Enjoy

Enjoy, but do it safely. Happy New Year!

Rusty wall

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone has a pleasant and safe holiday. Celebrate the season!

Tiny Christmas trees on the Erie

A cold morning and a dusting of snow. Christmas is only a week away.

Tree line

Glass

Believe it or not this is glass. A piece created by Dale Chihuly, the rock star of the art glass scene. The close-up shot (the object is about three feet in diameter) clearly demonstrates that glass can take almost any form and be beautiful, if not a bit erotic.

The object is on display at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York. It is a place that only seems to get better with each visit. A unique mixture of art, history, architecture, science, technology, demonstration and more. They are presently working on yet another expansion that will be uniquely almost completely glass... walls, roof and all. It will glow inside during the day and glow outside at night. I am looking forward to visiting again in the spring.

Glad it's not winter yet

Winter is still ten days away, but the snow decided to come anyway.

On the way to work it was quite pretty... a nice cover in the trees. Like the oak tree above. The oaks hold on to their orange leaves longer than most so we see a bit of color still coming through.

At the end of the day I found my MINI Cooper buried in the snow as you can see below. I was glad I had put the snow brush in the car.

Contrail

I don't often see these condensation trails high up in the sky but when I do I am fascinated by them. I wonder what the view must be like from up there.

Snow blanket slide

From this image we can deduce two things: melting snow likes to stay stuck together, and this table is not level.

Open

Thanks for Justice

Saratoga Automobile Museum

Long Alley

Snow bike

Sunny tree snow

We spent some time over Thanksgiving with family in Saratoga Springs NY, which is a great place for photo opportunities, especially on a sunny morning after some nice fluffy snow.

I'll have a few more posts this week.

Birch

Dusk at the pier

Fence and tree

First snow

At least the first snow cover this season in 2014. It is still a bit too warm for it to stay for long, but there is more on the way... up to six inches over the next 24 hours.

The first few snowfalls are kind of nice, seeing the autumn mix with the winter, but after a month or so it gets pretty old. But that is life in western New York, so we make the best of it.

Shoot the moon

I wasn't going to post this as it was just me playing with my old EF 75-300 lens (at 300 mm) plus a Tamron 1.4 tele-extender and some cropping. On my MFT camera I calculate an effective focal length of 840 mm equivalent (but I am not very good at math).

But the apparent Rosetta Mission landing on a comet got me thinking... we can look to the night sky and fathom the concept of going to the moon, but thinking about landing on a relatively tiny object that we cannot see (unaided) that takes ten years to get to? It is really beyond believability.

PS: As usual I have added the location GPS coordinates but "moon" only came up with Moon, PA (who knew?).

Canal Lamp Inn

Red, white and blue

In pictures like this it is sometimes hard to determine scale... but I can tell you that the wheel chocks are 2x4's.

Hydrangea

I like making pictures of hydrangea. I think it is beautiful all season, from the pastel blossoms in spring, to the deep Wedgwood blue of summer, and the faded purple colors of autumn. The look in late fall is particularly interesting with the plant showing the effects of a fulfilled season and inevitable decline to dormancy. This last phase is perhaps the best episode of all.

Stonegate Lane

Rainy season

Of course after rainy season comes snowy season. The wet and cold weather does present photo ops but I am usually not so adventurous to explore for pictures unless there is some comfort involved. If I am on the way to work in my car, then I am reasonably comfortable, but there are not many unique photo taking options.

The gold tree

Autumn scene

Autumn out my front door

I believe I have posted similar shots of my view out the front door before, but in winter or spring. It is autumn and I need to get back to making new pictures rather than processing and posting photos from China. Fall is really a great time of year here in Western New York and it does't last that long, so I need to take advantage.

Luxury

Stairway to the second level of an upscale shop in Beijing. I don't remember which top designer, but the name and store would be right at home on Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills.

Twisted texture

Unnoticed

Light in the window

I said I was done with my pictures from China, but as I wade through the many photos captured, I have found a few more to share. No stories, just pictures.

Well, there may be some stories too.

South of Seneca

South of Seneca Lake is Montour Falls. I took a look at the high rock face cascade but found the view across the street more interesting. The pillars on both buildings are round but made of brick, which is unusual.The larger building is the Montour Falls municipal offices and the smaller was originally a bank but now serves are the public library.

Also south of the lake but closer to shore is Watkins Glen, which my previous post addressed. The autumnal picture below is another view from the park trail.

The Glen

Watkins Glen State Park is said to be the most popular state park in New York... and I guess it is for good reason. Walking the glen is pretty easy and also pretty rewarding.

There are 19 water falls within the couple of miles of trail. But also more than 800 stone steps... each way. And also a lot of eroded rock.

Farewell China

This marks the end of my China posts (OK, there may be a few more at some point) but this is number 17 in the series... more than I anticipated at the start.

At the beginning of this series I promised to not include the typical tourist photos, but I am not sure I have succeeded.  Undertaking a trip like this means focusing your time on the "must see" sites, which does not allow a lot of time for more interesting, beyond the obvious, picture taking.

It was a fantastic experience, a once in a lifetime, that I will forever remember,

Forbidden

The Forbidden City is no longer forbidden, you just need to pay the entrance fee.

It is a fascinating place... a few facts:

• The world's biggest ancient palace
• China's most popular tourist attraction
• Almost 600 years old
• A UNESCO World Heritage site
• Contains the largest collection of ancient wooden structures in the world
• It has 9,999 rooms (only heaven has more... was thought to have 10,000 rooms)

There were crowds of tourists (many of them Chinese) but I was lucky enough to capture these images with only a hint of the throng.

The Great Wall

The challenge of photographing well known, iconic places, is finding a unique perspective. In the end perhaps it is not worth trying. Maybe it is best just to open your eyes and enjoy being in the moment

Fresh fish

Grocery shopping is a bit different in the everyday markets of Beijing. Perhaps the fish are fresh, but there seemed to be an absence of refrigeration, which seems troubling. But it does not seem to bother the neighborhood shoppers.

Panda

I guess no trip to China is complete without a visit with the giant pandas.

Tang Dynasty Show

Our travels in China included a few shows that were really quite spectacular. At times I though that perhaps we are gone though a black hole and ended up in Disney World EPCOT. It is interesting that Disney has done such a marvelous job of imitating the exotic world that the world now seems to be an imitation of Disney.

Terracotta Army

The story of the terracotta warriors are pretty well known, but I was surprised to learn that these ancient relics were discovered less that forty years ago after being buried well over two thousand years. A farmer was digging a well and came upon a terracotta head. Chinese archaeologists began to investigate ultimately finding many thousands of sculptures at the site. That farmer is still alive and spends his days at the museum signing books for tourists (yes, we bought one).

The scale is impressive as was the number of visitors viewing the ruins as archaeologists continue to (literally) put the pieces together. The picture below is of only one "pit"... there are three others, but they are smaller.

Curious burial

There is mystery around the hanging coffins that can be found along the rivers in China. No one seems to know exactly how old they are, and even more perplexing, how they were placed in such precipitous locations hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

Dragon