(Ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on May 17, 2022

 

 

You’d heard of The Ides of March? These are The Odds of April (and click most of them to enlarge).

 

On the day after April Fool’s Day, I leaned out of my living room window and took probably the weirdest shot ever of a yellow Mustang. I didn’t know he was going to park, but stayed with it just to see what resulted.

The front end looks odd because I was using the PANO left-to-right motion and I couldn’t turn the camera to follow the car’s motion because that would have also turned the parking lot under it.

So – to make up for the strange look of the front end – I took/inserted a regular picture of the car after it was parked.

 

APRIL 4

When was the last time you saw a 34-wheeler school bus?

 

APRIL 5

Standin’ on the corner, watchin’ all the ? go by………..

 

APRIL 8

This time, I’m on the corner by Sears (two blocks from home) and busy shooting something else that had long time gaps of nothing, so I did this while I was waiting around. Good use of my time, I’d say.

 

APRIL 11

These were taken in four different locations.

1. Panning right to left for the bus on Main St means that any car going in the opposite direction gets scrunched:

 

2,3. Shown are two very different vehicles – and directions – on State St. In the second one, you can see my apartment on the far right (top floor with living room picture window):

 

4. I think the car’s color makes this picture:

 

APRIL 16

The long and short of it near famous White Manna Hamburgers on River St (about 4 blocks from home):

Whaddaya mean you never heard of White Manna? Just ask Guy Fieri:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9RRsUbDV0U

 

About a block away, I found this guy with his 30-wheeler (or thereabouts) scooter:

 

From the same corner, I shot this strange vehicle with some creepy-looking triplets checking me out:

 

APRIL 22

Stanley Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemer on Main St:

 

Crazy trucks on River St:

 

You want crazy? This truck’s about to plow right into itself:

 

This guy just pulled out of a parking lot:

 

I’m guessing this was a flatbed tow truck…………whatever it is, it looks cool (and if you look closely in the upper left, you can see White Manna’s signs):

 

This is all one picture, but it looks like Hackensack Parking Enforcement is chasing a much-longer version of itself:

 

APRIL 27

When one flag (far right) becomes 26:

 

APRIL 30

Four more from the same corner:

 

 

SELFIE-SIGNOUT:

I’m not into selfies, but it’s not every day that you get to take them right on Main St as a parade of ridiculously-long vehicles passes behind you (that has to be a first):

(taken on April 24)

 

 

There’ll be an interesting twist (he says confidently) in the next bunch.

 

 

 

                            (Ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on May 23, 2022)

 

                      

 

This picture has nothing to do with Mayday or vehicular weirdness, but you KNOW I have a reason for including it that will pop up later.

So what’s this “MAYDAY!” noise all about? Nothing special…………….I went out on May 1 to try a new angle on this vehicle length/iPhone/PANO obsession of mine (good news to anyone who’s sick of this: the end is in sight…………………maybe).

Instead of mostly straight-line, flat ground, I decided to try shooting vehicles coming off a highway onto a curving, half-circle, upward ramp. For all you locals, the spot I chose was the Hackensack Avenue north exit off eastbound Route 4 (across from Riverside Square).

Ignore most of that because this first pic shows a car going onto the highway from Hackensack Ave (from this point on, click all pix to enlarge):

 

These 3 show a van-type truck, a red car and a pickup truck:

 

I wasn’t expecting an obstacle course, but EVERYTHING (trees, signs, sloping ground) is an obstacle when you’re trying to smoothly cover half a circular motion without tripping, tipping or falling.

To add to the fun, the driver sees me the entire time I’m aiming my phone at him/her and is wondering what the hell I’m doing. Beginning to feel self-conscious, I’m mentally yelling at them to keep their eyes on the curving road.

But there’s no time to feel uncomfortable as a motorcycle rumbles off the highway into view:

 

I decided to cross the ramp and get them from the other side:

That got old fast…………….plus, I’m now closer and totally in the way of them viewing oncoming traffic that they have to merge with.

 

Back to the previous spot to shoot a nice long yellow vehicle:

 

I decided to get closer to the highway and further from the vehicles:

 

While I was in that spot, I saw a school bus in the distance coming toward me on the westbound side. I didn’t expect that on a Sunday, but the side of the bus explained why I shouldn’t think that way:

But the best thing about this pic was that I had to quickly switch the pan-direction arrow on the phone from left-to-right to right-to-left to accommodate the bus. Of course, doing that made me hope there wouldn’t be any eastbound traffic because the cars would all get scrunched.

Fortunately, there was only one such car and look how it came out! Not only was it shrunk, but no wheels/tires showed up!

It’s a perfect hovermobile!

 

OK – it’s explain-the-t-shirt time………..

During my shoot, a VERY unexpected vehicle turned off Rt 4E onto the Hackensack Ave north ramp – something I hadn’t seen in over a decade, but knew right away what it was (and managed to get TWO long shots of it):

It’s a 1938 Ahrens-Fox fire truck that belongs to the Maywood, NJ, Fire Department. How do I know that?

It was part of the Hackensack Columbus Day Parade in 2011 and I took a couple of shots of it in the parade’s staging area two blocks from home (Maywood is immediately west of Hackensack):

 

That MayDay sighting of an 84-year-old fire truck Mayd the shoot worthwhile.

 

 

And to my siblings: Happy 5/23!

 

 

                                (ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on May 27, 2022)

 

I used to do more of these, but it’s getting too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer and has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I may have accidentally gotten a bit older (of course not, Bob – who would think such a thing?).

So I headed down to Main St to see what I could see that I haven’t already seen a million times (or photographed panoramically). Click most of the pix to enlarge (NOTE: a few will take 2 clicks, but then you’ll need to scroll laterally).

 

First stop: the intersection of Main (on the left) and Berry (on the right) streets. Whatever’s going to be built here may possibly block some of my views. The one I’m most worried about is the World Trade Center. We’ll see what happens.

 

Took a one-block detour over to State St to photograph the City’s municipal complex:

 

Dunno what was going on at the HFD’s HQ:

 

As you can see, I took that last picture while standing by the RR crossing on State St. I didn’t know that Hackensack held corncob festivals on the tracks:

 

Headed down to the Bergen County Courthouse complex on Court St (useless facts: The second version of the courthouse was burned down by the British in 1780. This is the sixth version).

This is a nice wide shot that includes the First Reformed Church – better known as Church on the Green (The Green being the small park that I’m standing in front of) and its cemetery.

By the stop sign, you can see a monument with a statue on it that’s facing to the right. That’s Revolutionary War General Enoch Poor, who’s buried in the cemetery. His funeral at the Church was attended by Generals Washington and Lafayette.

 

I moved across Main St about a block west to take this shot that includes the Green, which played a part in Washington’s retreat from Fort Lee:

If the subject interests you – and rather than me having to write a lengthy history about it – look up the following: “The Bridge That Saved A Nation”, Washington’s retreat across New Jersey to Valley Forge, Crossing the Delaware (twice) and the Battle of Trenton.

The Bridge That Saved A Nation (why we don’t all speak with British accents these days) is about a mile north of where I live. The next stop after that for Washington and his troops was The Green in Hackensack.

See the new red(ish), white and blue building just to the left of the American flag? In 1776, another building stood on that Main St corner called The Mansion House. While his troops slept on The Green, Washington stayed in the Mansion House. The street you see in front of the new building is called Washington Place.

 

On a lighter note, I took this picture from the center of The Green. I was holding the phone sideways as I took a PANO shot from bottom to top. I must have hiccupped or something while panning to make the courthouse collapse on itself:

 

Also on The Green is this cannon – part of the Soldier and Sailor War Memorial. But what caught my eye was the man on the crane who was working on the outside of the still-unfinished building on Washington Place:

 

Across Main St from The Green and the Courthouse is Court Plaza – a professional office complex that is fairly photogenic and also offers interesting views of its surroundings:

That last picture also shows the southern end of Main St (which – numerically – is actually the beginning of Main St) where it meets Essex St.

 

I had to take a break. I’d been at it for two hours and still had to walk a mile back home, so I parked myself on that circular structure closest to Essex St and faced the T-intersection.

 

You’ll never believe what I “saw” and photographed from there!

(couldn’t resist)

 

As I started walking back up Main St, I saw a man on a bicycle who was turning onto Court St from Main. I had to get to the PANO setting quickly and shoot/pan. It came out a little strange, but was kind of interesting.

I got a block north and saw the same guy coming my way after having ridden around the block. Another quick set up/shoot/pan…………..and this one came out very weird.

So I combined them:

 

Slight detour onto Atlantic St where I took what may be my favorite PANO/vehicle shot of the day:

“Auto Zone” – which I didn’t notice until I saw the picture – is an almost perfect background for this shot. It could only be made better if another word was inserted into its name and became “Auto Twilight Zone” (bonus: I somehow got the courthouse dome in the shot).

 

Back on Main St, guess what store used to occupy this location:

 

Another slight detour onto Mercer St got me this shot:

 

Did a 180 back to Main, headed north and stopped as I was crossing the RR tracks. Turned west toward State St, took a 180 PANO shot and finished up facing Moore St (and east):

(next time, I’ll have to take this shot from the middle on Main St instead of from the sidewalk)

 

After I crossed the street at the next light (Salem St), a Hummer turned onto Main:

(another rush job, but it’s passable)

 

When I got another block-and-a-half north, I saw a guy on a unicycle coming toward me in the southbound lane. After a quick switch of the panning arrow, I thought I got a great multi-image shot of him and his wheel, but alas………..’twas not to be.

Somehow, I only got one image of him. I didn’t know it when I was shooting, but the guy saw me, turned and pointed, which kinda makes it a cool shot, but what I can’t figure out is why the pan didn’t work on him. I know it was working because I also captured a car in the opposing lane that got scrunched, which it was supposed to do when I’m panning right-to-left:

 

That’s it – no more PANO shots! I’m close to home and I’m tired.

And then I spot a window display I’ve never seen before. It was cute and cuddly and a nice way to end the adventure:

 

I wish I could do this more often. Can’t the weather be 65º ALL year long without me having to move to San Diego?

 

 

……………………………………………….(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on June 5, 2022)

 

OK – this is the shoot I envisioned doing when I shot those super-long vehicles coming off a highway on May 1………….assuming I could find a spot that showed the bridge, the flag, the toll booths and potentially/suitably strange-looking vehicles.

Fortunately, I was already well-aware of such a place. You may remember the story about NJ Governor Chris Christie supposedly causing traffic problems at the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee and you probably saw the pictures of the jammed approach to the tollbooths and all the traffic cones.

This picture by someone else shows the location, but wasn’t taken during the Christie problem (you can tell because there are FAR fewer cones in it):

 

Anyway, you can see the bridge on the far right. This angle would be too far to the right away from the toll booths for what I wanted. Besides, the cars coming in from the right would need to go in two directions to reach the tollbooths and my PANO shots are taken in one direction.

On the far left, see that patch of concrete that separates those tollbooth-bound cars from a lane that would let other cars get off the highway before the tolls? That’s probably where I needed to be.

I also needed there to be very little traffic because my PANO shots require vehicles to be in motion………..otherwise they would just be snapshots like the above. Memorial Day would probably be a very good day for light traffic.

The bonus to all this was that there’s a bus that’s about 100’ from my front door that goes over the bridge, but stops at Bridge Plaza right on the tollbooth approach. The stop there is less than a half-block from that concrete patch.

I haven’t taken a bus in ages and with the price of gas being what it is, I thought it might be an interesting change. Further bonus: with senior discount, it cost a big $1.10 to get there. Got the bus at 8:50am and started shooting at the Bridge Plaza 18 minutes later.

CLICK MOST OF THESE IMAGES ONCE OR TWICE TO FULLY ENLARGE

Here’s the primary reason I picked that concrete patch: the flag was visible through the tollbooth:

 

And here comes the first super-long car to ever approach a GWB tollbooth:

 

A couple of trucks approach the Stretch and NoodleTruck tollbooth lanes:

 

Think this trailer is long enough for this motorcycle?

 

I guess I was expecting what happened next. A Port Authority police car suddenly pulled up next to me and the concrete patch. The cop asked me what I was doing. I guess a man standing on a small concrete patch near a tollbooth waving his cell phone at passing vehicles might need to explain himself.

“Uhh……..I’m using my radar app to check for speeders” ran through my mind, but I wasn’t doing anything illegal that I was aware of, so I explained the panoramic/crazy vehicles/bridge/flag thing to him. He didn’t say anything, so I asked him “Wanna see some?”

“That’s OK…………you’re not doing anything wrong – just be safe” and drove away.

But the kicker to all this was that he was in the tollbooth approach lane and wasn’t going to cross the bridge, so he turned on his flashing lights and started driving west against the eastbound traffic that was approaching the tollbooths.

“I gotta get this!”

And I did:

Maybe I’ll send this to the Port Authority so the cop can see what I was talking about.

 

After shooting this megabus…………

……….I decided to go elsewhere.

 

If you look at the cop car picture, you can see a staircase coming down from the overpass (Lemoine Ave) to the highway. I would need to walk to Lemoine, go down the stairs, walk under the overpass to where I could catch the bus home. Here’s that staircase:

 

But I had plenty of time and wanted to walk back toward the bridge to take certain shots. Before I did that, I walked down the stairs and took this lopsided-looking shot by the highway:

 

I walked down to Hudson Terrace, which goes under the bridge just past the tollbooths. Right away, this red car of many taillights came by:

 

If you’ve ever walked across the GWB, you know that pedestrians share the walkway with MANY bicyclists from both sides of the Hudson River. There were a lot of them on Hudson Terrace on this Memorial Day.

Here are 5 that look like 50:

 

Time to get up on the bridge. I asked the cop in the car behind my hands if I could take a closeup of the convex mirror so I could get the bridge, the flag and what was coming up behind us. “OK”:

What I didn’t expect to include were my suddenly-long fingers on one hand (Hmmmm…………new PANO things to explore?)

 

These trucks HAVE to be violating bridge weight limits:

 

OK – finally on the bridge and this is as far as I’m going. I’ve already shot the flag multiple times from close up and underneath, plus there’s a bus I need to catch to get back home:

 

One last shot of Hudson Terrace under the GWB:

 

Found on a wall on my way back. I have no idea what the image shows, but the writing indicates that “El Sluto” can’t be a woman:

 

So I get back to the bus stop in time with a couple of minutes to spare and I wait, and I wait, and I wait…………..and I check the bus schedule on the bus shelter wall. The hourly bus left 10-15 minutes ago.

It turns out that the online schedule was accurate going TO the bridge, but not in the reverse direction! I had to wait another 45-50 minutes for the next one.

Guess what I took pictures of during that wait. SO many long trucks that I won’t bore you with them here (maybe I’ll bore you with them in another post).

 

I DO have one final shot that I took when I was finally on my way back.

The bus was supposed to go the length of the main street in Teaneck – Cedar Lane – but got detoured because of………..something.

We were detoured onto the next street over and about halfway down it, I saw something that looked like a row of bounce houses coming from Cedar Lane and tried to take a PANO shot of it from my bus seat:

 

Oh goodie – another project to shoot on this now-sweltering day!

THAT may also be an upcoming post.

 

You’ve been warned……………..

 

 

 

 

 

………………………………………………(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on June 8, 2022)

 

Just noticed from the banner’s date that this is left over from last year – I took this on Monday, May 30, 2022.

 

CLICK MOST OF THE IMAGES ONCE OR TWICE TO FULLY ENLARGE

As some of you may recall from the previous post (https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=16421), I had been on a bus earlier that day that got detoured around Cedar Lane. From a block away on Beverly Rd, I took this PANO shot as we crossed Garrison Ave:

I had never see bounce houses on Garrison Ave before, so I went back on a very hot afternoon to see what was going on.

It was the Teaneck Memorial Day Street Festival from Elm Ave (by J&J Drugs) to American Legion Drive (by whatever’s on that street these days…………..oh yeah – Stop&Shop).

 

Starting at Cedar & Elm:

 

Having crushed the DPW truck, I proceeded eastward. I decided to take mostly panoramic pictures rather than shooting every single booth:

 

 

An Elm to Garrison PANO shot:

 

A better Elm to Garrison shot with the Teaneck Theater in the middle (and NO – I’m not calling it “Teaneck Cinemas”):

 

The booth with the blue-and-white covering was the only booth I visited. It had ALL kinds of cellphone cases, but didn’t have what I was looking for. I think the guy on the first bicycle was looking for a booth that could sell him a new front wheel and tire:

His friend may need a new back wheel/tire. And they both appear to need lots of food (check out those legs). But not to worry………..their (and their bikes’) problems are the result of me panning left-to-right while they’re moving right to left. It’s the same compressed effect that you get when you pan L-R with R-L-moving vehicles: squashed.

Wanna look skinny in pictures? Gimme a yell……….

 

These are two shots I didn’t need to PANO. Interesting-looking outfit………….

 

I finally reach Garrison Ave. to take sort of a reverse pic from shot #2 (above) that I took from the bus:

 

And here are the bounce houses:

 

Standing at Garrison and Cedar, I’m facing Bischoff’s – where I once worked a million years ago – and a motorcycle cop with another weird front wheel. You think that’s strange? According to his bike, he’s a poceman instead of a policeman. He didn’t look like he was in the mood to hear me point that out:

 

Across Cedar – on the corner of Chestnut (and next to Rocklin’s) – was a setup for musical entertainment. Due to the beating-down-sun, only the chairs in the shade were occupied:

 

This is almost an end-to-end shot:

 

Because of the heat, this truck probably had more customers than any other booth:

 

The eastern end at American Legion Drive:

 

Now, the walk back to my car, which was parked about one block beyond the horizon:

 

Leftover shot

After seeing this sign and photographing it, I started looking around for a dunk tank and a wet clown – nada:

 

It turns out that this was for a multiple water pistol carnival game that was something like this (I didn’t shoot it………….the photo OR the water pistol):

 

Although it looked like the festival was sparsely-attended, I recall seeing an online photo from the previous year that looked much more populated.

Gotta be the heat.

 

And so ends my one day out in stifling hot weather this year………….I hope.

 

 

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

 

 

First off, let’s properly identify this event. This carnival was the L.E.A.D. Fest Carnival, an event hosted by Law Enforcement Against Drugs & Violence (L.E.A.D.) and I shot it on June 5.

As noble as that name sounds, no one calls it that. It’s held annually on the grounds of the Garden State Plaza (GSP) in Paramus, NJ. BTW – that mall is officially the Westfield Garden State Plaza, but nobody calls it that either. So all you locals know what GSP is (but it could also be the Garden State Parkway, which is by the western border of GSP).

And just so you know………..YES – “daytime version” implies that there will later be a “nighttime version” post.

 

CLICK MOST IMAGES ONCE OR TWICE TO FULLY ENLARGE

So why am I shooting a carnival? In my never-ending search to stretch out different types of moving objects, carnival rides HAVE to be a more eye-pleasing subject than cars on highways.

For instance, if you didn’t notice anything unusual in the above carousel photo, here’s a closeup:

 

And to make things REALLY ridiculous:

I like this one because besides going around and around, the horses go up and down and this demonstrates both motions.

 

Of course, not EVERYTHING in a carnival is stretch-worthy (though it might be a stretch to think big crowds would come here for fried cauliflower and fried broccoli):

 

I HAD to take a picture of this squashed camper (no – I didn’t do this with reversed PANO panning). I’m not familiar with Granpa Cratchet, but from what I can gather online, he does puppet shows for kids via that side window:

More info: https://tinyurl.com/GranpaCratchet

 

Ever ride inside a pink-outfitted bear?

 

How about a pink-attired bear that’s spinning?

 

This ride looks innocent enough………….

…………until you give it the PANO treatment, which appears to twist the metal structure, severing most of the connecting wires and sending the riders to their doom:

 

A little calm before the next calamity:

 

I hope these are both going in the same direction………….

 

Some more Wild Mouse shots:

 

I was hoping to get a shot of the Ring of Fire riders upside-down at the top, but they didn’t have enough customers to run it (a reason to go back at night?):

 

This is the reverse side of those unhealthy fried veggies tents I showed earlier. Here, you can get healthy fried candy bars!

 

In this PANO shot, you can see the same Rocket Man on the left, center and right. He appears to have a total of 6 ½ heads:

 

These are two shots of a ride called Pharaoh’s Fury. The seating area goes way up on one side and then swings back to go way up on the other, pendulum-style. Since I couldn’t get both apogees in one shot, stitching these two together was a semi-acceptable option:

 

What I DID get were the normal and PANO versions of the left-side apogee of the Khufu ship:

Interesting that on the PANO side, all the connective metal structure and the Pharaoh’s Fury banner have vanished.

 

I’m going to finish up with something that was totally unexpected. The results are so weird and so cool that I wish I knew who the people in the images are so I could send them the most unusual father-daughter pictures they’ve ever had.

The ride is the Fun Slide: essentially, people sitting on a burlap bag and sliding down a long ramp. I’m at the bottom of the very long and straight downhill ride.

As soon as I see them start at the top, I begin a slow pan from top to bottom, trying to match their speed. For some reason, long gaps exist where no one is shown. Obviously, I’m not matching their speed and angle at certain points, but I do a better job as they get close to me. That’s where the fun(ny) starts.

These are 2 tall images that are 1,200 pixels high. Because of their size, they won’t enlarge any further when you click on them. If you can, try to zoom in as much as possible to see all the detail of the multiple smiles and arms/hands (check out what PANO did to the security guy on the right):

 

In this shot (and just above mid-pic), there are about a half-dozen images of just the man’s floating head and Yankees cap, unconnected to anything:

 

Aside from all you 3rd-base coaches who enjoy photographing a runner sliding into 3rd, has anybody ever seen shots like these before?

I sure haven’t.

 

This was supposed to be a one-and-done deal, but now I think I want to see what’s photographically-doable at this carnival at night.

 

Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

                                      (ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on June 17, 2022)

 

 

Since I started off the June 5 daytime version with a carousel shot, I thought I’d start off this June 11 night version with two of them.

 

This was supposed to be a PANO shot, but that obviously didn’t work out (is that a hat or is she panning for gold?):

 

CLICK ON MOST IMAGES TO ENLARGE THEM

 

As expected, good PANOs were hard to come by at night, but that didn’t stop me from trying…………….with mixed results.

This one’s semi-passable…………

 

……………but this one looks like the legs ran out from under the horse:

 

I didn’t post any crowd shots last time because there WERE no crowds to be seen during the day. Different story on Saturday night:

 

Heading over to the Wild Mouse………..the sign, the view, the riders:

 

Nice colors, but this has to be the least-popular ride in the carnival – day OR night:

 

Catching fake fish is WAY more popular:

 

This ride’s not looking particularly popular…………….

 

……………until I looked over to the left and saw the line:

 

And here’s what they were waiting for:

 

This looks to be a better choice than daytime’s fried cauliflower:

 

Back over to Pharaoh’s Fury, where I shot three different ways: straight iPhone photo, long exposure with digital camera on tripod and PANO:

 

There was fairly intense light everywhere with The Beast ride, as people rode in its claws. The second one is particularly strange because as I was panning from left to right, the intense red seemed to suddenly change to intense green:

If you look in the middle of the image, you can see a weird color delineation that I guess was the camera’s interpretation of the big change as I was in mid-pan.

 

Finally – a shot of the Ring of Fire, which wasn’t running when I was there 5 days earlier because of a lack of customers:

There are a lot of odd things going on in this pic: small reflections outside the Ring, what appear to be upside-down lettering reflections and some more of that red-green color delineation inside the Ring and a mysterious lunar appearance on the far right.

It also looks like there are TWO sets of riders inside the ring in short and long vehicles. This ride has only one long vehicle. It’s probable that the PANO motion recorded most of its journey and left out a chunk. I get something similar sometimes when I do motor vehicle PANOs.

 

One last PANO crowd shot:

 

Before I finish up with the giant Ferris wheel, I have two other shots that are unrelated, except that both have a part of the Ring of Fire’s ring in them. They almost line up, so I joined them:

 

I happened to take a couple of regular digital camera/long-exposure/tripodded shots of the big Ferris wheel when I saw its color scheme change.

I couldn’t pick just one, so here are the top three:

 

So the day/night carnival experiment went pretty much as I would have expected:

Day – best for PANO motion

Night – best for color and crowds

So why do it if I already knew the outcome?

 

BECAUSE IT WAS FUN! (Yeah – I still sort of remember what that is)

 

 

 

 

……………………………………………….(Ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on June 22, 2022)

 

They go by lots of names, including – and inaccurately – “cherrypicker”. I think these ones are officially called “telescopic boom lifts”.

Here are 4 of them, as seen from my living room (click to enlarge):

 

With all the construction going on around here over the last few years, I’ve seen enough of them. Now 4 more have shown up: 2 for an old county-owned apartment building on the right and 2 for a new residential building that opened last year on the left.

Why?

I would guess that the old building needs to have pointing work done, but what would a brand-new building need?

I have no idea, but I like to photograph these machines at work, at rest and in unusual juxtapositions.

90-95% of the time, I have the luxury of doing so from my living room, so it’s a good, lazy shoot that’s been going on for about a month so far, with “Old” starting about 2 weeks before “New”. And – obviously – I can only see 2 sides of each building from here.

The only presentation option available to me is sequence. I can tell you what I think might be going on in the pictures, but if that’s boring, just look at the pix.

 

The work at “Old” began on May 23 when I noticed the second lift being offloaded, brought onto the property and spooned with the first one:

 

The next day, measurements were taken and walls were inspected. Grinding at ground level began 2 days after that:

 

These 2 pix show how wall work was done where fire escapes exist:

 

I’m guessing loose mortar was being blasted out and new material was brushed on:

 

Interesting (?) cross:

 

Water?

 

June 5: “New’s” 2 lifts arrive and get right to work:

 

3 days later…………up and down on one side of the building, working together around the corner on another side and parked for the night (buckets view only):

 

One from each of the next 2 days on New:

 

I finally went outside………..couldn’t see these 2 parked ones from home (click first one to enlarge):

 

Went home and took these 2 of Old:

 

Couldn’t figure out where on the property those 2 in the last shot were parked, so I walked over and took this shot:

 

Next day (Sunday) – walked over to NEW and took these close and closer PANO shots (click to enlarge):

 

Monday – lunch at Old:

 

Later, I took a walk over to Old to find out why I couldn’t see either lift. Looks like they were getting friendly on the sidewalk:

Somebody gave me a hard time about taking pictures there. I pointed to the tape (“Look which side I’m on”).

While I was over there, I asked someone who seemed to be in charge exactly what type of work was being done on both buildings.

Old: “Pointing” (I guessed right!)

New: “Window caulking” (On a brand-new building?)

Apparently, the same company was doing both jobs. I’m curious as to how the old County-owned building hooked up with the privately-owned new building (or vice versa) to get one company to work both buildings simultaneously. How does THAT happen?

 

Back to our show……….

 

June 17 (Old) – Compacted lift, instructions, ready for takeoff, on the roof fixing every last brick, colorful V formation:

 

June 17 (New) – Is that a caulking gun in the second pic?

 

June 18 (New – 12:14am) Moonrise:

 

June 18 (Old) – Parallel Lines (1978 Blondie!)

 

June 18 (Old) Irish flag? (Green and orange and white in the middle)

 

June 18 (Old) – Done for the day (click to enlarge):

 

June 18 (New) – Wrapping up for the day:

(click last one to enlarge)

 

June 19 (Old) – Children’s and adults’ colorful play areas:

 

June 19 (Old) – Secret admirer and topping off:

 

June 20 – (Old & New) All 4 in the sun (click to enlarge):

This pic suffers from wide-angle-itis………the only thing that isn’t a bit tilted in one direction or the other (look at Manhattan!) is the yellow building in the middle.

 

 

So the work continues, but unless something really different presents itself, I think I’m done.

Thanks if you made it all the way to the end.

 

In other good news: I think I’m finally over the stretched-out vehicles phase (but no guarantees).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

……………………………………………(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on July 4, 2022)

 

I’ve been doing this for decades. At one point, I counted at least 14 other towns/locations that were shooting off Fourth of July fireworks that I could photograph from home, including some from as far away as the Macy’s NYC fireworks, whether they were on the west side (Hudson River) or the east side (East River, where they’ll be tonight). Whichever one happens, they’re at least 10 miles away.

Many towns don’t do them on the 4th. Some years, I’ve had to write out a schedule that covered a two-week period. Of this year’s 14 possibilities, only 5 are scheduled for July 4. This weekend, I shot one on Friday (Ridgefield, NJ) and one on Saturday (Saddle Brook, NJ). Tonight will be Hackensack, Ridgefield Park and Macy’s – all shootable from my living room window.

For the first time, Hackensack’s will be a much lesser shoot for me because of a new, 5-story residential building that’s a block away and right between me and where they set them off. I’ll probably be able to see a good part of the business end of them up top, but it’s not ever gonna be the same again.

So this post will be about what I was able to get from 4+ miles away (Ridgefield) and 3+ miles away (Saddle Brook).

This pic shows my setup. It was a very hot and humid evening, so I only opened the window a little. The Ridgefield fireworks were shot off from behind the trees where the X is on the horizon (in the above picture, you can see the trees silhouetted against the burst).

 

I hate using digital magnification, but at this distance, it’s a must (at 42x!).

 

Here are 6 other Ridgefield shots:

 

This is FAR from my best, but at this distance, they’ll do.

 

The Saddle Brook shoot was a little over 3 miles away in the opposite direction and I had to shoot through glass. Given that limitation, I think I did OK with these 8:

 

But I have a ninth one that’s gotta be my favorite shot of the weekend because of something that showed up that I never saw. Less than a mile from home is a church in Hackensack that has a triple cross atop its steeple. It’s unlit, so I couldn’t see it, but the fireworks backlit it perfectly:

If you ever need to look up the phrase “dumb luck”, you might see this picture under the definition.

 

Happy Fourth!

 

 

…………………………………………….(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on July 8, 2022)

 

Gotta lead off with a cool shot, right?

 

But I have to first back up to some pre-show shots I took while I was waiting for the event to start. Small bunches of civilian fireworks were going off here and there and it was fun trying to capture them:

Enough with the pre-game warmups.

 

I take back everything I said in the previous post about this now being a crappy shoot because of a new building in the way. It may now be a better shoot because of that building (and it would be even better if they turned off those intrusive roof lights).

Many of the fireworks now look like they’ve been launched from the building’s roof.

However, my joy may be short-lived. In that first shot, see the partially-visible building to its immediate right with the white columns in front of it? That’s the now-sold former Hackensack YMCA building. Replacing it will be a 14-story monstrosity (picture that YMCA with about 10 more floors on top of it).

But I’ll withhold judgment until it happens.

 

I was shooting with my little Canon on a tripod from my living room and supplementing that with my iPhone, which I didn’t think I’d be using much. Wrong again!

The above image was taken with the Canon and so were these 5 images:

 

The iPhone dominated with these 12 (just like the evening’s pyro offerings dominated in red…………a little more color variety next time, please?):

 

There’s not much to write about the images – you either like them or you don’t. I just don’t like posting pictures with no input in between them.

Anyway, the show’s now over. They’re usually 20 minutes long, but this one was 15 (9:20 – 9:35pm), but considering they haven’t occurred here since 2019, I ain’t complaining.

 

I know who IS complaining – the people who drove to Foschini Park for the show and are now stuck in traffic on every street within a half-mile of the park, as I saw from my window (haven’t seen THAT in 3 years either):

 

As you may have noticed in the pictures, these fireworks produced a LOT of smoke. This park is on the Hackensack River and the smoke seems to be clinging to the river’s path.

That doesn’t bother me…………..except that the just-starting Macy’s NYC fireworks on the East River (far side of Manhattan and in the vicinity of the oblong yellow shape) are hard to see, let alone shoot, until the smoke clears:

 

So I did what I could and – with a bit of help from PhotoShop – got some passable shots of silhouetted Manhattan buildings with fireworks behind them:

 

Favorite Macy’s shot:

 

I thought I was done shooting fireworks that evening, but………….as usual, some guy(s) showed up in the parking lot an hour or two later and began their own show, so I shot this 17-second iPhone video:

 

I shot that in the normal horizontal manner, but because the subject matter was primarily vertical, I shot a bunch of little vertical iPhone clips that I stitched together to make this two-and-a-half-minute video (since it’s small, you may want to watch this on YouTube):

Note the white car pulling into the right side of the lot at 0:25 (the actual time is now 12:05am on July 5). It’s hard to see, but at the same time, a woman close to the street is walking her dog(s) in the middle section of the lot, toward me and parallel to the car.

The car swings around and is heading toward the woman, who has to move over to avoid it. All along, fireworks guy is shooting away in the general direction of the car and woman. As the car passes the woman, 2 more shots are fired (you might want to watch this part full-screen on YouTube to make this scene more visible).

Watch the second one carefully. It appears to hit the car and ricochet right back VERY close to the woman!

Fireworks Guy just keeps on firing.

I took that section of the video and slowed it down to half-speed (no sound for some reason). I posted it on YouTube, but they automatically put it in Shorts, which I have zero interest in, so I deleted it. I’ll save it for that woman if I ever run into her. If anyone wants to see it, lemme know and I’ll email it to you.

 

About 15 minutes later, a Hackensack police car pulls in and – in the below 4-image sequence – starts talking to Fireworks Guy. Then a second HPD vehicle pulls in and talks to HPD1. Two minutes later, Fireworks Guy leaves. Three minutes after that – after a third HPD vehicle arrived – they all take off:

I’m wondering if that woman called the cops after nearly getting hit by fireworks. I see her fairly often walking her dogs, so I’ll have to introduce myself sometime.

“Hi – guess what I have a video of……………..”

 

On second thought, that might not be the best thing to say to a woman I don’t know.

 

I did another fireworks shoot on July 3 (Paramus) and I have two postponed ones to shoot tomorrow night. If you’re unlucky, I may combine all of them for yet another (groan!) fireworks post.

 

What can I tell you…………I like fireworks.