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Photo entries. The bulk of this blog, obviously. The best of these are featured on the main web site.
Apr
16
In 2009, at the apogee of fall colors, Marie and I decided to take her visiting mother to the Catskills. Granted, Maureen comes from one of the most stunning places on earth – and I’ve seen my share – but even in Cape Town, one cannot find or imagine the explosion of yellows and reds that daubs landscapes with tones of seasonal impressionism throughout the North American Northeast in fall.
Waterfall along Peekamoose Road
We had stayed up there a few days and on one of our day excursions, we had driven up through mountains on a road funnily called Peekamoose. On the opposite side, just before reaching the flat lands again, the mountain stream that had followed the road like a remora its shark was winding its way along a nice rest area. We had stopped and had a chilly picnic, absolutely charmed by the beautiful stream, crystal-clear and almost as pristine and idyllic as Lynn Creek in North Vancouver (all right, since you insist, please see reference posts no. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7).
So this weekend when urban cabin fever reached a peek and we needed a way out, we rented a zipcar and drove north. There was a slight miscalculation in the distance we’d have to cover to get to our favorite spot but regardless, we made it there. A full day, 300 miles in an Audi with badly aligned tires – probably courtesy of too many flats and not enough maintenance, about an hour spent by the river, a picnic, lots of photos, cool rare forage-able plants and perfectly clear snow-melt water, the roaring sound of which could not downplay the fact that there was nobody around. Bliss.
Now I can last another few weeks of subway delays, soiled sidewalks, stupid car horns, aggressive smells and acts of terror. Soon, it will be dawn in the southern hemisphere again and lions will beat me to breakfast.
I like the way shadows manage to appear on the water with a long exposure
Rondout Reservoir
Looking back and Manhattan from New Jersey’s Palissades
Apr
05
As the mercury topped at 17 degrees Celsius today, it is fun to remember the past chilly days. Here, a walk through Brooklyn’s Prospect Park while a trace of snow lingered on the ground.
Apr
02
Following subdued black and white (re)views of the Big Apple a few days ago, here are fragments of the same surreality, polychromatic this time, clichés impacted into one another by hues of modern design and the very sour stigma of time.
This is 2013 and the eyes of anybody looking towards Lower Manhattan from the four cardinal points of nearby shores collide or flirt – it’s open to interpretation – with the now supreme silhouette of a tall phoenix. Born from its own ashes, 1 WTC nears completion and has overruled the city’s entire touristic court, a king claiming the throne left empty by greed, hatred, conspiracy and the very worse of human traits, ignorance and intolerance. And much suffering by the ones who always do. The innocents.
1 WTC and the lower Manhattan
So there I was, having wheeled myself through underground darkness and below water to New Jersey, looking back at that beast of a city, using my camera as a shield, pushing off demons and calling all angels. I opted for a boat ride back, eager to remain in the light as I circumnavigated the ivory tower back to the warmth of a place called home.
Yet another memorial in Jersey. Strangely, it isn’t aligned with the Tower of towers.
Still, may they rest in the peace we could not grant them
Mirror images – which one is lying?
Making a statement above the World Financial Center
Docking back in Manhattan
The sum of all fears
Liberty Landing Ferry crew member overtaken by grief. Or was it sleep?
Old hulls have seen it all
Your guess is as good as mine
Converging tourist traffic. In aviation, it would be called a near miss.
Even Freedom needs a break
A collage of Manhattan cages
Mar
31
Here are a few glimpses of Manhattan and Jersey City caught this week-end on a small photo excursion.
I was looking for a specific type of water foreground I did not find, it will have to be the Brooklyn Bridge Park next time. For now, some black & white. Color shots will follow.
Manhattan from Liberty State Park, NJ
“My god, it’s full of clouds”
Ferries on the Hudson, a sick twist of fate in the background, like a splinter in my mind
Petrol for police patrol
Mar
25
Adash from Brooklyn into Manhattan’s Chinatown proper, ignoring Queen’s Flushing and the southern Sunset Park areas, always seems to funnel us towards Dim Sum Go Go
There we feast for a bargain, the famous XO sauce throning at the table like an old ally. The beer is Chinese, the service blunt and dishes are ordered by putting check-marks on a photocopied menu with a short pencil as if playing bingo. The fish and crab tank has been empty for many moons and a heteroclite, cosmopolitan and definitely atypical crowd besieges the place. Still. The food is true to itself, always great and simple.
And then there are the streets. Never a dull moment. Colors clash, smells collide and sounds roll and peak.
Getting ready at Dim Sum Go Go
Legend and…
Reality
The losers
Selling Chinatown by the Pound
Best of the best
Tea for two
A book on my mind
Mar
22
If you had a strange dream last night about visiting an island on which stood an old asylum, so dark looking and oddly shaped it belonged in a Jack Nicholson movie, and then walking over to a blinding white marble memorial where sharp lines and murmurs pushed you to seek an escape back across the water on an aerial tramway to a gigantic city and its inhuman skyscrapers, let me just tell you that you visited Roosevelt Island.
Midtown seen from Roosevelt Island
The thin island splits the East River between Manhattan and Queens. The asylum has now been converted to a hospital. Or so they say. Long abandoned, the southern tip has just been turned into a rather empty and modernly artificial-looking park, pretext to a memorial and probably some large bribes.
That day, it was cold. There is so little to look at on the island itself that one mostly looks across the river. And locally we did not find much vegetation to justify the word “park” and soon we were bailing off the island onto another island that would take us back to our own island. You know what I mean. Yes, there is a cable-car in New York. And no, I don’t have pictures of the creepy looking hospital…
Nope, this isn’t Chamonix and we are not headed up to the the top of l’Aiguille du midi… Unfortunately.
On the aerial tram to Roosevelt Island
Cruising towards the United Nations
Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park
Steps to nowhere
Nowhere
Marie out of nowhere
Your typical New York scene; cabs and grayness
The miniature
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