on their best day, new york city street fairs are a bit seedy and depressing, with their “professional vendors” selling block upon block of socks, knockoff purses and fried food. But if you want to go for truly depressing, set up a giant, 20 block long “festival” and watch as half the vendors don’t even show up because it’s rained for most of the day, leaving vast open swathes of curb between booths, while the few vendors who do show up (of course, only the hardcore professionals, not any of the local artisans), stand huddled under their rain-sagged canopies.
(I have a discontinued Nikkor 35-70 f/2.8 zoom lens that also has a macro option (my old boss, a nikon fanatic, convinced me to get this lens when they were killing the model, because it’s so awesome). I almost never take it off of my camera, even though it weighs about 800 pounds.)
This week’s homework involved learning more about depth of field, and how the aperture works to create different depths of field, which can have a certain artistic value. The assignments were:
1. recreate an in-class exercise (the “marker” exercise, whereby objects of a similar size were lined up behind each other) where (a) all of the objects are in focus and (b) only one object is in focus
2. creative assignment with depth of field – pick a scene and shoot it with shallow depth of field and deep depth of field.
I was originally going to use this time and temperature photo as my 365 shot, but I liked the marrochino a bit more. Today was absolutely gorgeous. perfect temperature, low humidity, bright blue sky. It’s the kind of day we only get a few times a year in New York, but it’s days like this that make me love walking around the city.
Today I joined the brooklyn by bike crew again and we rode from Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn to the Velodrome in Kissena Park, Queens, where they were holding the New York State track cycling championships. We were originally supposed to go yesterday, but the rain pushed us back a day, and it was definitely the right decision, as today was absolutely gorgeous out. Some photos below. Video to follow at a later date, after I’ve gotten some sleep and edited the video of the races in a way that makes them not nonsensical.
On the way back to brooklyn, we took a little detour off of our path to also visit Flushing Meadow, running into lots of police for the US Open (all of whom were very friendly and helpful in directing us out of their traffic “calming” maze), and the Unisphere. Which I realized I had never seen up close before, despite the fact that I grew up near new york and have lived here for over ten years. It’s stuff like this that makes me love these rides.
Last week’s episode of Mad Men focused, in part, on the planned destruction of the beaux-arts masterpiece that was Penn Station in favor of the horrendously ugly madison square garden. Considered one of the greatest architectural travesties in the history of New York City, not even an adman as great as Don Draper could sell the “futuristic” MSG believably. I wasn’t even alive when they tore down Penn Station, but I feel the loss every time I see a photo, or have to take Amtrak. And they’re still trying to fix the error by reshaping the companion post office across the street as a “new-old” railway terminal (one which faces endless delays in its own right).
But the one good thing that the travesty gave us was new rules regarding historic preservation in New York City. Which is the only reason that the New York Central Railroad wasn’t able to do the same thing to Grand Central Terminal (and yes, there were plans on the books to tear that one down as well). Instead, the station was renovated and renewed, and is now considered one of the crown jewels of New York City architecture, one of the most beautiful train stations in the world, and one of my personal favorite places to go. Sometimes I just stop by when I’m in the neighborhood to stare at the ceiling. One of my favorite birthday dinners ever was a spur of the moment decision to eat at MJ’s steakhouse, sitting under the great ceiling. The food was fine, but the atmosphere was what couldn’t be beat. The Summer Streets events that just concluded here in NYC afford pedestrians and cyclists a unique opportunity to stop and take a lingering look at portions of the great station that otherwise go by as a blur in a taxi window.
Now, if only something could be done about the monstrosity of the MetLife building in the background.
this year, I decided to take a trip to governors island for the fourth of july. It was really just because it was a beautiful day, I had been dying to see what they had done since last year, and all the rain has prevented me from a really good bike ride for almost a month (speaking of which, I have to re-break-in certain parts of my body, again! which sucks). Anyhoo, for future reference, I would most vociferously advise against picking a route to the ferry that involves going anywhere near battery park on the fourth of july. between the concert they were setting up (and the requisite temporary gates) and the fact that this was the first day in almost 9 years that the crown on the statue of liberty was open, it was a bit of a madhouse.
But, I did do my part as an ugly jingoistic american on this independence day by yelling indiscriminately at tourists to get out of my way.
The island itself was a pleasure – not crowded at all, lovely to ride around, and the entire thing is open this year (unlike last year when the back “half” was closed off) – it’s now got a nice picnic area as well as a freshly paved bike route. Lovely.
On Saturday, I rode with the brooklyn by bike crowd out to floyd bennett field. I’ve still got to organize my (very few) still photographs and put a map together, but here’s the video from the ride! (Best to watch in HQ):
