An Early Christmas Meal in Astoria

A hawk that I have seen flying around the area decided to drop in on us last Sunday morning 12/23/07 but was kind enough to bring his/her own food. It was early, overcast, raining and the light was not great but I managed to grab a few shots with the only long lens I own from my kitchen window. We think it is a either a red-tail or goshawk but don't know for sure so if there are any bird watchers out there let us know.

In and around the hood

Astoria/LIC

Downtown NYC is where I work and spend the bulk of my days but Astoria/LIC is where I live. Aside from the rich ethnic tapestry of this place there are some pretty amazing places in this part of Western Queens and a major part of the reason I like living here. Interspersed among my "city" shots there are always a few "neighborhood" shots generally captured on the way in or back from work. I will be dropping those shots into this collection as well as some other weekend rambles that don't necessarily fit in on some of the other plog themes.

Stop in now and then ...

The first two are recent shots of a neighbor's front yard that I grabbed on my way to work in the morning - it is one of my favorite front yards on the block.

Rainbow over ChinaTown

Near the tail end of my day on the 18th I grabbed this shot from my window.
Too bad they have put this anti-blast/uv film on them.

Fireworks show on the East River - July 4th 2007

If the slide show does not run click on this pic:

04July07

Postcards from the road #3 & #4

Spent two fun filled days in Montreal - the fireworks show was across the river from our hotel in the suburb of Longueuil - a 20 minute metro ride away from downtown.

The Montreal Jazz Fest kicked off on our last night in Montreal. Too bad we had to leave the next day ;-( !

Postcard From The Road # 2

We stayed an extra day in NH and did a lake cruise to try and beat the heat.



Two and half hours on Lake Winnipesaukee was a welcome relief ;-)

Postcard From The Road #1

Greetings from the road!

Had a great weekend on The Cape. In NH today - may stay one more day, otherwise it's on to Montreal.

Bonne Chance et ....

Bonn Voyage - Bob !

PickPocket

PickPocket

A Garcia for Father's Day with a pocket for a pick or maybe even a blunt ;-)

re: the butterfly shots

One of my favorite places to visit in Aruba is a small but very productive butterfly farm between Eagle Beach and Palm Beach. If you go it will cost you $13 US but the ticket is good for the length of your stay. I went on two separate days. The butterflies are the most active in the morning and less active in the evening. As for equipment used I try to keep things simple. All the shots were hand-held (no tripod) at anywhere between 400 - 1250 ISO and the lens was a 50-200mm F4 Pentax zoom on a K10D body. Noise was cleaned up in Photoshop w/minor brightness & contrast corrections as needed. If you want to know the names you can go here:
http://www.thebutterflyfarm.com/

They have a nice photo gallery with the names. Without a doubt the one that impressed me the most was the Atlas.

Thanks for all the questions - really!

Aruba 07 - Small Format Slide Show

This is a nice little feature that comes with Picasa Web Albums.

Aruba 2007

Click on the picture to see the collection in larger format.

Greetings

Welcome to the "poppimatny" blog. My Picasa and DotPhoto sites will be cross linked to one another by way of this blog and others that I have in the works. The first 2 posts are linked to one of my Picasa sites where I have uploaded a collection of images from our vacation to Aruba last month.