Skyline

Some more from my Meadowlands Project. The Lower Manhattan skyline is visible from just about anywhere in the nature preserve.

Another in the series begun at the end of last year that I started showing on New Year’s Day (see original post here, or update a few posts back). That’s Lower Manhattan in the background of the first shot. Not being a birder I’m not sure if this is a snowy or great egret. Click on any image to see them all enlarged.

Bamberg

Continuing with the exploration of my father’s Kodachrome slides from the 1950s (see the original post here), we turn to Germany. Most of the upcoming images were taken in Bamberg, the town where my father was billeted in an apartment with my mother. They were there from approximately the summer of 1955 to the summer of 1956 with trips to England, Switzerland and around Germany in between.

We’ll start with a trio of images, I think all taken in the same spot, some kind of stone balcony overlooking the town, (perhaps at the Rose Garden?) with one portrait each of my mother, my father and my father with an army buddy my mother identified as Chet, “who came at the weekends and never left.”

The bottom shot was a kind of monochrome greeny-yellow. I tried adding some warmth to it, not very successfully and made the sky bluish to add a little interest (winds up looking like one of those hand-tinted B&Ws). Needless to say, while I’ve been calling these “my fathers slides,” and it’s possible he set the camera up on a tripod, I think it unlikely he took at least 2 of these.

Dawn

Parliament

My mother poses on an empty pavement before the Houses of Parliament. Full story here.

Port of London

Back when London was still a very active port city. The story of these Kodachromes by my father can be found in this post.

Freedom

New Year, New Project

For over 20 years I have been making trips from New York, via the Lincoln Tunnel and the New Jersey Turnpike, to visit my in-laws in South Jersey. Each trip I look out the window as we pass, what I now know are, the confluence of the Passaic and Hackensack Rivers with Newark Bay and the Meadowlands, from high on an overpass, at beautiful wetlands traced with the arteries of human industry and commerce and think about photographing the beauty below me. But where to begin? Where exactly am I on the Turnpike? How can I get these aerial vistas other than from a speeding train or car?

This year, finally, as my wife drove, I used Google maps to slap down a marker as we passed. Back home after Christmas, I investigated the area on Google maps. There are various parks in the vicinity, on the shores of the rivers and I decided to check them out. Last weekend I booked a Zip Car and we spent an afternoon in the Laurel Hill Park in Secaucus.

I’m very pleased with the results of my first foray and will be posting them over the next week or so as I travel for business. Some of these images may not be strong enough on their own – I’ll attempt to curate them to work together in small groups. I’m pleased enough with this initial set to think of putting together an exhibition of some kind after visiting the area some more.