2021 (Jan. to June) – The Best Photos

 

(ignore April 30, 2017 publish date – this was published on July 7, 2021)

 

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.

 

JANUARY

Jan. 2 – From the Bloomberg Building down to Hudson Yards, with the Empire State Building still wearing Christmas colors. Click to enlarge (whenever I write that, click once or twice to fully enlarge, start scrolling side to side if necessary and hit your back button to return).

 

 

Jan. 4 – Two photos:

a. Sunrise in Fort Lee, NJ, just south of the George Washington Bridge (the buildings are The Modern 1 and 2). Taken from my living room in Hackensack, about 6 miles away.

 

b. This scene is just to the left of the above picture (and zoomed in). On the far left, you can see the top of the New Jersey tower of the GWB (but only when the leaves are off the trees).

 

 

Jan. 5 – A more spectacular sunrise showing both areas covered by the previous two images.

 

 

Jan. 8 – Geese above and Hudson Yards below

 

 

Jan. 9 – Three photos:

a. It must be Pizza Day in Hackensack.

 

b. Interestingly-put-together person

 

3. Photo-stitch of the Manhattan skyline (Click to enlarge)

 

 

Jan. 10 – Two photos:

a. Looks like the sign had to P.

 

b. This photo-stitch shows a new project in Bogota, NJ, on the banks of the Hackensack River. It replaced a Hess oil tank farm (quite an improvement). Click to enlarge.

 

 

Jan. 11 – I get a lot of weird photos from this source that range from looking like anything from a tornado to a massive explosion. Truth is, it’s just steam coming from a PSE&G power plant in Ridgefield, NJ – next to the New Jersey Turnpike. Hudson Yards in Manhattan is behind the plume.

 

 

Jan. 23 – It was just a picture of a woman taking clothes to the cleaners, but got an added component 9 minutes later on her way back.

 

 

Jan. 24 – I love these Sunday-go-to-church outfits. By the way, that’s my building’s reflection in her car windows………….AND the large window on the far left is my living room window – from where I took this picture.

 

 

Jan. 30 – Three pictures:

a. Sort of a windier repeat of the PSE&G plume/Manhattan Yards image from 3 pictures ago.

 

b. Here’s an innocent picture of a nice couple dutifully feeding the meter after parking…………THE WRONG WAY ON A ONE-WAY STREET! They had to drive down that street to get to that space – how could they be so oblivious?

 

 

c. This is looking straight down out my living room window near sunset as the sun only hits the tree and some of the parking spaces.

 

 

Jan. 31 – No comment……….. but, EGAD! And I’ll let you look up the UFFU on the hat.

 

 

 

FEBRUARY

 

Feb. 2 – Looking straight down out my living room window…………the garbage never looked so good.

 

 

Feb. 3 – See caption on photo.

 

 

Feb. 4 – Two Photos: a young girl gathers some snow and chucks it.

 

 

Feb. 6 – Two shots:

 

a. Wide shot of sun, clouds and The City (in the distance)

 

b. Comets and………….Christmas pants? In February?

 

 

Feb. 7 – Five shots:

 

a. Gradual snowstorm intensity

 

b. Wipers assume the position.

 

c. Setting sun illuminates snow on tree.

 

d. Variations on a theme

 

e. Mini-snow-plow caravan

 

 

Feb. 8 – PSE&G’s NJ steam and NYC’s Hudson Yards at sunset

 

 

Feb. 9 & 16 – Same building, different waves

 

 

Feb. 10 – Stopped at a light, I shot this in my rearview mirror. I could have flipped it to look normal, but sometimes, normal is boring.

 

 

Feb. 16 – I shot the top row of curtain hooks while lying on a table getting an ultrasound. Back on my feet, I shot the same row from a slightly different perspective and flipped it so it almost looks like a mirror image with a different background.

 

 

Feb. 18 – Two images

 

a. Taking a break outside during a snowstorm doesn’t seem like the best idea.

 

b. Shooting the full arc of a sidewalk snowblower from a block away in my warm living room was a much better idea.

 

 

Feb. 20 – The snow, the tree, the weird light coming from inside the building all combined to make this a shot I wanted to take.

 

 

Feb. 21 – Four photos (all taken on the Hackensack Walkway by the Hackensack River at Fairleigh Dickinson University):

 

a. A little inlet filled with frozen waterfowl

 

b. Like the caption says, “Moon Over MLK”

 

c. From the Teaneck side of the campus

 

d. On the connecting pedestrian bridge over the river

 

 

Feb. 25 – Read the photo’s caption.

 

 

 

MARCH

 

March 3 – I saw these two containers in the ice cream freezer at my supermarket and couldn’t believe that they’d think someone might want to buy either of them. It looks like someone started to clean one of them up and then said, “Why bother?”.

 

 

March 5 – I didn’t care about overexposing the moon because I wanted to be sure the NJ tower and cable lights of the George Washington Bridge would be clearly visible.

 

 

March 7 – Complimentary curvature – the only way to do it (my watermark disagrees)

 

 

March 9 – The one moment in the day to shoot this light switch

 

 

March 11 – Two pix:

 

a. A mile high and a mile long (not really)

 

b. Personally, the two most important pix of the year – Moderna 1 & 2 vaccines on March 11 and 28 days later on April 8

 

 

March 13 – Four pix

a. Messagewear

 

b. Hudson Yards/PSE&G power plant flyover by a Teterboro Airport-bound plane (I live 3-4 miles from the airport)

 

c. Enthusiastic gulper

 

d. I ordered a case for my new iPhone because I liked the ring and the look of the back, plus it came with TWO “tempered glass protectors”. It did, but the “protectors” were smaller than the back and didn’t fit anything, making the whole package completely useless. I got my money back when I threatened them and kept the package.

 

 

March 14 – Two signs you don’t see every day, but I not only saw both on the same day…………they were just 3 photos apart in two very different locations.

 

 

March 20 – Five pix

 

a. Happy head balloon watches over the kids.

 

b. Over-pampered dog (I’m guessing………)

 

c. Just got my complimentary Pylon box set with the 200-page hardcover book in it and the picture I took in 1980 on the cover……….

 

d. ………..and celebrated at Burger King? (I don’t think so)

 

e. Fairleigh Dickinson University (Teaneck), tree, Hackensack River at sunset

 

 

March 21 – Six pix

 

a. Church ladies meet a guy on an Indian motorcycle (who has ever seen THAT before?).

 

b. Went for a LONG walk (all the rest of today’s pix), starting with a closeup visit to the balloons I always shoot from home.

 

c,d. Crossed the river to a park in Teaneck, where I saw these two oddities:

 

e. From there, I saw something else I really wanted to shoot, but it was back across the river in Hackensack. It was a long walk and I hoped it would stick around until I got there.

It did (but took off before I could get in a good position):

 

f. On the walk home, an outlandish motorcycle with a really loud sound system rode past me and later parked on the sidewalk. I noticed it when I was across the street and took this quick pic. The message on it is, “I’m Working On Myself”. I’d say he’s working on a parking ticket.

 

 

March 25 – Interesting clothing/adornments………….personally, I’d be happy with the Hard Day’s Night shirt that – for some reason – says “Hackensack” on it.

 

 

March 27 – Sticking his tongue out at his dog? Shame on him!

 

 

 

APRIL

 

April 1 – Goose and fish crow friends watch construction from on top of a church.

 

 

April 2 – Three images:

 

a. Found behind a supermarket……..A-OK with you?

 

b. For me, the drop coming off his beak makes this picture. The radiating rings set up what comes next – repeating rings.

 

c. I’m guessing you saw the COVID shirt I wore at my second vaccination. This is the shirt I bought with it.

 

 

April 3 – Two pix

 

a. Read the picture caption.

 

b. Big fan of fans?

 

 

April 4 – Ohboyohboy! They’re waving at ME! This is the best Easter EVER!

 

 

April 5 – Strange scene in the hallway

 

 

April 6 – Strange knife found in my parents’ possessions

 

 

April 7 – Five more strange pictures:

 

a. Strange place to keep shopping carts

 

b. Strange 6-wheel vehicle

 

c & d. Strange exterior of odd building from two weird angles

e. VERY strange game where two kids would race each other to be the first to slap their sitting friend’s hand. One kid kept losing – can’t imagine why…………strange.

 

 

April 8 – Two photos

 

a. This was the day of my second COVID vaccine and this is what else I photographed there.

 

b. I’m gonna shut up about this one because the truth is incredibly boring. The picture looks better if you don’t know nuthin’.

 

 

April 10 – Me too, lady!

 

 

April 11 – The church ladies always dazzle.

 

 

April 14 – He looks rather phonely.

 

 

April 16 – Two pix

 

a. The caption’s almost as bad as the backside (did you get “Graham Crackers” out of that?).

 

b. A more informative caption

 

 

April 17 – Three pix

 

a. This is the municipal parking lot 7 floors below my living room window. It’s going to be transformed into……….a parking lot – just more modern. I had to take 3 pictures to get the complete electronic message. One of them has a slight problem………..

 

b. In case it wasn’t obvious what the problem was…………

 

c. Parking meter chairs. For some reason, one of them says, “These chairs tilt when meter runs out” (Oh-so-clever).

 

 

April 18 – Two pix

 

a. Nice closeup

 

b. Ugly non-closeup – I took this as the last shot of the old lot before work starts on it.

 

 

April 20 – Lot work begins – Two pix

 

a. Not sure what this guy’s doing

 

b. I KNOW what this guy’s doing! (and so do you)

 

 

April 21 – Three pix

a. This was the center island main light of the lot. I knew it would be coming down, but not when. I wanted to capture it in mid-fall, so I was pretty disappointed when I later saw it broken and dead on the ground. Oh, well.

 

b. This looks like a high-wire act except the wire is a thick wooden plank that sits on the ground. BTW – these planks will be used to make curbing.

 

c. From above, I saw all these long gouges in the lot with pipes running through them and some sort of red tape on them that I couldn’t read from that far away, so I waited until after hours, went downstairs and found a roll of the stuff that posed for me.

 

 

April 22 – Two interesting photos

 

a. Over the last couple of months, I’ve seen dozens of dumps of dirt, crushed stone, asphalt, etc., into holes or trucks, but there’s always a problem when I’m shooting from so far away: bad angles, obstructions, bad lighting (and many more), but I think this is my favorite. It’s got everything I wish all those other shots had: action, direction, sharpness, unusually-great lighting and even what’s being covered up is visible.

 

b. Did you know that squirrels also like to watch cement being poured? Nice to have some company up here.

 

 

April 26 – Oh, DARN! I had my heart set on parking on that pile of dirt and rocks! It was smart of the city to spend money on an electronic sign to keep all the rock/dirt pile parkers away. Otherwise this area would look………….just like it does now.

 

April 27 – This is how curbing is created.

 

 

April 30 – Two pix

 

a. I had to take a break and get to the drug store to quickly pick up a prescription, but it wasn’t quick at all………

 

b. When I got back to my car, I saw this license plate on the car parked in front of me. I decided to take a picture of it.

 

Before I could, a woman immediately bounded out of the car and sternly asked, “CAN I HELP YOU?”

Unfazed (and trying to keep a straight face), I said – rather loudly – “Yes – I’d like to take a picture of your SCHNOODLE. Is that OK?”

“Yes”, she said in a very tiny voice, jumping back into her vehicle.

 

 

 

MAY

 

 

May 4 – Three pix

 

a. This shows a pretty red helicopter flying past the steeple next door. It turned out to be a US Coast Guard chopper. I have no idea why it was here.

 

b. I had to see my cardiologist at Hackensack Hospital for some sort of test where I had a blood pressure cuff on each arm and one on each ankle. I don’t recall why or what else was involved, but when the person administering the test left the room for a few minutes, I took a picture of the screen. Now you know what I look like naked except for 4 blood pressure cuffs. Whatever it was, I passed the test.

 

c. In a stairwell on my way out of the hospital, I noticed that people were attaching their hospital passes to a Fire Department inspection tag. It looked kind of ridiculous, so I took a picture of it. When I went back a week later for my test results, I expected to see a thousand passes there, but there were none, making this a VERY rare shot that no one cares about.

 

 

May 5 – Cleaning the parking lot workers’ outhouse

 

 

May 7 – Three pix

 

a. This was a big day in Hackensack – Main St was being converted back to two-way traffic after decades of being one-way. Chairs were set up in the middle of the street for all the guests and dignitaries. There were speeches, a ribbon-cutting ceremony and finally, Mayor John LaBrosse stood in the middle of Main St and sent an old and a new classic Chevrolet in different directions for the first time in ages.

 

b. HAD to get a shot of the HPD bikes………..

 

c. REALLY had to get a nice shot of that ’62 Impala (my favorite shot of the event).

 

 

May 8 – Sunset after rain from my kitchen sink

 

 

May 9 – There was just something strange about two guys – one of them with a pink bicycle and matching shirt – checking out the entrance to a Port-O-John.

 

 

May 10 – Two pix

 

a. Love this shot. It looks like he’s shooting sparks out of his…………saw.

 

b. How slow was this concrete? While it traveled from halfway down to the end, I got 5 shots off. Click to enlarge.

 

May 12 – Two shots (actually, four)

 

a. Read the caption.

 

b. I like the shadows.

 

May 14 – Two shots

 

a. A lot of shapes and items I haven’t seen before

 

b. I wonder what he’s eating……………and why his safety vest is on backwards.

 

 

May 15 – Two shots

 

a. Old signs

 

b. Contradictory signs

 

 

May 21 – Right next to the lot is the playground for the pre-school kids in a residential building. They only had ONE graduate? And that graduate got paper balloons? Oy!

 

 

May 24 – Someone else who can’t read signs

 

 

May 26 – Blazing sunrise over the old Sears building

 

 

May 27 – This was the monster machine that was brought in to dig up the parking lot.

 

 

 

JUNE – when I discover the Panoramic (PANO) photo setting on my iPhone. Click to enlarge on all PANOs.

 

 

June 1 – Five pix

 

a. (PANO) Busy day as trucks line up to cart away dirt, rocks, old concrete pieces and the old surface as it starts to get chewed up by the Monster (my name for it).

 

b. It’s interesting what little details you can capture from 7 floors up.

 

c. The Monster starts chewing and spewing…………and loses its aim at one point (fortunate that I was already focused on that spot when it happened).

 

d. Meanwhile, life goes on………

 

e. (PANO) The lot at the end of the day – chewing was restricted to two strips of lot under which electric power was installed.

 

 

June 2 – (PANO) The heavy equipment poses for me after work.

 

 

June 3 – (PANO) After work (and a couple of hours after a light rain)

 

 

June 4 – Two photos

 

a. (PANO) After work and during rain.

 

b. Strange lights coming from inside 389 Main – a block away and across State St from the lot…………..and also during rain

 

 

June 5 – Four photos

 

a. Sidewalk photo studio outside of 389 Main?

 

b. Laundry day?

 

c. “What the hell am I wearing?”

 

d. Three-parter: 1. Guy parks behind vehicle that’s picking someone up at an apartment building. There is ABSOLUTELY NO PARKING on that side of the street. Guy doesn’t bother looking for signs and exits to be away with his lady for an hour. 2 and 3. You know the rest.

 

 

June 6 – (PANO) The back of my building is one floor lower than the front for basement access. The house next door – naturally – is one floor higher than our “back yard” and their back yard was set up for what looks like a child’s birthday party. I had never seen this before and wanted to see what the PANO setting could do with it. I like it.

 

 

June 8 – A storm moves in over Hudson Yards and the World Trade Center.

 

 

June 9 – Weird clouds (speeding and standing still?)

 

 

June 10 – The Solar Eclipse

 

The story and all the pictures exist as another post. Go here to see and read everything: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=13443

 

The only thing that’s different is I now have the first four photos as a four-picture sunrise sequence with all times given………….and that’s here:

 

 

June 11 – Two photos

 

a, b. Concrete pouring

 

 

June 12 – Two photos

 

a, b. Interesting-looking people

 

 

June 13 – Five photos (all taken on the Hackensack River Walkway)

 

a,b. Crushed nuts, etc., are put out along the walkway surface for all the boids and squoils (or in this case, red-bellied woodpeckers, house sparrows and chipmunks).

 

c,d (PANO). The Walkway is not without its beauty.

 

e. Ever see a tree eating a guardrail?

 

 

June 15 – Interesting vehicle

 

 

June 19 – Two pix

 

a. Curbalance

 

b. Well, since they parked right next to the Port-O-John, adding “DUMPO” seems appropriate, no?

 

 

June 20 – Four pix

 

a,b. This woman was walking around the parking lot next to the church (on a Sunday!) and SCREAMING non-stop into her phone, but I couldn’t understand a word she said. She gesticulated, did anger-inspired, 180-degree hops to change direction……….oh, and her hat said “FBI JESUS”. Nothing abnormal here………..

 

c. At the other end of the lot, I shot this PANO on State St.

 

d. This gentleman appears to be trying to read whatever flyer that is on the sidewalk without stopping.

 

 

June 23 – Four pix

 

a. Isn’t it easier to pull the cart rather than push it?

 

b. Lot landscaper spreads EZ-Straw Seeding Mulch…….

 

c. .………and then packs it in for the day

 

d (PANO). Overhead view of the Seeding Mulch distribution

 

 

June 24 – Six pix (Busy: Paving Day and Isley Bros. Day)

 

a. Lot is half-paved

 

b. Off to Teaneck for Isley Brothers tribute day (street named for them) – the Teaneck Twirlers started off the entertainment.

 

c. Isley family picture………the full story is posted here: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=13492

 

d. Van Arsdale Place in Teaneck can now be called “Isley Brothers Way”. The camera in the lower left shows me taking this picture.

 

e (PANO). Back home, the lot paving is complete.

 

f. The perfect capper to a full photo day – the full moon sits on the clouds.

 

 

June 26 – Four pix (The lot’s makeup is applied)

 

a (PANO). Everything is mapped out on the lot early in the morning and the first few parking space stripes have been applied on the far right.

 

b. Family walk

 

c. Some oblivious idiot drives the wrong way on State St. Personal note: he just passed my 23-year-old Chrysler Sebring coupe with almost 27,000 original miles on it.

 

d PANO. The parking lot is finished and so am I for the first half of 2021.

 

 

See anything you liked?

 

2 Comments

  1. Baby Face July 8, 2021

    Boids and squoils

  2. Shannon September 7, 2021

    I have the same shirt you are wearing in your second vaccine pic 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *