New York

For the Fourth of July the family and I decided it might be fun to go to New York. We took the Amrtrak up which was a very nice 3 hour train ride. From Baltimore, that is definitely the way to go. I think there may need to be a Boston trip via the same means. Here are a few highlights from our trip.

After the wonderment of all the sky scrapers, the next thing to catch your eye is the sea of yellow taxis waiting to take your money or get you lost and take more of your money. Surprisingly though the taxi transportation for us was pretty cheap. I think it cost us $8 to get to our hotel in Times Square from Penn Station and then $5 to return. We had luggage and a total of 4 people to transport so that seems reasonble. While on the taxi ride to our hotel, there was sooooo much honking going not only by those around us, but also by our own cab driver. So I thought it was funny when I saw this on a double decker bus tour.

From what we learned on the bus tour, this law is rarly enforced because the police have better things to do than figure who is honking. Another New York icon is the Empire State building.

This was shot from the bus on our way to catch the ferry to Liberty Island to see Lady Liberty herself. On the ferry I just happen to be in the prime location to take a shot of downtown Manhattan.

Finally we make it to Liberty Island to catch the splendor of the Statue of Liberty, on the Fourth of July. Which in hindsight, it probably would be less crowded and more pleasant if we came during a cooler month such as September.

The detail is amazing and she really is something to see in person.

I hope you enjoyed the brief highlights from my vacation to New York. I know it is a vacation that I will not soon forget.

Kalimar Photo Results

Remember that Kalimar SR200 camera that I found in an antique store? Well I finally finished a roll of film and had a CD made with the pictures on them. I must say that I was quit pleased with most of the pictures. I don't ever remember taking very good pictures with non-digital cameras, but that was probably 20 - 25 years ago when I was a kid and had no understanding of taking picture basics. I was lucky if I didn't cut a person's head off or have a finger in the way let alone getting the right exposure and sharpness. So I was happy that I applied what I have been learning to get decent pictures out of an old SLR film camera. All the images are untouched with the exception of cropping.

Olivia was outside blowing bubbles and I thought I would try and capture that moment. She loves to play with bubbles.

In this picture Olivia is rather upset because she decided that she was done swinging and instead of waiting for it to come to a stop she let go and landed on her backside. Now she knows to wait for the swing to stop or to try and land on her feet.

This is Olivia and her Daddy.The camera doesn't have a flash and it was extremely sunny out so instead of having them squint with the sun in their face I just placed them with the sun off to the side.

Even though I love my digital camera, I think the old school camera gives a bit more nostaligic feel to it. I'm sure you could make your digital pictures have that same look through image editing software, but I'm not that advanced yet. You can click the images for a bigger picture. I still can't get over that the camera doesn't take batteries.