Bellmore Strawberry Festival - Where are the Strawberries?

Saturday evening, it was time for the Bellmore Strawberry Festival. I tried looking for the strawberries, but I did not find anything strawberry related, even though every vendor's tent had a big sign saying they were a proud sponsor of the Strawberry Festival. Perhaps next year.

Since I couldn't find any strawberries, I decided to take some pics of the rides. Here is a pic of the main "midway". It's the first time I had seen one of those power shot rides at a carnival. In this shot I managed to get both the Round Up operating and the Power Shot. The ferris wheel had stoped not a minute before.

Here's a motion pic of the riders being shot up the tower.

This is the Riptide, which is a rotating ride in which the platform you sit on remains level. The ride rotates along the vertical, so you feel the sensation of rising and falling very quickly. The lights on the ride changed colors as it went through its run.

Here's the classic carnival ride, the Round Up. I can remember riding this many times at various fairs.

Here's a view of some of the games. This shot was a long exposure, so unless the people were fairly still, they just disappeared. The game operator to my right asked what I was doing, and when I showed him the pic, he couldn't believe that you could make the people disappear.

There was one stall selling Wild Bill's rootbeer. I really liked the mugs they had for sale.

Merrick, NY - Norman Levy Park

These three pics are from the Norman Levy Park located in Merrick, NY. The park was created by capping a landfill, so this is one of the few parts on long island with some elevation and a good vantage point. It overlooks a golf course on one side, and the Meadowbrook Parkway on the other. It was a hazy day, so I was not able to get any good wide landscape shots. You can however see the Jones Beach water tower, and even NYC from the to of the park.

At the top of the park, I found a windmill, which combined with the tall reed grass and the weathered fencing, reminded me more of Kansas than Long Island.

Freeport, NY - Part 1

Saturday morning I went out to the Nautical Mile in Freeport, NY. They have a street there (Woodcleft Avenue) that reminds me of an old New England town, with restaurants, bars, mini-golf, and shops (no chain stores). This collection of shots in three parts, showcase some of what I found in Freeport.

Part 1 starts off with Sea Breeze Park at the end of Woodcleft Ave. It provided great photo opportunities, which included the lamp posts, as each had a banner hanging from them.

The planters were scattered around a service building for the park.

There was a large dock off the end of the park. There were no boats tied off at the time, but I did manage to catch a passing boat in the frame.

One of the shops along Woodcleft Ave. included some hanging lights in their tree. I used a very short depth-of-field, which created a great bokeh from the other lights.

Freeport, NY - Part 2

This next set of Freeport pictures could be described as "That's Freeport ? "

This first pic was the interior of a bar. Everything was so clean and crisp, I'm guessing it was just remodeled. I caught this pic through some opened french doors. I loved the blue, especially coming from the glass blocks. To me, this scene looks more like an upscale restaurant in Manhattan.

The photo below is a section where two buildings touch. The painting scheme reminds me of the caribbean, maybe Jamaica?

The symbol below was on top of the storm drains along Woodcleft Ave.

Well, I guess this next pic gives it away, this certainly is Freeport, NY.

Now this next pic, I had a little trouble at first composing. Should I shift the frame to crop out the rusted fishing gear on the left, but then I get a pole from the dock and a McMansion coming in from frame right. I really wanted to include the weathered tie posts, so I settled on this frame. To me this looks more like Maine than Long Island.

Freeport, NY - Part 3

Here is the final set of pics from my visit to Freeport, NY.

This first pic was taken in an open seafood market.  Everything looked very fresh, and the rich pink color of the red snapper caught my attention.

These bouys were used for decoration outside one of the stores along Woodcleft Ave.

These were hanging from a tree, and yes, they were for sale. If you want them, they are $8.95 each.

This netting was piled along the pier near the green boat. I liked the contrasting colors. The blue rope really stood out against the green and black, and the touch of red is the finishing touch.

I believe these are lobster traps. I don't think they are used anymore, as i don't see any of the other hardware you normally see with these traps.

Dylan's 1st photo shoot

This past Sunday, we went to visit Jin & Stan, and their son Dylan. While we were there, I did a photo shoot with everyone. I think Dylan had a great time, I mean once you throw in a blue ball and puddles, what more can a kid ask for . . . oh yeah, SPRINKLERS! That was the most fun for him and everyone else.

Levittown Fair

This past Saturday, I went to the Levittown Fair to take some night shots of the rides. I started with the Ferris wheel. I first attempted to shoot this from within the fair, but I could not get the full wheel in frame. So, I went out into the parking lot and captured this shot. While there I met Doug, a fellow photographer from Long Island. You can check out his photography here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dougalug2005/3559332998/

Here is a still shot of the swings, just before the ride started.

This ride (foreground) is called the Dream Cathcher. Think of the pirate ship ride, with the added twist that the base of the pendulum is rotating in a circle. This was a great shot with the Ferris wheel also spinning in the background. Considering it is Memorial Day weekend, the red, white, and blue lights are a fitting scene.

I took a stop over at the merry-go-round, which was stopped, as there were no riders. I shot this pic with a wide aperature to keep only the foreground horse in focus.

It wasn't long before the ride started up, so I managed to take this shot, before everything became a blur.

This was my last shot of the night, as I was heading back to the car, I was walking by, and really liked this perspective of the wheel.

NYC Photo Walk - 05/21/2009

On this photowalk I traveled north to Central Park.

When you first approach the park from the south west corner, you'll find all the horse-drawn carriages queed along the road. It appeared to be feeding time by the time I made it to the park, as all of the horses had a feed bucket. I liked the deep red velvet of the carriage, the speeding taxi blur, and the contrast of the brown horse and the green trees.

Along the edge of the park, at most major entrances, there are ornamental light posts. This one caught my eye, so I wanted to shift the focus to the ornamental design, so I used a large aperature to keep only the base of the lamp post in focus.

There were people setting up for a carnival / fair that is going on at Wolman Rink in Central Park. The colors of the balloon ride caught my attention.

This is one of Central Park's famous bridges, I'm just not sure what the name of it is. It is located not to far from the Columbus Circle entrance.

This globe is located in Columbus Circle, I believe in front of one of the Trump buildings. The time of night was just right to have the clear sky rendered as a deep blue. I really like how this pic came out, considering the amount of people that were passing by.

I finished up the evening at Lincoln Center, just as the deep blue of the sky was fading to black.

Classic Cars - Bellmore, NY 05/08/09

This past Friday we stopped at the Bellmore Train Station for the Classic Car show that goes on there every Friday night through the fall. I took a lot of pictures, and here are a few of them.

I liked how the red classic car parked in the next spot was reflecting off the hub cap on this car.

There were a lot of Vettes there from the classics to this year's model. I really liked how the emblem looked on the yellow vette.

The red & black paint job on this car really struck me  - there's just something about the two bold colors.

Jones Beach 5/2/09

I took a trip to Jones Beach after the weather cleared this past Saturday. Here are a few of the shots I took.

The fire hydrant below is actually on the beach surrounded by sand. I thought it was an odd spot for a hydrant, but it made a great pic.

Given how the clouds were that night, I had to stay through the sunset. The weather also helped as it was probably about 60 degrees, but you could really feel the weather turn once the sun went down.