Bayonne Before Bermuda

As I’ve already explained, I’ve got a lot of pictures from this summer’s cruise to Bermuda that I plan on posting, though I’ll likely try to group them together in micro-bursts to have a little more fun with it.

For this group, here are the photos I took from the boat overlooking the glorious Port of Bayonne, in Bayonne, New Jersey. It’s definitely not the most glamorous port, surrounded with docking ports and rows of freshly imported automobiles. But the view of downtown Manhattan was a perspective I’ve never had, which included seeing construction of the new World Trade Center from New Jersey.

I don’t have a zoom lens, so the natural photos I got were not amazing. However, putting an Aperture preset on them that emulates and old postcard really made them pop.

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Publish date:
December 3rd, 2011
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A Sunset Or a Tornado?

Here’s one dramatic sky.

I had just left Whole Foods in Lake Grove, N.Y. after working the bulk of the day at the tables there –  I love the free Wi-Fi and food bar – when I noticed this cyclone in the sky, painted in purple, pinks and oranges by the setting sun.

I wasn’t the only one taken in by the natural beauty, others in the parking lot stopped to gawk. Luckily, I had my camera.

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December 2nd, 2011
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A Real Ocean View

This past July my parents took me on a 7-day cruise to Bermuda to witness them renewing their wedding vows after 35 years. For so many reasons, it really was a wonderful trip. The open Atlantic and the treasure Island that is Bermuda were huge sources of inspiration, and the experiences on land as well as the thinking that came from staring out at an endless ocean will no doubt come out in my creative works.

The trip was also a huge source for photos, and I took close to 500 of them – though my father marveled how I could shoot so many and not make a person the subject of at least one. What can I say? I like landscapes and macros these days.

But 500 photos would be too much to dump here, so I’ll start with a few I took from the cruise ship looking out across the Atlantic. It was such a strange new experience to be surrounded by water with no land in sight. The navy blue ocean on the high seas is angelic.

So here are a few ocean photos, seen from a cruise ship.

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November 20th, 2011
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A Night with Bela Fleck

I’ll admit that I wasn’t the biggest fan of Bela Fleck before I saw him play at Stony Brook University’s Staller Center on Saturday, but that’s mostly because I hadn’t really spent much time listening to his music. But now you can count me among the fans.

What a show.

You can click here to read my review of the concert on Patch.

But here’s a taste. I actually saw this guy filming the clip on his iPhone, which was very brave of him since there was an older man with a handlebar moustache who was on the prowl for cell phones. He even came after me, when all I was trying to do was tweet the show.

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November 14th, 2011
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Autumn Stroll on Campus

Week’s like these are my favorite, when it jumps to an unseasonable temperature in fall, and then the smells of the season bloom in the warm air. At the same time, this week the colors finally burst on Long Island, and while the trees at my home mostly turned a bright yellow the area around me was a awash in orange and reds as well.

Perhaps it’s a little college nostalgia, but this Wednesday I was walking on the campus of Stony Brook University, and the warmth and the autumn color-burst felt like home. It was early and quiet and dense fog had just lifted from the campus. A few seagulls flew over the trees and chipmunks scurried over dirt paths.

The only thing I don’t love about fall is that is ends in winter.

Either way, here is an assortment of photos I took during Wednesday’s stroll, all using the iPhone’s Hipstamatic app. Enjoy.

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November 10th, 2011
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Small Stone Challenge: Day 1

If you haven’t checked out Mightybell, you must. It seems a relatively new site, but the aim is simple. People post certain challenges meant to enrich users, many made up of a series of steps on the way to a goal. I’ve only started exploring the site, but so far I’ve signed up for two challenges including Kaspalita’s “Experience the world more deeply in 7 days (write small stones).”

The aim here is to write short pieces called “small stones,” a haiku-like prose poem. I’m personally not going to follow the form of small stones, but will stick to my own prose poem style to complete the challenge.

I must say, however, that I love the spirit of Mightybell.

Here’s how Kaspalita’s challenge begins:

Step one

  • Take the time to really look at something today. Go into the natural world (a park, your garden, your neighbour’s garden) and let something catch your eye.
  • Examine it.
  • Write it down.

And here is my entry:

Tree of gold

This morning, the sun shone on a tree with gold leaves that lives in my backyard while the green leaves on the trees nearby, the ones that hung in the shadow of my house, seemed to bow to the golden tree, whose leaves stood tall above the long and drying grass.

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November 7th, 2011
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Short Stories

The Office is closed

This is a little sad to write, since for years The Office has been my favorite show on television, one of the few pieces of entertainment that could actually make me laugh out loud. But since Steve Carell left, the show’s been terribly un-funny.

And it’s sad.

There have been many shows where the strength of the ensemble drives the success of the series (Seinfeld, How I Met Your Mother, Arrested Development), but each is usually driven by one character who ties the show together (Jerry, Ted, Michael), advancing the comedy. But with Ed Helms attempting to be that character in the new season of The Office, the show is failing. Maybe we can’t accept Andy in the lead role after the years he played as one of The Office’s less central characters, but he fails to tie the show together, which is scattering the ensemble and weakening the comedy.

For me, it’s at the point where I’m just not willing to waste time watching. It’s not the end of the world, but it does make me sad when a show that I believed exhibited so much creative genius over the years all of a sudden goes dumb.

It was a good run, but I’m tuning out.

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November 4th, 2011
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New Tumblr: Powderfly

There’s a story behind ‘Powderfly,” but I’ll save that for another time. What’s important, though, is I have just set up a Tumblr blog that I will use to highlight a lot of the great work coming out of the Long Island region I manage for Patch.com. I run 12 sites, and every day we’re publishing some great stories and features.

I’ve tried to have a Tumblr in the past, but found it overlapped with this site. I think using it to show off some Patch work is perhaps the perfect solution. Tumblr is picking up more and more steam, and I’d like to find a way to utilize the platform. So if you are a Tumblr user, follow me:

Powderfly
henrypowderly.tumblr.com

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Publish date:
November 2nd, 2011
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