November 30, 2014

Phototravelog: Williamsburg Bridge Walk

The Williamsburg bridge connects Brooklyn with Manhattan and is a marvelous application of Erector Set construction principles:

My latest trip to New York, I walked the Williamsburg bridge on a dark but lovely afternoon. To my left, I saw its more famous cousin, the Brooklyn bridge, along with the Manhattan skyline:

On the Williamsburg bridge, the pedestrian walkway is a cage. The human eye quickly adjusts to this and ignores the bars, enjoying the view beyond. My phone camera, however, ignored the bars only in the few places where I could position the camera smack next to the grid, lens between bars:

Even when the cage is not prominent, the view is cluttered, which adds a distinctive industrial beauty:

Pedestrians walk above cars here:

And alongside trains!:

It turns out the subway is not just subterranean. Here are two trains passing, bread-‘n’-butter, in opposite directions:

This video almost catches a train exchange. Behind the trains, note some reasons not to drive:

I think I remember reading that a public art project made some pink decisions:

The public art continues to evolve:

Underfoot I found my favorite:

On the Williamsburg bridge, even the eroding asphalt paint looks good:

(The WP Weekly Photo Challenge was Angular.)

March 27, 2014

PhotoTravelog: From Waikiki to Diamond Head, Oahu, Hawaii

There are a lot of great scenes waiting for cameras in Hawaii as I learned when I visited the Hawaiian island of Oahu for the first time. I made the trip for work, so I spent most of my time at the convention center, or near my hotel on Waikiki Beach. My last day there, I walked a few miles from my hotel to another set of meetings near Diamond Head, and took lots of photos.

That distant hill and point is Diamond Head. I took this photo from the harbor near my hotel on the afternoon of my arrival. I didn’t see any bugs in Hawaii but saw much evidence of their existence, such as in the trunk of this tree.

The walk to Diamond Head was the most ambitious excursion of my trip and most of it took me through spectacular scenery. in the distance is my goal, lit by dawn sunlight.

The banyan tree is a common sight on Oahu. Older trees have roots that grow up and add themselves to the trunk, creating a broad, ropey base, like this tree en route to Diamond Head.

Whatever you do, don’t feed those …. um …. those…. Altered signs seem to be a trend here.

And then there are signs that promise other alterations. Why wait until dinner? I call this one cutting to the chase.

I loved the rough surface of this jetty, which exists to protect tourists from slipping into the sea. It may be too close to the lunchtime happy hour to succeed at all times, however.

Now I’m on the Diamond Head side of my earlier photos, looking west and back toward the Waikiki Beach hotels.

The road took me uphill through neighborhoods that reminded me of Santa Barbara, California. Only 9a but it was getting warm.

I went past cliffside parks with trails down to the ocean, some of which were not safe to hike. Or anyway I think that’s what the sign was trying to tell me.

There was an old lighthouse, now occupied by an island bigwig.

Surfers in Hawaii have so many choices of places with great waves!

During my week on Oahu, the weather fluctuated continuously although the temperature held to the high 70s, low 80s. Sunny then cloudy then drizzle then wind. Blasts of rain punctuated with balmy breeze. Humid then less humid then more humid again. Clouds from the north were always piled up against the mountains that stretch along the center of the island. I took this photo of the clouds and mountains from the glass elevator at my hotel.

Here is a cloudy moment near Diamond Head.

It came amidst the sunny moments like this one.

This is the second of three posts about my trip to Hawaii.

I also blogged about the sights near Waikiki and glimpses of non-tourist Oahu.

March 25, 2014

PhotoTravelog: Honolulu, Hawaii

Recently, I was lucky enough to visit the Hawaiian island of Oahu for the first time, and now here are some posts to share some of the experience.

Oahu is one of the smallest of the Hawaiian islands, and by far the most densely populated. I made the trip for work, so I spent most of my time indoors in meetings. Still, I managed to enjoy a week of sunrise and sunset at the beach, and although I was “stuck” in tourist-riddled Waikiki Beach – well, there are reasons that locations become popular, and here the natural beauty shines through the murk of tourism and overpopulation. Honolulu may be the least lovely spot in Hawaii, but that least surpasses many a most.

To get to Hawaii from Los Angeles I took a five hour flight over the Pacific Ocean.

Traffic sucked on the shuttle from the airport to Waikiki. Turns out traffic sucks everywhere in Honolulu. I could even see traffic snarls from my hotel room.

Fortunately my room had a big window and this was the rest of the view, at night

and during the day.

I was on the 17th floor and I kept the large window open all the time to luscious warm fresh air.

The harbor water is brown for at least two reasons. The rocks and dirt are all volcanic – very high in iron – which makes standing water look rusty.

Also, the harbor water is filthy. You probably can’t see the black fish nibbling this trash from below.

Best to view the harbor at night, especially when the neighboring hotel stages its weekly fireworks display.

One wonders whether the hotels also stage the vast number of rainbows that materialize over their roofs. Many are double rainbows.

Here’s a rainbow with a nearly full moon, just prior to a golden sunset.

I spent my days at meetings in the convention center, where this was the view of the ocean.

But the sunsets were my own to enjoy.

And I was up to await the dawn, just like these palm trees.

Amazing how many people were in the water at dawn!

Hawaiian beaches are gorgeous yet incomplete, as they lack pelicans. There are plenty of pigeons and seagulls. Also, this handsome bird hung out with fisherman near a bridge.

He never let me get any closer than this. Catlike, he would walk as though indifferent to me, but aware of my every move, to maintain this distance whether I slowed down, sped up, or stopped.

I have multiple pictures of this bird, taken on more than one day, all at this distance.

This is the first of three posts about my trip to Hawaii. I also blogged about a walk from Waikiki to Diamond Head and glimpses of non-tourist Oahu.

July 28, 2013

The View From High and Far

I can stare at a city view for hours, studying the structure, sensing the underlying chaos, sensing the history and the stories, hearing faint distant sirens and that lowgrade perpetual hum that comes from so many people in one locale. Below are shots of

Chicago adjoining Lake Michigan,
Boston at sunset across the Commons,
midtown Manhattan,
the East River and Queens as seen from the Empire State Building on a very clear day, and
downtown Los Angeles as seen from the hiking trails at Griffith Park at dawn.

I will leave it to you to figure out which is which.