From my site:

I’ve always wanted a yellow Strat, a Les Paul, and a Gibson Flying V, but that would cost MANY thousands of dollars, so I got these instead – a hole-y Sonica, a D’Agostino, and a Kent – for a few hundred.

How do they sound? Who cares? I don’t play, but I HAVE taken the air out of air-guitar.

I guess I didn’t shoot much in 2001. Of course, I DID shoot THE infamous event of 2001 from home, but that’s on my site under “September 11, 2001″.

Unless you’re from the Hackensack, NJ area, you probably won’t know Packard’s, which was a big, beloved store. In its last couple of years, they added this fish store, which added to the image’s color.

I took this picture just before they tore the 117 year-old building down and replaced it with – what else? – a Target store.

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Staying locally, this shot was taken at the Holy Trinity Church carnival in Hackensack.

From my site:

The old Holy Trinity School that I attended from grades 1-4 used to be in this parking lot. I packed my equipment for the long journey there and hiked the 2 blocks.

There were 4 equidistant sets of lights on this carousel. I set the tripod up and mentally calculated how long 1/4 turn took (the time it would take for the lights to streak around and ‘connect’).

The horses went so fast, they were a blur and threw all the kids off to serious injury, but I got my shot with nice sharp backgrounds and everything else in motion.

Oh………..just kidding about the kids.

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I hear fire engine sirens fairly often in this city. Most of the time, I hear both ends of the Doppler effect, but once in a while, the sound stays close and then ends………it’s nearby.

The majority of the time, the call is of little or no consequence, but not this Sunday morning.

So I went out on the roof and saw all this black smoke shooting straight up out of an apartment building that was less than a block away. Some flames are visible too.

No one was hurt. There were many immigrant families living there (some are gathered in the park across the street in the photo). Some lost their homes because part of the building had to be taken down.

I shot video and stills. The HFD accepted the video and said it would be used for training purposes and a print of this picture went on their wall of fires.

BTW – there were some nervous moments amongst the occupants of the yellowish building on the far left (a convent).

Lots of praying going on over there…………….and it apparently worked.

Speaking of fire………

From my site:

An absolutely stunning sky above my living room (center wall and behind big chimney).

From my site:

“from my living room, Hackensack, NJ

Looking out my window on a Sunday morning, I saw this plane heading out over the Atlantic Ocean. I’m not sure where the shadow came from, but it looked cool, so I shot it.”

Note: I could NOT get the color right, so I took the easy way out and made it a B&W (just imagine some blue in there).

From my site:

Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford throw out the Game 6 first pitches

Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY 2003

Finally – my first World Series game! Not only was this the 100th anniversary of the World Series, but it was also the 100th World Series game played at Yankee Stadium – GOT to be a good sign, right?

Unfortunately, the Yankees were down 3 games to 2 to the Florida Marlins, so I wouldn’t be there for the Yankee clincher the next night.

As it turned out, neither would anyone else. The 100th World Series game at Yankee Stadium turned out to be the last one ever played there.

Game 6 was such a disaster that the below dual first-pitch image turned out to be the highlight of the night for Yankee fans.

This is the only shot that matters to me for 2004. There will be no further information or comments.

I didn’t take the shot within this shot, but I “arranged” it/them.

How bad was 2005 for photos?

This couple won a free wedding (and honeymoon) from Dunkin’ Donuts. The ceremony was held in a tent behind a DD that’s about 4 blocks from where I live.

If you can stand it, here’s a picture from the Daily News/Getty Images: http://tinyurl.com/DDWedding1

These are all from crappy-looking print film.

This is a closeup of Keith Richards’ signature on the guitar I featured in the 1998 post. “BTB/98″ means it was signed during the Stones’ 1998 Bridges to Babylon tour.

The only reason I’m showing this grainy shot is because it shows how the Empire State Building was lowered into place in 2006 by a giant crane in Hackensack, NJ.

Church is two blocks away. Fireworks were in the next town.

The historic Anderson St Station in Hackensack – the second-oldest station in the state (and 3 blocks from where I live) – burned down in 2009 (see pix in 2009 post).

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.

Hey – there’s a church carnival 2 blocks away. Those rides have lots of moving lights. Let’s see what happens.

Actually, I did try that once before in the 2001 post and I think these two are worthy successors.

From my living room, I could see a large fire engine in the parking lot behind my building and all its lights were flashing. That might be a good shot once it starts moving. Sure enough, it bounced into the one-way street and went the wrong way, but it was the right way to get this shot.

Fourth of July fireworks: the ultimate in lights moving at night.

About 4 blocks away from me is a pretty famous burger joint called White Manna that sits at the end of a T-intersection where a lot of cars turn left. I was picturing in my head all the moving car sidelights and taillights curving around in front of the building and this sorta looks like what I envisioned. Unfortunately, the neon got washed out because of the time needed to accommodate all the turning cars and their lights.

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.

From across the highway, I zoomed in on the Ferris wheel. Unlike the previous shot – whose exposure was 30 seconds – this one was shorter, which created some interesting geometric gaps.

I DID take some daylight shots in 2007, including a kid in a cool pool that was 7 floors directly below my window, fall foliage near the Bergen County Courthouse and an interesting sunset shot from my roof.

You’ll have to go back to the end of the 1998 post to read about this guy – the former Keef Leafe – and his strong connection to the Rolling Stones:

I have no idea when this shot was taken. There’s a ridiculous notation on it that says “late ’78 to early ’08″. I’m guessing it should say “late ’07 to early ’08″, but that still doesn’t tell me exactly when I took it, but in any event, I’m putting it in 2008.

This is from another 4th of July where I managed to get the two-blocks-away church steeple and the couple-of-miles-away fireworks from another town into the same shot (that town no longer has July 4 fireworks).

I’ve done better.

BETTER (may be from 2007):

FLIP PHONE PHOTOS

I got a flip phone in 2007 and it actually took some semi-decent pictures.

This was an interesting lawn party. The upstanding gentleman on the right has a stick up his butt and two other people look like they need one.

Two roof puddle shots from July and October, respectively:

A quarter-lit tree:

My early 1970s formal wear. I recall that that music note was visible below my college graduation gown. And every one of those patches was needed. A special thank-you to Elaine Kolbek (O’Toole) for keeping those jeans alive.

NOVEMBER 11, 2020! Look what I just found:

THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE ON VETERANS DAY

A windy day is a good day to shoot the GWB flag and since it’s not always windy on the few holidays that it flies each year, this particular November 11 was perfect.

1. The Fort Lee Historical Park sits on the Palisades right next to the bridge and it’s a great vantage point for GWB photos.

The winged structure behind the bridge is the George Washington Bridge Bus Station.

It was fortunate that a Circle Line boat happened to come into the picture while I was shooting.

Y’all are familiar with the Little Red Lighthouse, right? It was sitting there for about 40 years before the bridge was built and there’s a 1942 children’s book called “The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Grey Bridge” that happens to be on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qsBv8xInQI

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2. & 3. These are fisheye shots of the flag with and without wind:

4. Lastly, I took a flip phone shot of the flag from practically underneath it that may be one of the best pictures I ever took of it. I couldn’t find a larger copy of it, but if I do, I’ll switch it out.

Dad – born in Manhattan – liked the Yankees primarily and the hometown Giants (National League) secondarily. Mom – from Long Island – was a Brooklyn Dodger fan, so – naturally – I sided with my father 100%.

They took me to my first Major League game when I was 4 or 5. It was a Giants/Dodgers game at the Polo Grounds. The Giants led most of the way, but………….

I was in tears.

Both NL teams left town in 1957 and the Mets were born in 1962, playing at the Polo Grounds at first. I didn’t get to go to any Mets games there, so I made sure I was at Shea Stadium’s Opening Day when they moved there in 1964.

At the time, I attended a VERY strict high school – Bergen Catholic in Oradell, NJ – and was terrified about breaking the tiniest of rules, but this time, I didn’t care. I wanted to be at that game.

I don’t remember what the consequences were, but I’m still here, so they couldn’t have been that bad. It was worth it – even if the Pirates’ Willie Stargell DID hit Shea’s first ever home run during that game and the Mets lost, 4-3.

I had been to a few Mets games over the years, but I may have shot more concerts there (Stones, Clash, Who, etc.). But because I had been there at the beginning, I wanted to be there at…………..well, near the end of Shea Stadium, which closed at the end of the 2008 season.

Yankee Stadium was also closing that year and I had already done my top-deck, last-row-center fisheye shot of the whole stadium (or as much as I could get) and felt I needed to so the same at Shea, so I went one Saturday in September.

I had always driven to Shea, but I wanted to get the full New Yorker experience of taking the #7 subway train from Times Square in Manhattan out to Shea in Queens, so I took a bus into the 42nd St Port Authority building and walked over to the subway.

The train is not underground after you cross the East River into Queens and it took a lot longer than I expected. At one point, I saw what seemed like a block or two of solid, gorgeous graffiti over past the westbound tracks, but my camera was packed away. “That’s OK – I’ll get it on the way back”.

I made my way to the first car and positioned myself at its front window so I could document the view of pulling into Shea. You can see a little bit of the stadium’s lights in the first shot (actually, I think those are Citi Field lights) and a lot of old rust in the second one:

After exiting the train, I took a shot of a #7 westbound train that had stopped at Shea and as I walked away, I took a flip-phone shot of the exiting train showing the number 7:

I got inside Shea early so I could get that top-center shot when there were fewer people to climb over.

It was Military Appreciation Day, so I took the appropriate shot along the first base line (my seat was in the front row center of the upper deck).

From there, I took two shots of the scoreboard, both when a Met was at bat and between innings. You can see a bit of still-under-construction Citi Field in the upper left corners.

Shea had a short countdown ritual for each game toward the end of the season. You can see that there were 10 games left. By the way – this was the first game of a double-header.

I wasn’t that into the game and didn’t feel like being there all day. It was also getting cloudy, so while the light was still semi-decent, I went outside to get shots of both stadiums:

I took one final walk around Shea and shot all the neon murals (you can see part of one of them in the previous photo). You can tell by the gate letters that I’m not showing them consecutively. That’s because I rearranged them to show little two-panel baseball themes (hit-and-run, the battery, a slugger robbed by a great catch) and then stitched them all together.

As a 6-image photo stitch, this needs to be seen big. Click the image once. After it takes over the screen, hover the mouse over the image. You should get a + sign. Then click it again. It’s now full-size and must be scrolled to see everything. Click it once more to shrink it back and then use your back button to return to the post.

Time to get on the #7 (it was getting darker). I HAD to shoot that graffiti.

The train was packed, making it difficult to crouch down by a door’s window – a window that now had a ton of interior reflections because of the car’s interior lights.

What I wanted to shoot was on the side that faced away from me, meaning that I couldn’t start shooting anything until we had already blown by it. Between the slow shutter speed due to low light, the window reflections and the bumpy, swaying ride, it was a tough shoot.

The first shot was the closest and each successive shot became more distant. The place was called 5Pointz and I’m glad I got what I got because it did not exist after 2013.

The rest of the ride was uneventful and when I got to the Times Square station, I saw (and took a bad shot of) a mini-Michael Jackson doing……………..something.

A fitting end to the day. I pretty much got what I wanted, so I was happy.