Since I’m still way behind and it’s the middle of May, I’m going to go by month, so this will be the best of April.

 

April 3 – You’d better be a pretty good driver to maneuver something like this vehicle in a lot like this:

 

April 4 – I won’t tell you what I first thought when I saw this:

 

April 14 – Two views of a heavy-duty crane:

 

See what it’s carrying? It looks like a concrete room:

 

April 15 – At the crew’s Tax Day party, the DJ holds up his favorite record:

 

This looks like the guy we saw on April 4 with the pipes………

 

“Gotta keep those local photographers from seein’ what we’re doin’ in here.”

 

A pretty tree sprouts from an excavator:

 

April 17 – Two views of the man on the corner of Main and Passaic streets:

 

Yet a third view of the same man, PLUS…….two cement mixers, a cement pumper AND my apartment (on top, way in the back):

 

A very similar view to the shot I ended my previous post with, but this one is closer and excludes the cement pumper:

 

 

April 19 – A grave for the world’s tallest person? Actually, I have to pair this shot with one I took 6 days earlier (top image):

 

Some rebar:

(In case you get thirsty lugging all that iron around…….)

 

April 22 – Another truck I can’t imagine having to back into this lot with such precision:

A little more rebar:

 

April 23 – Here’s a white cement pumper that appears to be taller than the buildings on the horizon, which are (upper left): St. Joseph’s Church on Palisade Avenue in Bogota…….and behind that are hi-rises that sit on the Palisades in Fort Lee and Cliffside Park overlooking the Hudson River (there’s an entire valley between the church and those hi-rises):

 

April 24 – The Rebar Family poses for the tripoded camera:

 

Someone’s trying to move in already? (BTW – the moving company is called “Piece of Cake”):

 

The reason I took this picture of the orange crane that’s attached to nothing is because of the blue crane, which belongs to an entirely different project: that black-and-white building that’s on Passaic St between Main St and River St:

It advertises itself as a luxury building……………how many of those have you ever seen located right next to a McDonald’s?

 

Meanwhile, back at our project, up pops a stairway to……..Komat’su?

 

 

April 25 – Doesn’t this cement pumper seem to be taking two wildly different routes to get to the same place?

 

Meanwhile, the mighty cement mixer’s connection to the huge cement pumper doesn’t seem to be “chute”-ing very much (third pic…………little blue pill time?).

 

Looks like they got things going…………

 

The …um, “receptacle” gets a needed shower…………..and look at all that “spillage” on the ground!

 

April 26 – Headless/handless worker still gets the job done:

 

I thought this was just an odd-lookiing gas pipe, but it was a concrete pipe used for storm water that has since been removed and replaced with a plastic pipe (good thing I asked). Thanks, Chris.

 

 

The right-to-left movement of this dark form was way too slow for video, so I hope these 3 stills suffice (click to enlarge):

 

I think this was the same piece’s final destination:

 

or maybe it was here (they all look the same to me):

 

I happened to be on the site recently when it was pointed out to me that this was a container of fuel for all the site vehicles, so they wouldn’t have to drive an excavator around town to look for a gas station:

 

I really liked the light and shadows on this one (though the sky’s color is a little weird):

 

April 28 – Peekaboo!

 

That looks comfy……..

 

April 30 – This shot of the rebar section was taken from the State St perimeter:

 

And this one was taken from a few feet north of that location:

 

This was taken from the northernmost corner of the site, right next to the businesses on Main St (you can see the wall of one of them on the right):

 

 

APRIL’S GRAND FINALE

Top half: Orange Jacket and Green Vest are having an animated discussion about who’s king of this hill:

Bottom half: Green Vest retreats to his excavator while Orange Jacket struts around his kingdom, not noticing that Green Vest is about to grab a chunk of mountaintop that’ll send Orange Jacket to Kingdom Come:

(Hey – When you really have no idea what’s going on, you have to make up stories to fit the pictures – and to keep yourself amused.)

 

Next up: May in June

 

 

I have a feeling that there may be less to see in upcoming months as verticality increases, but stay tuned…………you never know.

 

 

 

…………………     .         (ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on December 30, 2021)

 

 ………………….

 

Light – where would we be without it? For one thing, I’d be out of a job and since there would have been no reason for eyes to evolve, we’d all be eyeless mole people living in the ground.

No thanks.

Seeing things is great, but photographing things as they’re never seen in nature is a lot more fun (“Whut the hell IS that thang?”) and creatively inspiring.

And you can do it with practically nothing. In the above picture, I’m sitting in my car in 1975 on a dark street in Bergenfield, NJ, waiting for someone to wrap up a visit to someone else. There’s NOTHING to see except darkness………….and a street light.

Here’s the story from my site:

What could this possibly be? Simplicity from boredom is a good guess, so here’s the story:

One night, someone asked me to drive him to someone else’s apartment where he would ‘only be a minute’. I didn’t like his friend, so I waited in the car. ‘A minute’ became 15, then 30. I had my camera with me, but could see nothing to shoot but a streetlight, so I put the star filter on the lens and took the top ‘+’. I then forwarded to the next shot without advancing the film, so I could double-expose the same frame of film.

I then guessed where that first ‘+’ was in the viewfinder and lined up the second ‘+’ where I thought the 2 vertical components would meet and took the second exposure. Of course, I would have no way of knowing if I was successful or not until it was developed, so – hey, why not go for 3?

I then gave the star filter 1/8 of a turn to make the ‘+’ an ‘x’, forwarded without advancing the film again, and lined it up where I thought the second ‘+’ would bisect the new ‘x’, fired away, and wound up with a lucky triple-exposure of guesswork from a simple street light.

Don’t believe it? You can see the same telephone wire to the right of the light in each exposure.

 

You have to be REALLY bored to come up with something like that, but I like the result, so I kept experimenting……………and not always with success.

I started taking pictures while I was driving at night in places where there were lights, like the George Washington Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel and midtown Manhattan:

Ehh – not so hot………..motion worked against me.

 

So I decided to try “waste shots” at the end of film rolls, using longer exposures to let motion work to my advantage – hopefully.

Here’s Waste Shot #1 and my site’s story:

Lexington Ave., Clifton, NJ 1980

Why is this cool-looking shot a ‘waste’?

I had just finished shooting a show at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic. After a show, I usually went to the Kodak plant in Fair Lawn, NJ to drop off my film in the night box before I went home.

If there are still a couple of shots left on a roll in my camera after the show, I hate to not use them, so I ‘waste’ them by taking strange open-shutter shots as I’m driving to Kodak.

In this one, I was stopped at a red light, holding the camera on the dashboard. Just before the light turned green, I opened the shutter.

The red lights are the brake lights of the car in front of me. The white lights are the headlights of the car in the opposite lane. When the light turned green, he took off and you can see his headlights driving by me.

In the greenish lights on the left, the vertical word ‘DINER’ can be made out. This is the Lexington Diner.

This shot is my favorite waste of time.

 

Kinda cool………….let’s try something different:

Route 4 West, Paramus, NJ 198? (Kodak date stamp too faint)

(My second-favorite waste of time). This one had a bit more danger involved. Instead of holding the camera on the dashboard while the shutter was open, I held it out the window, aiming at the store and highway lights on the eastbound side and turning my arm in the semi-circular pattern seen in the photo, while driving in the fast lane (at the posted 50mph limit, of course).

The wind almost tore both the camera out of my hand and my arm off. I also stood to lose all the good shots (most of what was in the camera) from whatever show I just shot.

What a waste that would have been and what a waste this is.

 

Here are a couple of old stills. Back to a street light……….this is an old one I saw in Hawthorne, NJ that’s nicely iced:

 

Also in Hawthorne, I shot an ex in 1980 playing with a sparkler while jumping in the air:

 

I think I shot these lights at the Meadowlands Race Track:

 

Not far away from there on Rt 17 in Hasbrouck Heights, NJ, was a bowling establishment called Eclipse Lanes. In 1982, I took a longish, hand-held exposure of their “Eclipse” sign (with bowling pin) and – because trying to hold it steady for the entire exposure would probably result in a shaky picture – I instead immediately moved the camera downward, so the lights would streak upward on film, which looks more interesting than a shaky, unsharp picture (at least I hope it does):

 

In 1998, I shot the moon seemingly about to drop out of a hole in the sky, while it reflects on the Atlantic Ocean at Emerald Isle, North Carolina:

 

One thing I really enjoy shooting are images where the lights of moving vehicles “paint” on the film during long exposures (and mostly shot from my living room).

Fire engines – with all their lights – are great for that. In this 2007 shot, a fire engine was parked in the lot below my window (bottom of pic) and then suddenly exited (see the “bumpiness” in the lights as it hits the street), going the wrong way up a one-way street (a quicker way back to the firehouse). This was published in (local paper) The Record:

 

Same street, but going in the correct direction:

 

I’m standing across the street from my building as another fire engine whizzes past the church next door:

 

Since cars are more plentiful than fire engines, I get plenty of practice with them -ESPECIALLY on Christmas Eve (?) Figure it out: I have churches that hold 8pm Christmas Eve services on either side of me and a big municipal lot below me right between both churches.

In this shot, cars that find no open spaces in the church lot to my left, cross the street to park in the municipal lot:

 

In these two shots – taken on different Christmas Eves – the caption on the first one tells you what the photographic attraction is when they go around corners in the lot:

 

But the absolute king of all these Christmas Eve parking lot shots is one I took the very first December 24 that I tried doing this. Mind you – this first one is a 2017 makeover of the original, which is right below the story (too bad I didn’t have PhotoShop in 1992):

 

This is one of my favorite pictures. My living room picture window faces a big municipal parking lot behind my building. Is there anything more boring than a picture of a parking lot? Yes! – taking that picture at night.

I have a Christmas Eve ritual unlike anyone else’s. On either side of my building is a church and both of them hold Christmas Eve services that begin at 8pm. Between 7:30 and 8, lots of cars pull into the central lot to park on the half that’s closest to their church.

Meanwhile, I’m 7 floors above them with my camera on a shortened tripod that’s perched on the window’s wide shelf. The camera’s shutter speed is maxed out at 30 seconds.

Did you ever see pictures of highways taken at night and all you see are solid streaks of red taillights or white headlights? Those are time exposures in which moving lights basically “paint” on the film while the shutter is open. That’s exactly what I’m doing here.

However, unlike a highway with a steady stream of cars and their lights, this is a lot more difficult because these cars are entering the lot sporadically and I have no idea where they’re going to park. When one car pulls in, I have to hit the shutter as soon as it does, because I’m hoping that it goes the length of the lot and turns one way or the other to park one lane closer to their church within those 30 seconds. That means that I’ll have a good shot in which white headlights turn into red taillights.

If the car parks right away in the central lane, I’ll have a short, boring, white light path.

This guesswork goes on fairly intensively for a half-hour and if I shot a full roll of 36, I’d be lucky to have 3 really good ones.

1992 was the first year I tried it and, although I’ve continued every year since, this shot from that initial year is by far the best I’ve ever gotten: two cars pulled in almost back-to-front, traversed the entire central lane and pulled into spaces in the opposite outer lanes (gotta love the semi-symmetry) – all within the 30 seconds and both providing nearly-perfect white-to red-transition (with some yellow sidelights connectivity).

It has been suggested that the car being driven on the side street maybe belonged to an atheist, but it’s clearly pulling into the parking lot. And what looks like a scratch in the upper left is actually light from the path of a plane that had just taken off from LaGuardia Airport in NYC.

And lest you think that I selectively hand-colored a black-and-white image to set off the car lights and the Peruvian restaurant in the background, take a look at the below pic. That’s the original 1992 slide. It took me a LOT of hours to remove all the other color, but I finished it in January, 2017, so it’s my 21st century makeover of my 20th century photo.

BTW – if you look closely, you can see some light glare in the original that reminds me that I never even opened the window to shoot that night. And if you’re wondering why the red taillights on the car on the right fade and then get brighter, the driver hit his brakes to park. It’s a little less obvious in the car on the left.

And if you look REALLY closely, you might find midtown Manhattan and the Empire State Building along the horizon that was curved by the fisheye lens.

 

Just one more moving car lights pic and long, boring story – this one from 2007:

 

This was probably the most experimental, time-consuming and slightly dangerous moving-lights shot I came up with during my short burst of semi-creativity (and will take the longest for me to cram in all the detail here – most of which will only be relevant to those familiar with the location), so here goes:

I was driving eastbound on Route 4 in Paramus, NJ, during daylight hours and right after I went under the Garden State Parkway overpass, I noticed a giant Ferris wheel to my right in the parking lot of the Garden State Plaza mall – a carnival was being set up.

I thought that it might be an interesting shot if I took it at night from the higher Garden State Parkway: it would include the carnival and Ferris wheel lights and all the moving car lights in both directions on Route 4.

So I picked a night, parked some distance from the Parkway, and lugged my equipment up the hill to the roadway, which turned out to be partially blocking my view of the scene I wanted. There was no other way up the hill on the other side of the roadway, so I climbed back down and trekked up Route 4’s westbound lane until I was directly across the highway from the carnival.

There was no room to back up………….only just enough room to set up the tripod and steady it against the guardrail, which you can see in the bottom right. You can also see how close the speeding cars were.

The curvature of their lights is due to the fisheye lens, which I needed to get everything else into the frame, including the highway signs (note Garden State Parkway logo in upper right), the Parkway overpass, the white headlights of cars coming down a Parkway exit ramp to head east, and, of course, the carnival.

The higher red vehicle lights are probably from a truck or bus.

I was VERY happy with the outcome – especially given the semi-dangerous (and LOUD) situation, but it wasn’t terribly unlike shooting an outrageous heavy metal concert.

 

On a somewhat similar note, these two moving light shots are train-related, but don’t show any trains. You’ll have to read another long, boring story that I think is worth it (of COURSE you do, Bob):

(from 2007) After my comparative photo malaise of the previous few years, I woke up and revived/refined my love of capturing moving night lights – something I attribute to shooting fast-moving/changing concert lighting for a couple of decades.

The trigger? Washing the dishes in my kitchen sink one night. (what?)

There’s a commuter railroad line that’s about 3 blocks away from home that I can see from the window above the sink. This night, I looked up when I heard a train’s horn in the distance and saw the blinking lights of the two gates as they lowered to block traffic. This had to have happened in the spring before all the tree foliage came in – otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to see them.

As you know, the gates straddle the road and start in an upright 12 o’clock position. The left one goes from 12 o’clock to 3 o’clock as the right one goes from 12 to 9. The light on the tip of each gate does not blink, while the other two do.

All of a sudden, I immediately pictured in my head exactly what those quarter arcs would look like on film in a time exposure. I had to try this out, but it would take a little research.

The street I selected was a commercial street (more lights!) that was a block away from the one I saw from my kitchen. It’s also where the train stops at a station. I looked up the train schedule for the time that would have the most trains in the shortest period, so I wouldn’t have long waits between them.

I was trying to figure out when I would start the exposure before the gates started coming down. That was practically impossible, but then I realized that I could accomplish the same effect by starting the exposure on the other end – when the gates were opening after the train left.

This was a lot easier to do because the rear of the stopped train was visible and I just needed to count the seconds between when the train started to move and when the gates started opening. Since the camera would be on a tripod, I had to add a couple of seconds to account for the camera’s timer that I need to use in low light and maybe add a couple more seconds just to be sure.

All of this added up to about 15 seconds. Since I was using a 30-second exposure, that would allow the now-moving cars’ lights to paint on the film and add to the moving gates’ lights paint job. That wouldn’t have happened with closing gates.

OK – I’m now ready to try all this out live…………and here comes a train.

As soon as the gates went down, I ran out into the street and set up the already-camera’d tripod on the center stripe of the road, frantically framed the scene to include where the gates’ lights would be going, set the timer and rested my finger on the shutter button.

I noticed that the drivers in the stopped cars that were nearest to me were looking at me like I was nuts. Maybe, but we’ll know for sure when the film gets developed.

The train starts to leave the station, I start to count seconds and hit the shutter, which opens two seconds later. The gates are still down – good. Then they rise and cars start whizzing by me on both sides…………IT FEELS LIKE IT’S GONNA WORK!

And it did – perfectly. The only flaw was that one of the blinking lights on the left gate wasn’t working. You can see the tracks and a bit of bumpiness in the cars’ lightpaths as they cross the tracks.

This is exactly the picture that popped into my head while I was in the kitchen washing dishes. It’s also a scene you’ve encountered a million times in your life, but have never seen this happening this way right in front of you. THAT’S what I love about these shots.

Oooo…………I wanna do more.

 

Actually, I got something similar 4 years later from my roof. Mercifully, the story is quite short.

This is the scene I saw in my mind from my kitchen sink in my 2007 post about waking up photographically. This is similar to the image I created back then:

 

For this final grouping – moving carnival rides’ lights – I’ll ditch whatever stories may be associated with these pix and just say that if you want to capture some REALLY cool shots, just go to a carnival with lots of rides……….at night. Bring a tripod and do long exposures:

 

 

Last-minute addition (thanks to a light bulb going off over my head just before I posted this):

Way back in 1977, I took this picture of the lighthouse in New Haven, CT. Although its light appears to be very bright at dusk, it’s actually not on!

It’s the sun and I shot it in late afternoon, stopping the camera down to make the light fit in its “container”.

As I wrote elsewhere: “Maybe I’m now starting to be creative instead of just observant.”

By the way, I asked the New Haven Preservation Trust when was the last time this lighthouse’s beam shone: “1877” was the reply, meaning that exactly 100 years later, I may have been the only person to have shot it “lit” once again!

 

And on THAT self-congratulatory note, it’s time to sign out (I’m feeling a little light-headed), but I’ll do it with – what else? – light:

 

(It’s a tiny flashlight with a red plastic cap, camera on tripod, timer on, write your sig at the camera – in the dark, of course – and flip the result.)

 

 

This just in………..VERY LATE ADDITION!

The below first comment of a remembrance means I forgot an important moving-lights shot that was entirely my own creation  – sorry, E!

The story:

These are my LONG-time friends, Frank and Elaine O’Toole. I was trying out a new long-exposure-painting-on-film lighting effect I came up with that involved someone dressed completely in flat black – including ski mask – who was standing behind them and moving a handful of Christmas tree lights in a circular motion. Pretty technical, huh?

I had an upcoming rooftop session scheduled with Dee Snider’s Widowmaker band and this was the test run………and this came out MUCH better. I love this shot!

(see subsequent second comment)

 

 

And lastly:

 

                                        HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

 

And thanks for another year of putting up with whatever spills out of my head.

 

(Can somebody please clean up this messy brain-splat?)

 

 

 

 

 

……………………………………….(Ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on January 14, 2022)

 

Here’s the second half of 2021’s “Best of” output (the first half is here: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=13592) and here’s the explanation from that post:

As you may know, I started doing these bi-annually last year because it’s WAY too big a job to do once a year. It’s not that I take SO many wonderful pictures – it’s just that I take a LOT of pictures (almost 6,000 from January through June) and it’s quite time-consuming to go through them all, pick out what I like, watermark them individually (no batch-watermarking – every watermark has to be placed in different parts of each image), run them all through a file-size-reducing program, write everything up and post the pictures sequentially. It takes about a week to complete.

Posts like these help explain the blog’s name. I still write a good number of music-related posts, but I AIN’T JUST MUSIC.

That said, it’s time to prove it.

NOTE: But before I do, I just found a folder with some first-half-of-2021 images that were supposed to be posted, but never were, so let’s get that out of the way.

Two from Teaneck:

 

Three from Main St, Hackensack:

 

Two images from just off Main St (click to enlarge):

 

Since their customers depend on bus schedules, shouldn’t a bus terminal have accurate clocks? You can see what time I took the picture:

Eh………it’s only a couple of hours off.

 

Front and rear views of this under-construction building:

 

It may not look like it, but the metadata says that these two shots were taken only 8 minutes apart:

 

The tall buildings are in Manhattan, the crane is in Hackensack and the vehicular traffic is between them on Route 80:

 

So much for the leftovers………….

 

To make things a little easier this time around, the sequence will be by month instead of month and day.

 

JULY

As usual, most of this post’s pictures were taken from home. There’s just SO much to see from here that I’m still seeing new things to shoot every day. How many people can say that after living in one place for more than 33 years?

A little locational background: I’m the 7th-floor tenant in a 6-story apartment building (separate unit on the roof) that occupies the NW corner of a square block in Hackensack. My LR window faces what’s behind the building, including a municipal parking lot that takes up over 50% of that block……………not very exciting-sounding, but you’d be surprised what I can capture from here with my camera.

Here’s that newly-redone lot during some rain (click to enlarge):

 

I can also see Manhattan 10-12 miles ESE from me from 59th St down to the World Trade Center, the Pulaski Skyway that runs from Jersey City to Newark 15 miles south of me, the Watchung Mountains 10-15 miles west of me, the Ramapo Mountains in New York State 15 miles north of me and the top of the George Washington Bridge 7 miles east of me (but only when the leaves are down).

Seven floors up is high enough to see all that, but close enough to see the faces of the people walking around the neighborhood. Can’t do that in a high-rise.

I took this picture combo from my LR. I saw a drone flying around the parking lot near the building on the SE corner (upper right) of the block. I had no idea why it was there or who was controlling it until a few minutes later when I looked closer to my building and saw some Svengali levitating it with his hands:

You don’t see that every day.

 

Hackensack’s July 4 fireworks were cancelled (again), but you KNOW that doesn’t stop some people from shooting off their own, as someone did about a block-and-a-half away:

 

There were a bunch of lesser displays in the parking lot and I found this in the lot the next morning:

 

While out on a walk on the Hackensack River Walkway, I encountered this:

Geez – couldn’t they just put up a simple barricade if they didn’t want us to walk there?

 

I saw this guy near the Walkway:

 

I was stopped at a traffic light when I saw and shot this:

It looked bad initially, but it was probably just hot paving tar.

 

Recent self-explanatory housewear:

 

These were my parents’ heavy copper bookends:

 

Sunshots through windows:

 

Visitor on my LR window:

 

This sequence took place on a day when the new lights for the renovated parking lot were being installed:

 

And a week later:

 

 

WHEELS – lots of these (besides cars) since the lot was re-done………July’s haul:

 

This was just laying on the new lot surface – 7 floors down:

 

Bike-jacking in progress:

 

That must an awfully heavy store circular to require a shopping cart:

 

Multi-tasker:

 

Father-daughter collision course? (I’m just making stuff up):

 

Daredevil kid:

 

Aren’t you supposed to be riding these things?

 

My watermark gets noticed:

 

Bringing up the rear:

 

 

PEOPLE

 

Oops!

 

Working on the lot renovation:

 

Traffic light destruction and theft right in front of a cop!

 

How about some shade for the kids?

 

Two red guesses why this is a very contented baby………..

 

Peeping Tom!

 

WHAT is she wearing?

 

Tug of war:

 

No………top to bottom, no:

 

She could get her purse picked and never know it:

 

Folding the laundry:

 

Is Dad offering a bribe to unhappy kid?

 

Adoring eyes………..

 

I have no idea what made him laugh (my watermark placement?):

 

It sure ain’t the beach, but it looks relaxing:

 

I’m trying to think of a comment that excludes the word “three”:

 

 

MULTIPLES

 

For the most part, this is an extension of the PEOPLE category.

 

(From a block away): A front-loading dumpster dumper…………..check out the bottom of the dumpster:

We’ll see this dumpster again.

 

I’ve photographed this woman before, walking around the lot and yelling into her phone while gesturing wildly, usually after church services on Sunday:

Just found the videos of her I shot in June and July (shaky, but crazy – crank up the volume): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhdpNxez6aQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nwEtUq41L8

 

I don’t know for sure if it’s the same guy top and bottom, but it’s the same building (and the same build) and he wears the cap the same way:

Dunno what the container is for, but these were taken exactly two weeks apart on a Friday (garbage day?).

 

Dribble-rolling down the street:

 

Just 3 random guys crossing the lot………..the first one’s getting rained on, the middle one should probably be in the WHEELS section (but he only has one) and the third guy’s telling his friends about the other two guys:

 

These were taken 3 minutes apart. The bottom substance looks more like mercury than water:

 

Coming and going? Nah – I just flipped one of them:

 

I kind of knew what the second shot would be when I took the first one (click to enlarge, but don’t show his mother):

 

You CAN show her this much-safer-looking trilogy:

 

We saw this girl earlier. Dad’s gonna have big headaches when she hits her teens:

 

I had never seen this hairdo strolling through the lot before (or after), so I had to get two shots of it:

Looks like a LOT of work!

 

 

AUGUST

 

On the far edge of the newly-reopened parking lot, these two were found intertwining. It’s anyone’s guess how long the gestation period will be or how many Cone-a Colas will result:

 

Two days later, art flourished in Space #13 in the near edge of the lot just below my window:

Who said parking lots are dull?

 

I have no idea what was going on at the Middle School, a block-and-a-half away, but it certainly was photoworthy:

 

Way to go, Yusuf! (whatever it was you did):

 

Oh, look! Dead protein!

 

 

WEATHER/SKY

 

These two images were taken looking east from my LR:

 

This was taken looking west from my kitchen:

 

Shot from my south-facing back room:

 

 

PEOPLE

 

New meaning for “two-fisted drinker”:

I’ll bet he has two of these at home:

 

It’s probably best to not have identifiable faces in this one:

 

I hope those are headphones and not fluffy earmuffs (especially in August):

 

 

 

MULTIPLES

 

I occasionally see this casual gentleman on Sunday mornings when he attends services at the church to my south (First Presbyterian Church of Hackensack):

 

Two very different people going in two very different directions:

 

I didn’t know whether to salute or take these pix:

 

Plantains (and a small fruit salad…………..I think):

 

Family paddleball in church parking lot (and I REALLY needed to cover up Mom a bit):

 

Cool-looking car:

 

I occasionally see people taking pictures of the beautiful white steeple of the First Presbyterian Church next door. From this guy’s angle, there must have also been a sunset in his frame:

 

Looks like a lot of bedding was replaced at the apartment building on the SE corner of the block (it’s owned by the County to temporarily house homeless families):

 

Here’s a job no one’s ever heard of before: telephone pole measurer (aren’t they all a standardized size?):

 

Same day – very different phone guys (does the guy on the right have a phablet?):

 

I hope she didn’t forget it:

 

Weird way to hide your identity………BTW, this is the same building where that guy had the large, empty cylindrical containers. Maybe they should get together:

 

 

This is sad. I’ve featured these colorfully dressed church ladies before, but never saw one get into a vehicle and sit down with a baby on her back…………..that poor crushed kid!

 

 

SEPTEMBER

 

 

Let’s start September off with a bang…………or three:

I couldn’t figure out why fireworks were going off in September (with the World Trade Center behind them). I called various local towns south of me and found out the reason: they were the final event for Little Ferry Family Fun Day (Little Ferry, NJ, is just south of Hackensack).

 

On one of my photo walks on both sides of the Hackensack River in Hackensack and Bogota, I shot a couple of historic buildings: the First Reformed Church (known as the Church on the Green), which is across the street from the Bergen County Courthouse:

This is not a commonly-seen angle. For all you locals, I shot this from behind the Ice House in Hackensack.

 

For good measure, I also shot these cormorants from the same location.

 

From Olsen Park on the Bogota side of the river, I was able to shoot the Courthouse, the church and the USS Ling – a WWII submarine that’s been docked here since the ‘70s (but won’t be here much longer…………more on that when it happens):

 

This was also taken in Olsen Park:

There’ll be a couple more shots from this walk later in this post.

 

From my LR, this Hackensack crane appears to have designs on the Empire State Building:

 

I’m not sure if this is another shot of that cool car we saw last month (those pix appear to be more copper-colored):

 

Sloppy work:

 

Out with the old sidewalk:

 

Hackensack River from the Hackensack campus of Fairleigh Dickenson University:

For all you locals, the bridge in the distance is the Anderson St Bridge (if you’re from Hackensack) or the Cedar Lane Bridge (if you’re from Teaneck).

 

20th Anniversary of September 11:

 

Boy meets girl:

 

Sun reflecting off The Modern 2 in Fort Lee:

 

Don’t get too close to those cell antennas:

 

Shield the kiddies’ eyes:

 

Back-to-back (a variation of the previous image?):

 

From my kitchen:

 

Shouldn’t this be a place for Busch Beer?

 

It looks wrong, so it felt right to shoot it:

 

Yep – those are my bedroom windows and my big LR window on top:

 

Something was seriously wrong with this mouse. I took this from almost point-blank range. It just stood there, occasionally tilted sideways and if I tapped the ground in front of him, he’d stumble around in a half-circle:

 

 

PEOPLE

 

Just people out for a walk:

 

Look at this poor little guy, snared in his sister’s foot-vise:

 

Baske-soccer ball?

 

A ring? A beer tab?

 

Pure elegance, from her shades to her untied sneaker:

 

What’s the problem, guys? It’s a Sunday and it says on the screen that there’s no charge on Sundays:

 

What – only one case?

 

Man in/on Black:

 

FIGHT! (I have no idea what’s going on here):

 

Cute selfie (I like the headphones):

 

Our daredevil bike friend is back:

 

Now this is a real cutie!

 

……….and this is not:

 

Aw…………they have their names on their shirts:

 

 

MULTIPLES

 

This is the back of a medical facility and I think she’s a nurse, so I’m guessing she has to hide her smoking:

 

I mentioned earlier that there’d be more shots from the Hackensack River area photo walk, so……………….

 

Here are 3 photos taken from 2 towns of 1 egret. The first 2 were taken from Hackensack and the 3rd one was taken from Bogota, on the other side of the Hackensack River:

 

This is about a block west of the bridge over the river, where a huge residential structure is being built on what used to be a parking lot that sat between the east- and westbound lanes of this road. For some reason, there’s a convex mirror on a pole that some photographer on the westbound side is trying to make believe he’s having fun with (click it):

 

Two more cuties?

 

I can’t tell if he’s talking into something or picking into something:

 

Child emulates Dad:

 

It looks like the kid is being doused by Mom, but he’s on the other side of the photo divide:

 

Showdown!

 

Possible hostage situation with the doll:

 

Not looks I would pursue when I grow up:

 

Coming and going (2 photos – an almost perfect meld, but one of the stripes doesn’t line up):

 

Possible scenario: biker father/geezer waits for daughter/babe, she arrives and tells him what’s what, he reverses cap and slithers away with his bike between his legs:

Got a better one? I’m all ears.

 

Buttz and Feetz:

 

……..’n Sleevz

 

Giant STOP:

 

Awwwwwww……………

 

Men with weapons:

 

Along for the ride:

 

Speculation:

(in case he becomes a famous track star one day)

 

The Daredevil Kid rides 2 scooters at the same time!

 

Red light, yellow light, green light:

 

 

TWO PANOS, ONE STITCH

 

(“PANOS”, as in “panoramic shots” – “STITCH” as in “photo stitch”)

Click all of them to enlarge.

They’re sort of the same thing, but the PANOs – which is an iPhone camera setting – are much more fun and a lot quicker/easier to do.

 

Back to the Hackensack River area walk: This first one is what you see when you cross the river into Hackensack (or at least it was in early September, 2021). This was taken on the same westbound lane as the convex mirror trilogy (but a lot closer to the river)

 

This was taken behind the Ice House rink and shows (l to r) Olsen Park in Bogota, the Susquehanna Railroad tracks crossing the river from Bogota and some Bogota industry:

 

It’s not easy to see, but there are a second set of tracks that are very different just past the first ones you see, but don’t make it into Hackensack (but they did at one time). In April 2011, I took a picture of the two sets of tracks from the Bogota side:

Those are trolley tracks! (The trolleys stopped running here in 1938)

And if you look REALLY closely at the PANO, you can see the same egret I showed earlier.

 

 

STITCH

 

Photostitching is just taking multiple side-by-side pictures and hoping they line up when you put them in a photostitch program. There’s a lot of guesswork (and a lot of disappointment), but it’s what I’ve always used to get super-wide images (until I got into PANO shots less than a year ago.

I only use photostitching now when the subject is distant because I can’t zoom in much on the iPhone.

Here’s all of Manhattan from 59th St down to the World Trade Center – something I can’t get on the iPhone:

 

 

 

OCTOBER

 

This Hackensack bar/restaurant has the worst names: “Poitin Still” and now a real original: “Cheers”. The outside colors are pretty weak, so I saturated them………….it’s a major improvement!

 

In a Main St window:

 

A different view of the USS Ling:

 

This cormorant seems to like the framing with the Ling’s reflection (you’re welcome!):

 

From one of my bedroom windows:

 

Stopped at a red light (from same window):

 

Stink bug on my LR window screen:

 

You’re welcome to try to dislodge these metallic balloons from the transformers, but 3 months later, there are still no takers…………no live ones, anyway:

 

This may be the best shot I took this year from my bedroom – looking 7 floors straight down at dusk at heavy metal repairs on a garbage dumpster:

 

Manhattan sunset on October 14, 17, 17 and 19

 

Also on the 17th……….I’m shooting this double rainbow:

 

……..when I notice this little plane coming into Teterboro Airport and crossing the rainbow:

 

A couple of waxing gibbous moon shots on the 14th (those may be Jupiter – a speck – and Saturn in the top of the left pic):

 

From my little-used, north-facing LR window (my building’s roof edge along the bottom, including the satellite dish, the castle-like steeple of the Second Reformed Church behind the dish and a new not-yet-completed apartment building behind the steeple):

 

The parking cone for the beloved (55 years) and now-gone Hackensack Record King store (it’s currently in my living room……………the cone, not the store):

 

I have no idea what this blobby blowup is, but it has a cone too:

 

 

FIREWORKS

 

October 10 was “Teaneck Day” – Teaneck’s belated 125th Anniversary (1895-2020) Celebration, held at Votee Park, which is about 3 miles away from me. This easy way to see 24 pix was shot from my LR:

 

Roughly equidistant in the opposite direction on October 17 were the Lodi Fall Festival fireworks, as seen from my back BR window against Hackensack high-rises:

 

 

THE HACKENSACK BOO-THRU

 

This was a big project from the recreation department. It allowed residents and their kids to drive through Foschini Park and see all kinds of weird/scary things without getting out of the car. Of course, I had to get out of mine and walk around the entire park (there’s no other way to shoot it properly).

Here’s a taste (click to enlarge):

My car guard:

 

……………but if you want to see the whole thing, go here:

https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=14750

 

And when I came home, I saw this at the apartment below mine:

 

 

PEOPLE

 

Tied up by little dogs:

 

Hair tied up by little dog?

 

Kid into Jimi Hendrix?

 

Speaking of bands, meet the B-Ball Drum Duo:

For the finale, they dunk their drums (Dunkin’ Drumnuts?).

 

A Philadelphia Phillies cap AND a New York Rangers jersey? Either way, he’s gonna get beat up if he wears that combo at either team’s venue:

 

Kidz – board and otherwise

 

This looks slightly dangerous:

 

Maybe they should place this under the guy in the above pic?

 

Temporarily lit up by a car in the parking lot:

 

I don’t know what Mom’s doing, but couldn’t she find a classier cart than one from Sears?

 

All in one motion, this guy falls off his board and sets his phone up to record the next mishap (which you’ll see in the next section):

 

 

Irene’s had a rough day………….. (Good night, Irene)

 

 

MULTIPLES

 

Alright……..so let’s get the board mishap out of the way. He still can’t stay on the board.

“Maybe if I partially disrobe?”

“Nope!”

 

I have no idea what this guy’s doing, but it doesn’t look real successful:

 

Smokin’ pants!

 

Delivery, success, acknowledgement:

 

Girl doesn’t want to leave Grandma for Grandpa (strictly a guess):

 

Fire on Route 80?

 

Today and 30 years in the future:

 

Here comes the bride (and groom):

 

Here comes the sun (and clouds):

 

Let’s hope this look doesn’t catch on:

 

 

PANOS (panoramic photos – click ALL to enlarge)

 

I love that I can get incredibly-wide shots on my iPhone with just a left-to-right swipe of my hand. Here are a few from October:

The Bergen County Courthouse:

 

Fancy parking lot (if you’re Fred Flintstone):

 

Hackensack’s been going through a HUGE downtown revitalization/redevelopment (the reason I lost my river view and will lose my World Trade Center view in a couple of years)…………progress, I guess. But there’s something that they’re pushing really hard on (and spending a lot of money on): a catchy name.

They insist that everyone call downtown, “The Sack”! THE SACK!!!

Yucch!

When I first heard that, I immediately thought of old Sad Sack comics – not exactly an image to strive for:

 

“But everybody calls it “The Sack!”, they say. I’ve lived my entire life living in or next to Hackensack and I’ve NEVER heard it called that.

What I HAVE heard are jokes: “Too bad Hackensack doesn’t border Nutley………then they could call it the NutSack!”

And who hasn’t heard of someone being called a sack of………….whatever.

This is just a TERRIBLE idea, but they refuse to give up on it…………..so much so that they have this on a downtown wall:

If they were smart, they’d sack this idea.

 

On the far end of that mural, you can see a pretty famous (just ask Guy Fieri) burger joint called White Manna, which is 4 blocks from where I live:

 

Remember when I mentioned that I take these PANO shots by moving the phone from left to right? THIS is what happens when you do that and your subject is moving from right to left:

Awwwww…………..ain’t it cute? Even if it DID get squashed? You KNOW I’m gonna be exploring this phenomenon a lot more in the future.

 

 

So much for October. In November, you’ll see what happens when I PANO a tractor-trailer that’s moving from left to right at 50mph. It’s fairly freaky.

 

 

NOVEMBER

Although Hackensack was still using regular voting machines, we were given an “I Voted” stylus with which to sign our names. These sigs would be kept for future comparisons. Bad idea.

Signatures come out SO sloppy-looking with these “pens” that I don’t think I could ever recognize it years later as mine, let alone replicate it to even remotely look the same.

There may be a lot of rejected voters because of this in future elections.

Big bonus, however: “You can keep the stylus, sir.”

Whooppee.

 

There was a lot of empty space in the middle of the larger image, so I added a picture of a fly that crash-landed on my window to increase the window-bug vibe:

 

Lovely thin cones and their fat, mocked cousin:

 

Speaking of cones, driving around with one on your hood is perfectly normal, right?

 

Speaking of normal, here are preparations for the Saint Scaffolding’s Feast Day service:

 

The monthly FCC (Fish Crow Conference) meeting atop an apartment building that’s 2 blocks away:

 

Speaking of birds, a turkey vulture glides past the Holy Trinity Church steeple:

 

Speaking of (whirly-) birds (and this is a true story), 3 of them are flying in the sky (shot from my LR) about 4 miles away, over Route 4 in Teaneck near Teaneck High School after an accident where a motorcyclist died after colliding with a deer:

 

This is not the best segue (sorry), but you know when you get a blood test and they then apply a bandage/covering that you take off when you get home? You might see a spot of blood, but this one looks more like a donation:

 

On a somewhat brighter, more colorful note………..old toothbrush meets new toothpaste:

 

……….And it’s laundry day at someone’s apartment (not mine):

 

 

MODULAR HOUSE

 

A crane (two interesting reflections of it on a nearby building)………… :

 

…………was to lift 3 modular pieces to create the 2nd-floor above this 1st-floor:

(BTW – This PANO shot was actually taken at the end of October. All the others are from November.)

 

The pieces were unpacked:

 

…………and put into place:

 

I got this early-morning PANO shot of the topper piece that was to be placed above the 2nd-floor, but I never got the chance to shoot it being placed:

 

………..so instead, I present this shot, which kind of sums up that day:

 

 

THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE AND ROSS DOCK ON VETERANS DAY

This was a magnificent shoot (and post). I would prefer that you simply go to https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=14825 and enjoy the 49 images (19 are panoramic) and stories, but if you need convincing, here are 14 images (8 are PANO – you’ll have to click all off them to find out which ones) with NO text – a taste to get you to hit the link:

 

 

SUNSETS

 

Two same-day kitchen shots:

 

Two Hudson Yards (NYC) shots taken 3 weeks apart:

If you’re NOT familiar with Hudson Yards, it’s BIG, NEW and AMAZING! Enter “Hudson Yards” in Google Images. After you see what’s there, you’ll wanna go (and take me with you – I haven’t been there yet either).

 

World Trade Center (and helicopter):

I have to take all the good pictures I can of the WTC from here because I’m gonna lose this view in about 2 years due to Hackensack redevelopment.

 

Next-Door Neighbor 1st Presbyterian Church’s Great Steeple

(one of my long-time favorite subjects)

 

 

PEOPLE

 

I haven’t see that message before, so slightly blurry or not, it gets posted:

 

Otto the Auto visits Hackensack:

Since O the A is part of AAA – and so am I – I knew what this was as soon as I saw it from about a half-block away. If you don’t know what he’s about, go here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP3hA7sfZqY

 

Walking the dogs:

 

For cleaning up after the dogs?

 

The rock toss and the rock push/pull:

 

Down in a hole:

If you don’t like that one, here’s a better one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8hT3oDDf6c

Some of the comments (almost halfway down) are quite moving.

 

Back from the optometrist after having my pupils dilated:

BTW – that red vein in my left eye (on the right) is left over from when a hard-hit ground ball that I was fielding hit a pebble on a hard schoolyard surface and took a bad hop right into my eye when I was a kid. The eye was swollen shut and I was blind in that eye for about a week. It must have healed well because that’s my shooting eye.

 

 

MULTIPLES

 

Bi-level birthday:

 

One win, one loss:

 

The November 1, 10 and 12 moons:

 

More speculation: possible “before” shots if the Bobcat tipped over or the drill was dropped and run over:

 

Wheel people:

 

Dog carriers:

 

Boys and their skateboards (some are hipper than others):

 

 

DECEMBER

 

This shoot was a great start to the month………….and most of you know at least 2 of these guys (and all 3 if you’re from the NJ area).

 

If you’ve ever watched Conan O’Brien’s show, you should know the guys on the ends. Jerry Vivino – on the left – was the sax player in the show’s band and his brother Jimmy Vivino – on the right – was the band’s leader, musical director and guitarist.

 

The guy in the middle? The hat should tell you Jersey people that it’s Uncle Floyd, star of the hilarious and long-running Uncle Floyd TV Show – the favorite US comedy show of people like John Lennon, Iggy Pop, and David Bowie – who wrote a song about it called “Slip Away” (you’re better off finding the earlier version, which is simply called “Uncle Floyd”). Lennon – in fact – turned Bowie on to the show and all these guys (and others in that crowd) used to run home every night to tune in at 7pm.

 

Floyd’s last name – of course – is Vivino and he’s the oldest of the 3 very musical brothers.

 

And guess who was the show’s official photographer many moons ago…………

That was an on-air introduction during one of the few bits I was in.

 

Anyway, these 3 brothers and a whole bunch of other accomplished musicians all knew each other from playing together in the Glen Rock (NJ) High School band a half-century ago under the tutelage of their beloved music teacher, Joe Sielski.

On December 2, all of these people got together – with many flying in from California – on the GRHS stage to put on a remarkable show for 700 lucky ticket-holders to honor (and play with) Joe Sielski.

And the best part is that the entire venture is the subject of a much-anticipated documentary that should be out in the Spring.

I was fortunate enough to photograph everything that night: rehearsal, backstage and the show. Of course, I made a post about the whole thing that I hope you’ll enjoy: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=14920 (it starts off with the official trailer for the documentary).

 

 

On to other things…………

 

An interesting sky behind my next-door neighbor:

 

Earlier in this post, I mentioned a potential problem with the bottom of a local dumpster. Well, the sun was in the right place this day to show exactly what I was talking about. This container was just about to be dumped into the truck where it says “top”, but bad things are happening at the bottom:

 

Speaking of garbage…………….when you want the taste of baby back ribs or turkey with stuffing, do you yearn for hard, crunchy potato chips that might have a whiff of something you think you may have eaten a long time ago, but can’t identify? Then head to ShopRite!

 

Speaking of food…………Baby Bellas – my favorite:

 

Back to garbage………..I stuck my head out of my LR window, looked down and saw this: computer screens and/or flatscreen TVs, a safe, a malformed Christmas tree (I think) and other junk. Why did I shoot this? Fork if I know:

 

Fight to the death? Looks like it, but if you have a better idea, let me know:

 

I’ve got a problem with this car (and most of today’s cars). Shapewise, they all look alike and almost every one has 4 doors!

I come from a time when the most uncool thing you could do was drive a car with 4 doors. If your cool coupe was in the shop and you had to borrow your parents’ 4-door car, you were mercilessly mocked for driving a “mommydaddy car”……….and God help you if they owned a station wagon – the most uncool thing you could possibly drive!

And most people today drive an SUV, which ALL look alike to me and ALL remind me of station wagons, so almost EVERYONE is wildly uncool.

Back to this car: spoilers look really stupid to me. First off, no one needs a spoiler on the street. To me this looks like my parents put a spoiler on their 4-door mommydaddy car – uncool on top of uncool.

Me? I’ve never owned a 4-door car in my life (and never will). I can’t even think of any car today that I’d love to own. Whenever I see a coupe or other 2-door sports car, I feel like going over and shaking the owner’s hand. Fortunately, COVID keeps me from doing that.

(Oh, shut up, Bob – you’ve never married and have no kids, so you never had to switch to mommydaddyness like most people have.)

 

Speaking of cars, this one’s pretty easy to figure out:

 

I took this shot from almost a half-mile away through a closed kitchen window with my tripod half in the sink:

In all my years here, I had never seen their colorful windows or their triple cross illuminated by the sun before.

BTW – the mountains in the background are 10 miles away in Paterson, NJ.

 

OK – seven folders to go………

Let’s start with the worst one: AIRCRAFT

The Army-Navy football game was held this year at MetLife Stadium – about 6 miles south of me – on December 12. There was supposed to be a military flyover of F-18 jets and big helicopters before the game. These aircraft were going to be flying in 2-3 days before, landing at Teterboro Airport – about 4 miles south of me.

This means that I could probably a few decent shots over that period as they fly about and maybe even on game day.

Three days before, I saw 3 choppers from my LR window heading south, toward Teterboro, I imagined. The first one was much larger than the other two (are Hueys still in service?).

It was a very overcast day and I couldn’t get a decent shot of it, but I did get a good one of the other two:

Little did I know that that would be my best shot of the entire weekend.

 

I managed to get one unsharp and rather grainy shot of an F-18 the day before the game:

Game day was rainy and I got nothing of the flyover.

 

Fortunately – for whatever it’s worth – I got some good F-18 shots in 2018 at Teterboro when they were parked there:

 

Three days after the game – again on a sunless day – I got a shot of another helicopter flying near/over my building:

 

 

Overall aircraft photo score this month: zero

 

 

SWAT TEAM

Staying on the semi-military tip, I saw something from my LR that I’ve NEVER seen around here – military-looking vehicles and armed men who sort of resembled soldiers who were poised to raid a credit union bank:

 

I went outside for a closer look:

 

A SWAT team! And the men were now nowhere in sight! I walked through the parking lot and noticed they were all inside the lobby, still with rifles raised.

Having no idea what was going – a bank robbery? A hostage situation? – I thought it best not to stand there and start taking pictures, so I returned home.

At exactly 4pm, they all started exited the building, casually strolled back to their vehicles and left:

I couldn’t find anybody who had a clue as to what had just transpired, so I called the bank’s main office in nearby Paramus. They told me that they had vacated that building 3 months before (“But your sign is still up.”) and had no idea what had happened, so I still don’t know.

A training exercise maybe?

 

 

PEOPLE

 

Yeah – THAT looks exciting!

 

No clue…………

 

Is she about to kick a field goal or an extra point with that dog?

 

Not every kid thinks walking along that curb is fun……….

 

But COVID boosters are ALWAYS fun!

 

So is dumping a coolerful of ice in the parking lot:

 

……….or slanted roof-walking:

 

…………or sharing a Giant Farmers Market bag and looking back to see if any Giant Farmers are chasing after them:

 

JUST what you want to be doing on Christmas Day!

 

From my back room, I saw a strange tent on the Middle School property and a long line snaking through the lot, out onto the State St sidewalk and around the corner up the Passaic St sidewalk. School wasn’t in session on 12/29, so it must have been a COVID testing site:

 

 

MULTIPLES

 

Boarding in the lot – active and inactive:

 

Goosing in “The Sack”:

(That name sounded stupid when I mentioned it before and it sounds worse now when I try to make believe that it’s an accepted thing.)

 

Here’s how some residents reacted when they first heard it:

(More on that stupid name later)

 

The up/down electronic gate across the lot from me that allows residents of that new building to come and go from their parking lot, got crunched somehow. The repair crew surveyed the damage, rolled up and lowered the old gate and unwrapped the new one:

 

This is the same scene along the Hackensack River Walkway, taken 6 months apart:

 

 

CHRISTMAS EVE WALK

 

Speaking of the Hackensack River Walkway, I took a nice photo-walk there on Christmas Eve afternoon – about a mile in each direction.

I wasn’t alone:

 

Read what it says:

(Well, have you?)

 

Apparently, you need 3 traffic lights, a Do Not Walk red-hand sign, a video cam AND a fence to keep receptacles and a Batman sign from crossing the street:

 

A “First Student” (that what it says) school bus (and its reflection) rumble across the crumbling Route 4 bridge over the Hackensack River into Teaneck:

Now where would a school bus be going at 2:03pm on Christmas Eve?

 

Here’s a similar shot from farther away on the walk back (with some dingleberries):

 

(Left) I thought the two-sided sign on Route 4 might be more interesting-looking from the side (and below) than whatever crap it was advertising.

(Right) Have you ever seen knock-kneed pipes before?

 

I’ve never seen this before, but it makes oodles of sense on a school’s outfield fence:

Who wants to reach over the fence to rob someone of a home run and receive multiple puncture wounds for his/her efforts?

 

BTW – this is the PANO I shot way before I got close to that fence:

 

Research tells me this might be an ornamental cabbage:

Do any of you horticulturists out there give me a green thumb up or down on that guess?

 

PANO time (click to enlarge):

 

This part of the walkway runs through the Hackensack campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University. This shot shows the Teaneck FDU campus on the other side of the Hackensack River:

 

Though they may appear to be parallel to each other, the two pathways on each end are actually one straight line. The PANO left-to-right motion bends very wide 3-dimensional scenes to fit into a 2-dimensional jpeg:

Just to the left of center is the pedestrian footbridge that connects the Teaneck and Hackensack campuses, while Martin Luther King, JR watches over the walkway. BTW – if you’d like to see MLK’s arrival (tied down to a flatbed truck), installation and dedication service, it’s all in the 2014 “Best Photos” post in the October section and toward the end: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=1739

 

Meanwhile – the MLK vertical PANO:

 

 

Time to leave the Walkway with a double informative PANO about the river area denizens and their dining preferences:

Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to read it with all the petrified avian poop left on them for who-knows-how-many years.

 

Other than that, it was a nice and productive walk.

 

 

 

CHRISTMAS – INSIDE AND OUTSIDE

 

In my building:

 

Across the street and next door:

 

 

Sunrise………….and the sun setting on 2021:

 

(I couldn’t make up my mind which to show of either, but I’ll try to do better in 2022.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

…………………………….    ……(Ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on January 20, 2022)

 

This is not how I wanted to start off 2022, because like every other guy, I’ve been in love with her since the ‘60s. I even met up with her in a stairwell at William Paterson College in 1977:

She must have liked my hair. And now she’s gone (and so is most of that hair).

 

I almost met up with her in Asbury Park on a very hot 4th of July in 1974. The Ronettes were part of an oldies show that I had a backstage pass for, but wasn’t shooting. I couldn’t take the indoor heat, so I went out behind the venue, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, where the night breeze was much cooler.

All of a sudden, a long-haired beauty came out – probably for the same reason I did. It was Ronnie and she was about 30-40 feet away. We were the only two people out there. She couldn’t see me, but I sure saw her.

Oh my God! This was such a beautiful setting, like something out of a boy-meets-girl movie. What would I say to her? How would I make this happen? A million thoughts went through my mind, but no words that didn’t sound like “Homina-homina-homina”.

Meanwhile, Ronnie strolled back inside and that was the end of that. Oh well – at least she put her arm around me 3 years later in a lot-less-romantic college stairwell.

I shot her again later that year onstage with Bruce Springsteen. The next time was in 1981 at a club called Privates in Manhattan. In 1982, she played the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, where she was popping out of her leather vest and making out with almost every guy in the front row. Those pix are on my site.

The last time I photographed her was in 1986, when I shot her twice. Once was with Eddie Money at Madison Square Garden:

 

The other time was a unique situation. A new TV show called Deja View was being put together that featured a house band of rock stars. The show created new videos of older songs. You can read all about it here:

https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-1985-12-20-2493400-story.html

The producer was Joel Gallen, who went on to fame and fortune as the producer of nearly every big MTV production you’ve ever seen – especially awards shows.

But Joel’s first venture was syndicating the Uncle Floyd Show. Since I was the show’s official photographer, Joel hired me to be the Deja View photographer, so I had this gig all to myself as well.

What all this is leading up to is that I got to take what I consider to be my definitive ‘60s photo (in 1986) that included house band members – and show host – John Sebastian (The Lovin’ Spoonful), Felix Cavaliere (The Young Rascals), Ronnie Spector (The Ronettes) and Roger McGuinn (The Byrds):

They all look great – especially Ronnie.

 

So rest in peace, Ronnie, and thank you for everything you gave to music………….and me.

And if you get a chance to talk to the Big Guy up there, ask him if I can have some of that hair back.

 

 

                                                     (ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on January 25, 2022)

 

Geez – the old stars are really starting to drop like flies lately (though no one would DARE to compare this man to a fly).

I really went all-in when Meat Loaf started out. I photographed his first East Coast show (second, overall) on a VERY rainy/flooding Election Day 1977 evening in a club in West Orange, NJ, called Creation, which was next door to the house where the Uncle Floyd Show was produced back then.

(“house”? Yeah – look!)

 

And a shot from that first East Coast gig is the first photo in the Meat Loaf section of my site – https://bobleafe.com/ .

Before I go any further, I have to tell you that these photos will bounce around between the 18 images (and stories) on my site and the 18 that I picked out this past weekend from my analog file cabinets (including the leadoff shot, which was taken at the Show Place in Dover, NJ, on 1-14-78). I’ll be going through these file cabinet B&W shots chronologically.

So while we’re still in Dover, here’s another shot from that show:

 

On March 4, 1978, I took this pic at Manhattan’s Palladium:

 

On March 27, he did an in-store at EJ Korvettes in Paramus, NJ. Here’s some of the crowd waiting to get their albums signed:

 

On August 29, he did a similar in-store at the Harmony Hut in Wayne, NJ:

 

This was a pretty cool event on 10-11-80 that involved Meat and Billy Joel, so I’m stealing this explanation from my site:

Hofstra University Stadium, Hempstead, NY 1980

Billy led the Long Island-based WLIR-FM Heavy Hitters team against the Meat Loaf-led WNEW-FM All Stars team from NYC in the first annual Charity Begins At Home benefit softball game. Meat pitched for NEW and Billy DH’d for LIR.

I don’t see a ball in the catcher’s mitt, so I guess Meat hit it.

 

On 10-14-81, Meat visited The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder and decided he should be wearing the album jacket as a hat:

 

He showed up on 11-5-81 at the taping of The Robert Klein Radio Hour sporting a black eye. I don’t recall what that was about………….or if it was even a real one:

 

On 8-26-82, there was a unique event in Forest Hills, Queens, NY called Musicourt ’82 that featured rock stars and tennis greats. Both played tennis and musical instruments at the jam that followed the matches.

There were a lot of photographers at this event, but nobody else got this shot of Meat leaping over the net (my notes say he tripped on it):

BTW – There’s a Musicourt ’82 listing on my site with some jam photos.

 

I can’t find any what/where/when/why information on this shot. I remember him crumpling something, but that’s it and it’s too cool a shot to leave out:

 

So much for the black-and-white pix………….

 

 

This is the program for Meat’s 5-26-78 show at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ (my house!). The cover was created by my friend Moyssi, who was the venue’s lighting director:

 

I had the inside shot:

 

Somehow, on 7-22-78, I stopped on the Garden State Parkway, got out and took this picture (I’m lucky I didn’t get a ticket):

A good guess would be that I was on my way to shoot the show at the GSAC. Some shots from that show are on my site.

 

Here’s a shot I had on the November 1978 cover of PIZZAZZ magazine:

 

They flipped it for this inside shot:

 

The athletic and high-flying Meat Loaf changes a light bulb during a show at the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, NJ, on Halloween, 1981:

(and if you believe THAT……………)

 

Again, not sure where this was or what this was about, but it says “March ‘85” on the slide and that’s an MTV mic pointed at him:

 

And let’s wrap this up with a weird photo I took at what I think was the last time I photographed him: May 7, 1989 at Bergen Community College in Paramus, NJ, where I was a faculty member the previous time I shot him there in 1978:

 

 

Summing up the encounters over the years: Meat could be real cranky – I got hit with his fury once or twice – but man, did he put on a show!

 

 

            (………..and Karla DeVito was a real sweetheart who became a friend)

 

 

                      

                               (ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on January 31, 2022)

  

(Backstreets is the world’s largest community of Springsteen fans but is not directly affiliated with Bruce Springsteen. For Springsteen’s official website, visit brucespringsteen.net.)

 

The interview was done last year, but was published on January 28, 2022.

My site’s stats exploded immediately, from a couple hundred hits a day to averaging over 10,000 a day for the first 3 days (“hits” are images viewed – not number of visitors).

As of this moment, 21 countries have chimed in: Canada, England, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, Ireland, Poland, France, Norway, Brazil, Japan, Austria, Australia, Denmark, Switzerland, Argentina, Mexico and the Czech Republic.

Bruce’s (and Backstreets.com’s) reach is obviously pretty extensive.

Hope you like it.

 

https://backstreets.com/newsarchive117.html#leafe

 

 

                                   (ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on February 1, 2022)

 

There are 27 other crowd shots and stories on https://bobleafe.com/ under – what else? – “Crowd Shots”. Here are 28 more that I recently came across that were taken between 1978 and 1991.

I’m not going to show them in any particular order. I’ll post them in the order they are in the folder.

Photographically, this first one is the worst one. It was taken in 1982 in West Palm Beach, Florida. What was significant about this show was that U2 was the opening act (!) for the J. Geils Band. The angle of the shot suggests a sunken pit, but I really don’t recall……..and up the nose is my least favorite shot:

 

This was taken in 1985 when Bon Jovi was filming a video (“Silent Night”) at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ. They needed a crowd, but didn’t have one and a less-than-full-house just wouldn’t do for a Bon Jovi video, so they put out a call to WNEW-FM tell anyone who was in the area to come in for free.

It filled up fast.

They’re holding up their lighters (pre-cell phone days, you know):

 

It’s always nice to photograph calm, sophisticated women:

 

All you have to do is simply aim a camera in the crowd’s general direction……….no words are needed:

 

I heard a rumor that this might be the My Pillow guy discovering his product in 1982:

 

I was trying for a candid crowd shot at a Judas Priest show, but got discovered:

 

This was taken in 1983 at Steve Wozniak’s 3-day Us Festival in Devore, CA – the largest show I ever shot. The crowd size supposedly rivaled Woodstock’s (which I also attended). And it was hot…………but some people – fortunately – got sprayed (there’s a similar shot in my site’s “Crowd Shots”):

 

These two were taken at an outdoor oldies show at Action Park in Great Gorge, NJ, in 1982:

Love the waitress outfit (and the “food”)!

 

More camera-crazed fans at an Alice Cooper show in Riverside, CA in 1990:

 

Gee, I wonder if this was taken at a hair-metal band show. The time was right (1987):

 

This was taken backstage at the huge Elton John show in Manhattan’s Central Park in 1980:

 

Here are two very different crowd reactions at the “Four Free” show in West Orange, NJ in 1980:

 

I’m pretty sure I took this 1991 shot at a mid-day Alice Cooper show in Times Square, NYC:

 

Here’s THE crowd shot for the Monsters of Rock 1988 concert at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia:

 

And out of ALL those people there that day, wouldn’t you know I’d find this one:

There’s another shot of her taken just before this moment in my site’s Crowd Shots.

 

Here’s another female with problems (don’t know what they were), taken 10 years earlier at Giants Stadium:

 

The following year, I took this from the stage at Giants Stadium:

 

More front-row females – this time at the Joe Lewis Arena in Detroit where I shot a Bon Jovi/Skid Row show in 1989 (whose arm is that, reaching for my camera?):

 

Queen made an in-store appearance at a Crazy Eddie’s on 59th St in Manhattan in 1982. Here’s the line outside:

 

Interesting outfit………..there’s another shot of her in my site’s Crowd Shots:

 

My copyrighted balloon is about to get smacked at the Capitol Theatre in 1984:

 

Pier 84 in Manhattan was an interesting place to shoot shows – especially since the USS Intrepid was berthed right next door (taken in 1987):

 

Not sure where this 1981 shot of a lascivious-looking young lady was taken (best offer I had all day!):

 

I was onstage at a Dead Kennedys show in Manhattan in 1981 when this fan stage-dived (stage-dove?) into the audience. The photographer on the far right is oblivious:

 

Jovial crowd at the Amnesty International concert at Giants Stadium in 1986 (I had to check to make sure this wasn’t a Beach Boys show):

 

Ending on a patriotic note, here’s a Bon Jovial young lady at the Bon Jovi New Year’s Eve show at the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, NJ, on December 31, 1986:

 

That’s it!

 

See anybody you know?

 

 

 

 

 

………………………………………….(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on February 3, 2022)

 

Unless you’re a metalhead on the Metallica/Anthrax/Raven end of the thrash spectrum, this may not be your favorite post. And any post that could lead to me winding up with a job as an obituary writer – which I’ve been getting a lot of practice at lately – is not my favorite post either.

This post (and link) will showcase Jon Zazula’s substantial contribution to metaldom – as I saw it – all from good old New Jersey:

https://amp.northjersey.com/amp/9306116002

With the exception of Anvil, I shot every band mentioned in that link.

(if the link ever goes bad, let me know)

 

I’ve had many dealings with Jonny Z and the Megaforce crew…………..hello, Metal Maria and Ed Trunk (before he became “Eddie”)……………..and even had a couple of interesting occasions to photograph Jon: twice in 1984 and once in 1989.

 

June 18, 1984

I’ve written elsewhere (https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=13466) about that evening – the night of the Judas Priest Riot Show at Madison Square Garden. There are even a couple of pictures there from the after-show party at the Limelight.

But there’s one more photo that’s very similar to the first party shot shown in that writeup. The difference is that Jon’s in it, along with members of Anthrax and Raven (Jon’s looking at his wife, Marsha):

 

August 3, 1984

A month-and-a-half after the Priest show and party, Anthrax, Metallica and Raven played (in that order) at the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan:

That night, after the show, all 3 bands signed deals with different record companies. But before they did………….

………I was backstage taking some boring pictures of promoter John Scher talking with Jon. “C’mon, guys – this is supposed to be a metal show – act like it!”

So they did:

I’ve had a ton of Metallica and Anthrax pictures published over the years and had the back cover photo of Raven’s “Live At The Inferno” album (mentioned in this comment, which I just found on a Facebook page):

 

February 23, 1989

This was – by far – the most interesting event of the 3 listed here. Remember the Morton Downey, Jr. Show? The show was shot at Channel 9 Studios in Secaucus, NJ and this particular episode was dedicated to heavy metal.

The stars of the show were (I’m reading off the back of my B&W contact sheet): Circus of Power, Cycle Sluts From Hell, Joey Ramone, Ace Frehley, Scott Ian, and Jonny Z.

There’s an absolutely ridiculous 40-minute video of this show on YouTube here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyC9ndfSfxY

You can see me shooting (and annoyingly chomping on my gum), starting at around the 8:25 mark. Jon shows up about 6 minutes after that.

That’s when I took this:

l-r: Alex Mitchell (Circus of Power), Jon Zazula (Megaforce Records), Joey Ramone (The Ramones)

 

OK – I just finished watching the video and found all the talking over each other to be really annoying, so that’s probably why I never went back to shoot on the set of the Morton Downey, Jr, Show.

 

Summing up the unfortunate present news…………..metal (and New Jersey) lost an important music industry champion on February 1.

R.I.P., JZ

 

 

 

……………………………………….(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on February 10, 2022)

 

Thankfully, no important music figure has died in over a week, so I needed to get happy again by shooting interesting things that come my way. This past weekend’s Top 25 shots did the trick.

 

SATURDAY

Four months ago, two metallic “Welcome” balloons got caught on a transformer just outside my LR window (left pic). Would there be outages? Explosions?

Last Saturday morning, I happened to notice them by my window, looking not so dangerous (or welcoming):

 

In the afternoon, the decades-ago father-son career battle manifestation continued: “No offense, Dad, but I still don’t want to work with you in your Chevy dealership’s accounting department”:

 

Meanwhile, weirdness existed outside:

(How does that woman see?)

 

The sun sets on Hudson Yards in Manhattan:

 

 

SUNDAY (a great shooting day!)

NOTE: the first 3 images are panoramic shots – click to enlarge)

How’s this for an interesting sky view from my LR?

(You can see the Manhattan skyline on the horizon in the right third of the image)

 

That was the limit of my east-facing view. I wanted to see how far it continued on the right side, so I went to my south-facing window in another room and got this PANO shot:

Any meteorologists out there who know what conditions create a cloud like that? Here’s something else: notice what’s in the upper left of this shot (a tiny bit of it’s also in the upper right of the previous shot). It looks like a hair brush…………..how did THAT form?

 

OMG! The sun is burning up the hair brush!

I have NEVER seen anything like these 3 shots from my apartment before.

 

Later that morning, smoke/steam from heated buildings caught my eye as this bi-state image shows. The World Trade Center on the left (and 12-15 miles away) contrasts with the heated Hackensack building on the right:

 

The empty (it’s a Sunday) Hackensack Middle School stays warm while two distant installations on the left do the same:

 

Though this may appear to be two photos, it’s one and it’s a closeup of what might be part of that long cloud still passing through:

 

Geese follow the leader:

 

Time to go out and hit the Hackensack River Walkway.

Any idea what these are?

 

This PANO shot – taken at the northern section of the Walkway – might provide a clue (click to enlarge):

This is the Fairleigh Dickinson University baseball field, so I’m guessing the previous photo shows a bullpen?

 

Lots of geese shots to be had by the river:

Maybe these 7 are still following that airplane?

 

This is certainly the day for unusual clouds:

 

At the northern end of the walkway, I saw bits of color in the wooded area by the river:

I don’t know what they signify.

 

I’ve shot this before. This particular angle appears to show the rear end of an articulated, yellow mega-python that’s sunning itself on top of a fence:

(and if you believe that………………..)

 

The goose armada heads north up the river toward Route 4:

(click to enlarge)

 

The day’s weird clouds appear to have entrapped a plane and a comet (it’s not a comet):

 

About a half-mile to the south, I noticed a mega-gaggle of geese:

(“Mega” must be the word of the day…………..oh well, it sure beats “meta”)

 

Heading back south, I encountered this mallard, who appears unsure if I’m a threat or not:

 

It was with a duckling and as I was starting to frame a shot of the two of them, the mallard suddenly took off in a burst of water that I’m guessing was the immediate result of a combination of flapping wings and paddling feet:

I’m surprised I captured the water in the air, but not any part of the mallard.

 

So far, it’s been a pretty entertaining day for photos…………….but the best was yet to come.

 

The Hackensack River along this stretch separates the Hackensack and Teaneck campuses of Fairleigh Dickinson University, as you can see in this shot:

 

Just as I reached this point, I saw some slight motion that may have been a bird landing on a tree branch in Teaneck. A slight flash of white got my attention from that far away (it’s circled in red in the above shot).

Yep! Ol’ Eagle Eye gets lucky again! Look what I got from across a wide river with my little Canon pocket camera:

 

Getting a decent shot of a bald eagle from that distance will raise any photographer’s spirit.

 

Mission accomplished.

 

 

 

                                     (ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on February 15, 2022)

 

It’ll screw up all my work filtering the Ukrainian people’s home water!

 

Oh – you don’t speak/read Ukrainian? Try this:

 

And it only costs 499 UAH!

 

Check it out – I’m VERY good at removing chlorine and other unhealthful nonsense from your water (you DO recall that I have a chemistry background, right?)

 

And all this health will set you back a whole $17.71:

 

Order yours now! (if you can find one………..most of these say I’m out of stock)

But I’m worth waiting for. Remember – as it says – Bob Leafe is made from environmentally friendly materials and my filter’s cartridge is easy to change.

What more could you ask for?

 

And remember to support the Ukrainian people when you hear their battle cry:

 

DON’T let this happen:

 

 

BTW – I’m not making this up. Google me and you’ll find half a dozen of these ads like the one on this page:

 

Be sure to hit “Translate this page” if you do (unless you’re fluent in Ukrainian like me).

 

Do pobachennya.

 

See?

 

 

BTW #2 – You think this is weird? That Forvo thing about how to pronounce my name is a post by a woman in – of all places – the United Arab Emirates:

 

And she doesn’t even say my whole name. Word has it that Ukraine is so upset about this that they may invade the UAE.