האָוואַרד לייענת ייִדיש

A portrait of my friend and distinguished colleague, Howard.

Among other things, he's distinguished because when he joined our little team at the University, he was issued an ID card that says "Faculty," instead of "Staff," as it was supposed to be. So since then, I've referred to him as "Professor."

One day last December, as Howard and I arrived at our Light Rail destination in the morning, we got an alert from work that our building had lost power, and that they didn't expect it to be restord until late afternoon... so they were telling everyone to go home for the day. Howard and I decided to stay on the Light Rail and ride it to the northern end of the line - a nice 45 minute journey northward.

One the way back, I remembered that I had with me a copy of the "Forverts" ("Forward",) a Yiddish newspaper I had brought back from New York some months earlier. I bought it strictly for photographic purposes - I thought it would be humorous to take pictures of people who you wouldn't expect to be reading a Yiddish publication - and Howard fit the bill. I still have to arrange to take a picture of it with one of my Asian friends.

For a while, we had this photo posted in our office between our desks as a way of showing how learned Professor Howard really was!

In case you were wondering, the title of this post is, "Howard laynt Yeedish", which simply means "Howard reads Yiddish."

Barns & Nobel Shadows

I headed crosstown the other day on a mission to Barnes & Nobel. The day was brilliant, and the sun was just about overhead - not normally a great time for photos.

But when I saw the pattern of shadows on the stairs, I thought it might make a good background for some people in an HCB-like setting. I took several as people came and went - this is my favorite of the bunch.

Taken with a Canon S90 digicam and converted to B&W via Channel Mixer in Photoshop.

Wachovia Building

Treyf* Alert!

I drove to Crofton the other day to deliver photos I took for a bat-mitzvah a few weeks ago. On the way back, I spotted this little ornament hanging near the entrance to Fat Boy's Crab Shack. The colors and shape helped me overcome my genetic disinclination to come within 20 meters of anyplace crabs are served.

* treyf = Yiddish for food that is not in accordance with Jewish dietary law, derived from the Hebrew terefah (טְרֵפָה‎)

Whenever I visit NYC, I can't be within 10 blocks of Grand Central without walking inside and then heading out the front entrance to admire the facade.

In this case, I was heading back uptown from visiting old friends in the East 30's. Shot at 11pm just after it stopped raining.

Goodrich River Delta

On a trip to Cape May back in April, I did a double-take as I passed through Elmer, NJ. Doubling back a few hundred yards later, I stopped in front of Fred Harz & Son, a full-service tire dealer.

Mr. Harz and progeny must have known a crazy photographer would be passing through that Saturday, as they had a neat stack of imposing, giant tires, treads nicely whitewashed, in front of their place. The old black tires, whitewashed stripes, and strong midday sun cried out for some photo-fun. I got several good views of parts of the stack, all with my pocket-sized Canon S90, and I'll put up some of the others over the next few blog posts.

Meanwhile, here's my favorite. The zigzagging channels reminded me of a river delta, hence the title of this post.

For those who are wondering, here's the "civilian" view of what I was shooting at.

Potbelly Chair Shadow

Walking eastward on Pratt Street after work today... the sun was just right to cast fabulous shadows from these wrought-iron chairs outside the Potbelly Sandwich Shop.

Art Deco Heaven

In the foreground is the 1936 statue of Atlas by Lee Lawrie and Rene Chambellan. The Art Deco statue greets visitors to 630 Rockefeller Center (the International Building) as well as passers-by. Through the spherical astrolabe on Atlas' shoulders, you can see 30 Rockefeller Center.

"30 Rock", since 1988, is called the GE Building. Before that, it was the RCA Building. The renaming took place after GE bought RCA (and thus, NBC) 27 years ago.

Prior to 1988, "the GE Building" was the beautiful 1931 Art Deco skyscraper at 570 Lexington Avenue. Oddly enough, the building was designed for RCA, and the original plans refer to it as "RCA Building." As it was being finished, GE and RCA were involved in some anti-trust actions, and in the settlement, GE got the building.

I was privileged to work in the "old" GE Building at 570 Lexington for 8 years. There was a company dining room on the 50th floor where anyone, from Jack Welch to the newest mail boy, could eat for a few bucks. The view to the West from the mens' room on the 50th was spectacular, until the Leona "Queen of Mean" Helmsley built her execrable Helmsley Palace Hotel.

The New Times Square

Several blocks in the Times Square area have been converted to pedestrian-only zones. The City even put out all these chairs (like the ones in Bryant Park over the last several years) as well as cafe tables.

Cable Reels

Morning on the Magothy

We sold our house earlier this week and moved into a nicely-furnished basement apartment that we're renting from a very nice couple who live upstairs. That's where we'll be for the next six months or so as we wait for our townhouse to be built in a nearby "55-Plus" community (or as my brother-in-law Peter refers to it, "the Nursing Home."

Sandy found the rental, and I first saw it one evening late last month, so I had no idea that just across the street and down an incline was the Magothy River. I was out the door on my way to the car just after sunrise this morning, and having my ever-ready Canon S90 in my pocket, walked down to the water and snapped a few photos.

Late Night Light Rail

Channeling Dave Beckerman, I snapped this Friday night on the way home from Karaoke (yes, I suffered for my music, now it's your turn!)

Again, it was a nice test for my new Canon S90. At ISO 800, f/2.8 at 1/15 sec, its a very clean and sharp image.

First Day Out with Canon S90

Thursday morning, I put my new Canon S90 into the little Tyvek® envelope in which it came and slipped the package into my pants pocket. That was the whole point of getting this thing, so I could take it everywhere and never be without a camera.

So here's Dev, who along with his wife owns and operates the Loft Deli a few blocks from where I work. Dev always has a smile and a good word for me whenever I stop by to buy a sandwich or some trail mix.

Aesthetics aside, from a technical standpoint, the image is remarkably good for a compact digicam. The EXIF data says 1/30 second at f/3.3 and 10.7mm (which is almost exactly equivalent to 50mm on a 35mm camera.) More importantly the ISO is 800.

If you click on the screen capture at right, you'll see a pixel-peeping section of the image, displayed at 100% in Photoshop.

What impresses me is how little noise there is at this ISO value. With a typical pocket-sized digicam at ISO 200, and certainly by ISO 400, I would expect to see quite a lot of noise in areas such as Dev's face and the even-toned wall to his right.

Another nice thing is that this is the .jpg almost exactly as it popped out of the camera. I had only made very tiny tweaks to exposure and color balance at this point, and no sharpening.

So far, so good!

This Boy's New Toy

Oh boy! My new Toy!

I've been wanting to get a new pocketable, carry-everywhere camera for a while, and my 60th birthday, plus some cash burning a hole in my pocket, made for a convenient excuse.

What was I looking for? Oh, not too much. Image stabilization (lacking in my 4-year-old Canon A620,) 28mm equivalent on the wide end, excellent image quality for making up to 13"x19" prints... RAW capability would be nice. Oh, and all of this in a size small enough to disappear in a pants pocket.

Not too much to ask, is it? Actually, digital photo technology has progressed so rapidly that there are plenty of cameras today from many different manufacturers that could fit the bill. I've always been very happy with Canon compacts, so I wanted to stick with that brand. Even so, there was lots to choose from (except for the RAW part.)

I decided to go with the Canon S90, mainly because of its good looks. Just kidding, but it is a nice-looking little package.

I've just barely unpacked it, so I don't have much to show you at this point, but I wanted to give you some idea of its size in the photos here.

The top photo shows the S90 compared to my monthly transit pass, which is the same size as a credit card. In the lower photo, the S90 looks positively svelte next to my trusty old A620.

Here's a very positive review of the Canon S90. You probably should also read this other, not quite as glowing review as well. I included it for the sake of full disclosure and also because I've found Imaging Resources to be a reliable information source.

More to come on the Canon S90 soon.