Summerfall 2009

With today officially being the last day of summer, I'll offer a few recent shots from Coney Island. Friday was a bright, clear day in New York, with a slight haze off to the horizon. The sun was noticeably into the low angle of winter, giving lots of glare off the water and long, stark shadows even at one o'clock in the afternoon.

Steeplechase Pier

There was a stiff and steady wind off the ocean, strong enough for a burly kite-flier on the pier to tell me he didn't want to let out too much line for fear he wouldn't be able to reel it back in. "Sounds like you're fishing in reverse," I told him.

The Cyclone

I need to come back a bit later in the afternoon so I can make a better pano than this in color. Even though I had the 5D with me, I'd still be dealing with the lens flare on the right because of the position of the sun. Like all of these current InfraRebel pictures, this ten-image montage was shot with the 17-40mm.

The Wonder Wheel

There's an eerie drone in the neighborhood, a low, rumbling hum that I first noticed getting out of the car, and I had parked near 20th Street, across from the ballpark. As I walked east on the boardwalk it seemed to deepen, and I finally realized what it was: the wind blowing through the Wonder Wheel was turning it into a giant, circular tuning fork, radiating a vibrato of despair throughout the deserted remains of the surrounding amusement park.

September 18, 2009

Notice the compositional theme of these four pictures? All of them were shot directly into the sun, with the last three exhibiting typical lens flare across the groupings of the lens elements.

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