On Friday I decided to go out and try to capture a few shots of the space shuttle as it arrives at JFK Airport. This ended up being an adventure and a lesson all rolled up in one and one heck of a good exercise. For the past week I have been tracking the plans and try to come up with a strategy for getting good pics. I was figuring that they would have to use the longest runway and land into the wind so it was kind of easy to figure out where to go. On Thursday I joined an aviation forum after seeing an article online about the best places to view the shuttle landing.

I really have to thank the guys on the forum for some tips. After chatting with a few guys I found out that the popular place to go was by the Inwood golf course. To me this didn’t make sense as the plane would be going down the runaway and all you would see is the tail. I wanted it from the front so I decided to go to the place near the train bridge on the north side of the runway. To me it just made more sense. I walked about 3 miles to the spot where I thought would be the best for taking pictures.

There were four of us on the beach and it was very windy and a little cold but I knew we were in the right spot. I actually met some guys from the forum. How often does that happen? Join a forum and the next day you meet someone from that forum. I was glad because one of the guys suggested a camera setting which I used to get these shots. I also learned a lot about taking pictures of airplanes from them.

After the plane flew by the JFK airport control tower it continued on almost directly over our heads and made a left bank turn over the train bridge. It was an amazing sight and although I was snapping pictures I took a break and just marveled at what I was seeing. I felt like I could reach out and touch the shuttle it was so close.

After the shuttle landed the pilot opened up a hatch and started to wave an American flag. I had no idea until I was looking at the shuttle pictures on the computer.

The shuttle then turned around and head towards the space they had set up for dignitaries and near its special hangar where it will be until they put it on a ferry and take it to it’s new home on the U.S.S Intrepid.

On July 4th I went over to Hoboken to shoot pictures of the Macy’s July 4th fireworks. I can tell you that I really stunk taking pictures of fireworks but after doing some research on how to shoot fireworks and then explaining to Debbie what I read she put it all in perspective for me.  To tell you the truth all the settings confuse me just like it does the average user. Learning about camera settings is boring and not many people do it for that reason.

Looking at your pictures after you upload them to Google+ and checking out the details you can learn from your mistakes. You can also go around and see what settings other people used when taking fireworks pictures and learn from them.

I am tired of talking about foursquare and how tired I am about seeing “Mayor updates”  in my Twitter stream. The other day I took a picture and it made me think about it. I call this “I am the Mayor of this branch”.

If you notice there isn’t even a seagull around as they don’t care if this Yellow warbler is the Mayor of this branch. Actually I just needed a good excuse to post this picture.

When we went out to Affiliate Summit we also did the tourist things and took some pictures. This was a good test for me as I hadn’t really used my Sony A300 all that much. Most of these pictures were taken outside the Mirage Hotel. This is the waterfall that is really beautiful.

The Mountains behind the Rio were amazing, this was taken through the glass from our 18th floor room at the Mirage.

Here is a closer view of these amazing clouds, snow and mountains.

You can see the view we had from the room, you can’t tell where the sky ends and the mountains begin. It is a shame that crane ruins a great picture. Have a feeling that will be photo shopped out in the future.

Here is a view of the Las Vegas Strip with clouds in the background and the newly opened City Center.

This picture was taken from the monorail platform behind the Bellagio. The monorail is new and goes from the Bellagio to City Center, great place to get some pictures of the Las Vegas Mountains.

This is the sign above Harrah’s Casino. I love the details of it.

The waterfall again outside the Mirage but this time it has the Dolphin statues.

This was the first shot I took at City Center. I like the reflective nature of this shot.

Here is a shot of the Bellagio with some very dark clouds over it.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures, I made them small for the web. The originals are quite larger and were shot in RAW files. Can’t wait to print some of these and put them up in the office.

Some of my favorite shots

This past week My Friend Ed brought his family to New York City and since I know the town well I helped show them around. I booked a hotel on Friday night through Priceline and stayed at the Courtyard by Marriot on 40th street and 5th ave. Since Ed was staying at the Milford Plaza I knew I would only be a block or three away from being able to meet up with him, his wife Lois and their beautiful daughter Sasha.

After trekking into the city late on Friday night Debbie and I went to catch a late dinner and we ended up at the Playwright Irish Pub on 35th street. Atmosphere was good but the food kind of stunk so we got out of there and went back to the hotel so we could get a good nights sleep as we were meeting Ed early in the morning.

When we got up we walked towards the New York Public Library Building and Bryant park and  came across some pretty flowers. We went and met Ed and we hopped on the NY Subway towards lower Manhattan. We stopped by the World Trade Center site and paid our respects.

We then walked over by this big cube and off to Starbucks for something warm and to rest our already tired legs.

We then headed down towards Wall Street looking for the big bull that was in the street. I had never seen where this thing was in all of my 40 years living in NYC. We found Trinity Church then walked down Wall Street in pursuit of this bull.

After walking around in the rain I asked someone were the bull was and they pointed me in a general direction but we found it right back on Broadway where the Canyon of Heroes starts. There was a volleyball team gathered around the bull but Lois and Sasha was was able to sneak in for a pic.

By this time we had no clue were to go since the weather was lousy but we trekked on to Battery Park. We saw some squirrels in the park that liked to pose for us.

We were going to go out to the Statue of Liberty but like I said the weather was bad. We walked up to the South Street Seaport and got some lunch and dry off a bit. We passed a cool firetruck with Godzilla on the roof.

While we were eating at Brennans (which has great food) in the Seaport we decided to try and walk over the Brooklyn Bridge and take the subway back to Manhattan. I wish it was a nice day but they were troopers and how often can you say you walked over the Brooklyn Bridge.

We really got wet walking over the bridge but none of us really cared. We got to Brooklyn and hopped on the “A” train back to Manhattan. We went to Bryant park and watched the crazy people ice skating in the rain.

We were all getting tired and being wet we went back to the Milford Plaza after stopping in Times Square and got dry and went out to dinner.

Being that they have been on the road for a while I figured they were longing for some familiar food. A few weeks before I had read in the New York Times about a new restaurant that serves Australian style food.  We walked down to 38th street to The Australian. This place was great from the word go. They sat us in a booth in the back where we would have enough room, the waiter was great and made us feel right at home. They even had lemon bitters which I had never had before. I don’t remember what everyone had but they were raving over the barrimundi. Just the names of the food had me confused. I tried some damper and even had some Australian beer which was quiet good.  Desert was out of this world, Everyone was stuffed the meal was one of the best times I have had in a long time.

It was good catching up with Ed and meeting his family.