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Stonehenge

I have been drawn to stuff like this since I was  a little kid.  A very long time ago.  Patterns, textures, abstractions of the environment, teasing out the beauty in the mundane; possibly arising from the fact that my family was pretty far from well off, and I had to work with what I had.

Not that we were going hungry, but we lived in a pretty drab part of New York.  It was a grayer and grimier city in the 1950's, since coal was still being burned, and raw sewage was being dumped into the rivers.  I may seem be waxing nostalgic here, and we certainly need to keep our nostalgia shiny but 1950 era New York was pretty dreadful.  I guess I learned early to work with what I had.

New York City is a lot shinier and prettier now, in some neighborhoods, at least.

These three images are on display at NY Law School through the end of March, part of an OIA show about animals...

The Wildlife of NYC

Monarch

My hat's off to those wildlife photographers with the patience to sit in blinds for days, stalk moose through deep snow, and climb trees.  I just happened on these fellows, and they will be in an OIA show next month at NY Law School in Soho.  

Bee and Pollen

The Squirrel and the Butterfly (not to be confused with French movies with similar title, were shot with an Olympus 410.  The Bee was with a Canon 5d.

What was required was patience and more patience.  Especially the Bee - it was three hundred degrees and I was using a macro and had no depth of field to fall back on....after using the 5d for almost a year, I am surprised by the quality of the 10 megapixel Olympus images...and on a four thirds sensor yet.  To a large extent, it's still the person, not the machine.   

My spouse uses a Kodak point and shoot, and it makes for some amazingly good images within it's limitations.  Crikey, how things change and yet remain the same.  However, making images with a 21 Megapixel full frame machine is a little like shooting medium, and sometimes, large format film.  And I never had the energy to schlep a 4x5, film backs, and tripod for a grand total of 12 images.  

Squirrel