Through the Glass

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Transit of Venus

Today is June 5, 2012, and I have had the good luck to be able to catch the sun peeping out from behind clouds just long enough to be able to capture on camera the event known as Transit of Venus which will next occur 105 years later. Posting some of the photos here. All were taken in Hoboken, NJ with a Canon T1i and a Canon EF 70-300mm EF IS USM lens.

The following are all raw as taken with no postprocessing done:

Here are a couple with some postprocessing done (from two of the above originals):

Cropped from original

Cropped and sharpened from original

Sunday, October 23, 2011

And here is a waterfall...

On June 11, 2011, looking for a brief outdoor excursion to fill an overcast weekend afternoon, I got into a NJT Main Line train at Hoboken Terminal and undertook the 30min train ride to Paterson, NJ, where I walked for 15-20 minutes to reach the Great Falls State Park and see the Great Falls of the Passaic River. My expectations were low, but I was very pleasantly surprised on seeing this unassuming miniature Niagara in practically my own backyard (and which I had been postponing visiting for more than a year). This waterfall is sadly overlooked and not very widely known even in the NYC area despite its easy accessibility and the fact that it is supposed to have the second highest water volume of all waterfalls on the East Coast. One drawback is that there isn't much of a "park" around the waterfall, but definitely worth at least one visit (or maybe even more...I certainly plan to come back sometime when it is frozen over).

Here are some photos I took of the falls that day:

From the overbridge

Close-up of far end with a telephoto lens

View of the falls in Shutter Priority mode with a slow shutter speed

Dizzying telescoping effect

From a distance

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Hurricane in Hoboken

Hoboken before, during, and after Hurricane (Tropical Storm) Irene

The day before:

Trash cans tied down to prevent their becoming wind-driven projectiles

The sky is starting to look a bit ominous....

But someone seems unimpressed

Same here. Come hurricane or tropical storm...

A few feet away, boats in front of City Hall
(brought in to aid rescue efforts, if needed)

The day of the storm:

The most flood-prone intersection in Hoboken

The evening brought some pretty cloudy skies

From the other side of the clouds...

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
From up and down, and still somehow,
It's cloud illusions that I recall,
I really don't know clouds at all

--Joni Mitchell (Both Sides Now)

And I dreamed down at the clouds, and thought that when I was a kid I had dreamed up at them, and having dreamed at the clouds from both sides as no other generation of men has done, one should be able to accept his death very easily.

--Saul Bellow (Henderson, the Rain King)

All photographs taken from airplane windows with either a Canon T1i or a Kodak Z712 (as indicated).