Safe Harbor

One can always find interesting boats moored in the Mystic River, especially in the summer time.

Bridges

These are bridges over the Thames River, looking west from the city of Groton across to the city of New London.  The bridge in the foreground carries Amtrak Trains, and Shore Line East trains, while the taller bridge behind carries I95 and US 1 across the Thames.

Old Lyme Library

I've been going through some photos lately and experimenting with some black and white conversions.  I thought this one works pretty well in black and white.  This looks like a wonderful old library to visit some day.  The day I was there however it was closed.  According to their website, this library was established in 1897 and was later financed with funds from the Phoebe Griffen Noyes Trust.  Phoebe must have had some big bucks back in the day.

Sunrise

Sunrises and sunsets often provide some pretty dramatic colors and also some challenges in regards to the the getting the best exposure.  I was able to capture this a few weeks ago, as the sun rose over Niantic Bay and the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant.

A View from Harkness State Park

Connecticut has some beautiful state parks.

Winter Sky

First Snow III

You might get the feeling that I like snow from some of these pictures.  I'm not really a big fan of winter, cold weather or snow, but it does look pretty for a short period of time.  A couple of days after this picture was taken, the temperatures around here rose into the low 50's, and most of of the snow is now gone.  I don't think we've seen the last of it for this winter though.

First Snow II

I've photographed this bench before from different angles and in somewhat nicer weather conditions.  Park benches in the winter time look lonely and less inviting, even with a light coating of snow.

First Snow

I really can't complain about this winter.  It's been pretty mild so far in Connecticut.  It has certainly been much better than last winter.  Along the coast we were spared the major snowstorm that crippled most of Connecticut the last weekend in October.  Since that time, we've had no snow, and very mild temperatures.   That all changed yesterday when most of the state got hit with a significant amount of snow, so I was obligated to go out this morning to take the requisite "snowfall" pictures.  It only looks pretty for a short time.  Temperatures are due to rise this week and rain is in the forecast.  I'm betting all the snow will be gone by Wednesday, if not sooner.  I'm sure this won't be the last snow we see this year.

Food Court

Like every shopping mall in the country, the mall that was once Pier 17 at the South Street Seaport has a food court with a number of fast food places.  Nathan's Famous is of course famous in this part of the country especially on Coney Island in Brooklyn.  I love their hot dogs, but I wish they'd learn to make decent french fries.  I haven't seen too many Arthur Treacher's  places these days and was surprised to see it here.  I've never developed a taste for fish, either with or without chips.  I didn't partake of any of these fast foods, since I was having dinner a little later in the day at Mark Joseph's Steakhouse, just a few blocks from here, which I highly recommend.

Printing Press

This was taken during a recent trip to the South Street Seaport in New York City.  We were there the last week of December and I've posted some other images from that trip in this blog.  Although the Seaport Museum was closed for the season, there were a couple of galleries and shops open for the holidays, including this 19th Century era Print shop.  The equipment there still works.  It was like taking a step back in time entering this print shop.

Machinery III

I originally posted a picture of this machine here.  This is a close-up shot of that particular piece of machinery.  I can't really take a lot of credit for the post processing I did for this image.  My skills in post processing consists of trying a number of "presets" that are available in the Apple's Aperture, until I find one that I like.  I think a true "artist" would never use some preset, but until my creativity grows, I'll use the presets, and even add to my collection of presets.  I was inspired to do this by a post in the blog Taken for Granted, which I follow.  The images featured some nice black and white conversions of machinery.

Winter Beach

This is view looking east from Harkness State Park across Long Island Sound.  It was too cold to  walk along the beach on this particular day.  The only inhabitants on this day were the seagulls.

Along the White Trail

You might not think it so, but there is a trail here.  The trails are pretty well marked at Rocky Neck, but you really need to keep looking for the markers on the trees.  Leaves obscure the paths and it's often hard to follow if you just look at the ground.

Rocks II

One of the many boulders one sees at Rocky Neck State Park.

View from the White Trail

While walking along the white trail at Rocky Neck State park one can see some nice views of Bride Brook and some of the salt marshes.

Harkness Mansion

This mansion overlooks Long Island Sound and is now a part of Harkness State Park.  It's a popular place to hold weddings and wedding receptions.  As you can tell, I'm still having fun with frames in search of the perfect frame.  For comparison, here is the same picture without the added frame.

There is also a slight difference in how both these pictures were uploaded to this site, which I won't go into here.  I just wanted to see if there is a difference in image quality.  There doesn't appear to be.

Something Different

I follow quite a few blogs, and I'm always looking for ways to improve not only my photography but also how I present my pictures.  I don't know anything at all about HTML and how to use it to prepare fancy websites.  I've dabbled a little bit with Apple's iWeb program, and have prepared some webpages and web galleries from within Apple's Aperture but that's the extent of my current knowledge of website creation and design.  My current blog is all created within Google's Blogger, which is somewhat limiting in how pictures are presented and formatted.  This is an attempt to present a framed picture, along with captions, and EXIF data, all done within Aperture, and then uploaded to the blog.  The frame and captions were all created in the plug-in BorderFx and it didn't take too much time to do.  The beauty of this is now I have a template which I can apply to any picture before uploading to the blog and I don't have to type all the EXIF data, or any other metadata I would like to add.  I'll probably tweak this a little bit until I'm satisfied with how it looks.  I'm not sure if the frame/border actually adds to the picture or is more of a distraction.  I might try a much more simple frame

Fence

Rocky Neck State Park

I'm still learning about photography and have been taking pictures with my Nikon D90 now for about 2 years now.  Before that I used a Canon G1.  I think the current model of that particular Canon is now the Canon G12, giving you some idea of how far digital photography has come since 2001.  Of course one thing that all photographers know about is how the aperture controls the depth of field, or in other words, how much of the picture appears to be acceptably in focus.  Whenever I see repetitive pattern like the fence shown above, I think to myself, "let me practice controlling the depth of field, by varying the aperture."  This is just one example.  The results were not as dramatic as I had hoped, but I think you can see there are a number of posts which are acceptably in focus:

AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED, 105mm,  f/5.6, 1/160

Speed Limit

Rocky Neck State Park

Actually this road is closed to motor vehicles at this time of the year.  I doubt anyone would be exceeding the speed limit.

Parking Lot

Rocky Neck State Park

It wasn't very crowded on a somewhat nice winter's day.

Bride Brook

Rocky Neck State Park

Here are two views of Bride Brook taken from a recent hike along the White Trail at Rocky Neck State Park.  The weather has been unseasonably warm for January and I'm enjoying the nice weather as long as I can.  I know it's not going to last much longer. 

Rocks

Rocky Neck State Park, Niantic, CT

If there is one thing we have more than enough of in the great state of Connecticut is rocks.  They are everywhere, especially popping up right where you really need to dig a hole for some reason.  I've always been fascinated by rocks and geology.  These particular rocks were found along a trail in Rocky Neck State Park.  They're covered with moss and lichens, which is why they appear so green.  I'm pretty sure they're granite gneiss.

Warning!

Rocky Neck State Park, Niantic, CT

I'm not surprised.  

Winter Sky

Rocky Neck State Park, Niantic, Ct

The setting sun made for some dramatic skies on a recent Saturday in Rocky Neck State Park.  I still struggle getting the correct exposure on such scenes.  

Harkness State Park

Waterford, Ct.

No Swimming

Harkness State Park, Waterford, CT

This a view of Long Island Sound from Harkness State Park.  We've had some very mild weather for this time of the year.  This day however was bitter cold, with a stiff breeze.  Still the sun was shining and it made for a great day.

Water Street

South St Seaport, New York, NY 

Happy New Year

Harkness State Park, Waterford, CT

I'm not sure where this road goes.  I also don't know what 2012 has in store for me.  Here's wishing everyone a very happy and healthy 2012.  May you keep all your New Year's resolutions.  One of my resolutions is going to be take better photos.