despite being mainly jammed, the brooklyn queens expressway is just because of its very impressive construction worth a drive or at least a visit from underneath. leading parallel to the brooklyn bridge park, which is still under construction, the partly three-storey section of the interstate 278 is supposed to provide an exceptional view across the distributary of the hudson river to downtown manhattan. so you are at least well entertained, while being stuck in traffic jam.
single speed
the first little series will be about new york's transportation system and how i perceived it... most people have to go by foot at some point; because buses, trains, subways and even cars don't deliver you directely into your destination. accordingly, the streets are incredibly crowded most of the day, especially at rush hour before 9am and after 5pm.
despite the lag of space and elbowroom a great many cyclists populate the city. they steer their mostly single-speeded bikes well coordinated, extremely speedy and with skilful manoeuvres around the other traffic participants. of course this would be my preferred way to move in nyc.
since i have visitors at my place till sunday, i'll be more detailled from next week on.
nyc heart
with this 'vintage-nyc-skyline-with-handmade-heart-shot' i send you a first, ultra-short message, that we arrived back at home safely and give you an optical résumé of the trip: the expectations, which i'd tried to illustrate in the last, also heart-related photo before the vacations, were definitely surpassed.
from tomorrow on i have to work off the bunch of decent photos and prepare different sets of images - i'd like to publish the best in three to five series of photographs during the coming two weeks. besides that i want to report on a few talks with other photographers in the city and maybe my experiences with their equipments, too.
so long!
dear readers,
writing this i'm logged off for some days; from work, usual duties and also from blogging. only my girl and my camera will accompany me to the city, you might easily guess on the basis of today's image. see you again next wednesday, you might expect some great photographs, at least i do!
cheers!
“away until 20130508 ”
fox on the grid
fox, you've stolen the goose | give it back! | give it back! | or the hunter will get you | with his gun, | or the hunter will get you | with his gun.
his big, long gun, | takes a little shot at you, | takes a little shot at you, | so, you're tinged with red | and then you're dead. | so, you're tinged with red | and then you're dead.
dear little fox, let me advise you: | don't be a thief, | don't be a thief, | don't take the roast goose, | be content with the mouse. | don't take the roast goose, | be content with the mouse.
[german children's song]
half-time hope from the kitchen
last and this week's tuesday and wednesday are completely characterised by the champions league semifinals here in europe, where the best two german teams - borussia dortmund and bayern munich - compete against the best two spanish clubs, real madrid and fc barcelona.
today we were invited to watch the return match madrid vs dortmund at our friend's place: despite the draw at half-time (dortmund won the first leg with 4-1) we all didn't feel comfortable with the score. and the very thrilling last ten minutes of the match with two goals against borussia showed us, why. nevertheless dortmund wound down the clock and because of the aggregate result 4-3 they deservedly entered the final at wembley stadium!
burning time
we recently got a lot of time. since time is rare these days, this half-hour sand glass gives you a reasonable amount of time to do whatever you want. and the time seems to smile at you, too.
no pinhole
today is the last sunday in april and as i realised incidentally, today is also the world pinhole day 2013.
unfortunately on the fly i didn't find the time to plant myself and contruct a decent pinhole cam or body cap, but i at least decided to exclusively use the fujian cctv lens today. although it cannot be really used as a pinhole, its capability to be stopped down to almost infinity encouraged me to test the lens at very, very, very slow apertures.
well, my résumé: next year i'll participate in the competition with a fancy self-made pinhole film camera... only then i'll be able to have a voice in the chapter. the two samples with extremely slow respectively fast aperture below, that were composed without any artistic ambition, were shot in quick succession, with the aim to reach approximately the same exposure value, and only converted to b&w in lightroom without further post-processing.
classic beauty
normally i'm not a big fan of flowers, but this singular tulip, that was shining brightly in the evening sunlight, attracted my unrestricted attention. it stands in front of our house, on the south side, directly facing the sun. until today it's a lone fighter in the middle of grass and greenery, in the coming days a great many sisters and cousins will consort with the red tulip, though.
break
muse is a thing, that goes short these days. however that may be, i wasn't sad about being roused from my day dreams while padeling home today in the evening. an incoming call made for a short, relaxing break from my routine.
only because of this constrained break i was forced to lift my head and study my current surrounding extensively. a break in weather was approaching.
it was definitely a good moment to take a break from monotony of everyday life and turn to muse, on the waterfront as well as on the water.