{"id":1501,"date":"2017-05-01T05:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T09:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic-photoblog.bobleafe.com\/?p=1501"},"modified":"2021-11-01T20:04:52","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T00:04:52","slug":"2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/?p=1501","title":{"rendered":"2012 – The best photos of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were only two major photo events for me in 2012 – Shuttle and Sandy – so most everything else is posted randomly and small (the site where I was posting some of these had a 640px long-side limit). 2012 was the first year that I started to save “best-of”\u009d files, so they were already done.<\/span><\/h4>\n

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The shuttle Enterprise’s NYC\/NJ flyover<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

Here’s what I wrote back then:<\/span><\/h4>\n

As all good Trekkies know, when it comes to the Enterprise, the best place to be is on the bridge, so that’s what I did this morning: I went to the George Washington Bridge to shoot the shuttle Enterprise’s flyover on a NASA 747.<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

The rest of the story (and additional pictures) can be found here:<\/span> http:\/\/www.hackensacknow.org\/index.php\/topic,2422<\/a><\/span><\/h4>\n

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Approaching the bridge:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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After it passed the bridge, I tried to get some shots of the rear of the tandem as it started to climb to a higher altitude. Unfortunately, a lot of trucks in the westbound lane of the GWB were whizzing by and ruining the shots…………….until I got this one, which I love. As I wrote:<\/span><\/h4>\n

It looks like a 1950s hot rod under a 1970s airplane that’s carrying a 1980s space shuttle – ground, air, and space over water.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Most people on the GWB left at that point, but I knew that not only was it coming back, it was also going to make a third appearance, cutting across NJ just south of the bridge (and parallel to it) to do a fly-by at NY’s LaGuardia and JFK airports. It actually cut across closer to me than I thought it might and I got this shot:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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Superstorm Sandy and aftermath<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

This is my best shot during the storm. It wasn’t raining, so I could clearly see what at first looked like a volcano a half-mile away. It turned out that no homes were on fire…………….it was just a lot of extreme sparking from downed wires.<\/span><\/h4>\n

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Electrical wires kept a tree suspended over a street:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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A mockingbird (I’m assuming it’s the same one) started showing up every morning on the top of one of my building’s chimneys and just started singing up a storm, which I could clearly hear in my apartment.<\/span><\/h4>\n

I went on the roof to see it and noticed that – at semi-regular intervals – it would suddenly leap 10-20′ in the air and return to the same spot………….without ever missing a note.<\/span><\/h4>\n

“I gotta shoot this!”<\/span><\/h4>\n

Pretty easy to do – bring out a lawn chair, sit and use some concert timing…………….Bang! Zoom! Done!<\/span><\/h4>\n

People started finding the shots online and began posting them on social media: “Bob Leafe’s beautiful images of the Northern Mockingbird…………..”<\/span><\/h4>\n

Between Hammy and Jukebox, is it any wonder that I don’t like to go out much anymore? I might miss something.<\/span><\/h4>\n

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KALEIDOHAM<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I just found this and it had no info. I can tell I took the original shot of Hammy in 2012 because his eyes are brownish (they were yellow in 2011). I ran it through a kaleidoscope program and it worked really well.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I like that shot a lot, but my absolute favorite (and best) shot of Hammy is this after-dinner closeup:<\/span><\/p>\n

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The reason the area under my watermark is yellowish is because the shot was taken through one of my bedroom windows and the window had an old, dried-up drop of paint on the glass, which was the last thing I’d be noticing when this magnificent creature is this close to me and staring right at me. It’s actually a bit less obvious because of the watermark, but now it may be more obvious because I mentioned it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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“Yo! Cookiepants!”\u009d<\/span><\/h4>\n

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“Yo! Crazypants!”<\/span><\/h4>\n

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This is a Crane fly on my window:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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This looks like a weather sandwich: stormy with a rainbow on the lower level, a mix in the middle and sunny with puffy clouds on top.<\/span><\/h4>\n

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I was up real early one morning for some reason and was out on the roof when I saw this almost perfect V-formation of geese, who were lit up by the just-risen sun. I’ve never even seen that before, let alone gotten a shot of it.<\/span><\/h4>\n

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The Bergen County Courthouse and a fire in the Meadowlands:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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The rest of 2012:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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Raw catfish sushi:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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Twinkletoes:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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Peek-a-poop!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Valentine’s Day:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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1959 Mercury:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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Madonna visits………<\/span><\/h4>\n

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Special event for end-of-school-year (a block-and-a-half away):<\/span><\/h4>\n

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Just a regular day in the neighborhood:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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On the Hackensack River and coming straight at me in my living room:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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\nAfter I take two, I’ll call you in the morning.<\/span><\/h4>\n

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PHOTO STITCHES
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The first one is an 8-shot stitch of my neighborhood as seen from the top of the Sears tower. If you’ve been following along, you know where I live in this shot. The only structure not seen previously and which might be of interest to locals is the Holy Trinity Grammar School, where I attended from grades 5-8. It’s the U-shaped building where my watermark is displayed.<\/span><\/h4>\n

There are a bunch of Sears tower shots on this blog. Up there by the flag is about a 12-story level. The building – two blocks from where I live – was constructed in 1932. But there were ZERO pictures from up there in the city’s database – until now – so I was fortunate to get up there (“fortunate”\u009d, my ass – it took two months of negotiations with a Sears corporate attorney at Sears HQ in Hoffman Estates, IL, to get permission to go up there. It was given because I was up there to take “Before” shots of the Main St area in advance of a major rehabilitation project. I must say, though, that the attorney was very nice about it).<\/span><\/h4>\n

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.<\/span><\/h4>\n

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This one is a 5-shot stitch of a sunset, taken from my roof:<\/span><\/h4>\n

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There were only two major photo events for me in 2012 – Shuttle and Sandy – so most everything else is posted randomly and small (the site where I was posting some of these had a 640px long-side limit). 2012 was the first year that I started to save “best-of”\u009d files, so they were already […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1501"}],"version-history":[{"count":43,"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14745,"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1501\/revisions\/14745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}