting the archives; tossing some and selecting some that I like for posting and or printing. I have so many photos and I never looked that closely at a lot of them. I think what would happen is one or two out of twenty really grab my attention and make the others seem less worthy. This was one of those shots. It was taken at the great swamp the same day as this and this.

I'll be rather busy the next few days I've got a lot of projects to finish before going to see Rob next week, so I may not get around to visit as much, but I will try.

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