This is another view from our hotel window -- looking across the street at the southwest corner of Esther Short Park, in Vancouver, WA. On sunny mornings, the plaza is bathed in a warm, golden sunlight -- and there are long shadows across the bricks.

At the end of our visit, this empty plaza was filled with approximately 3,000 people who waited patiently for the lights on a hundred-foot tree to be turned on; meanwhile, a band played, costumed elves danced around, and an enormous Santa Claus figure appeared to entertain the kids.

In this photo, you can see the two trucks on either side of the Christmas tree, with men who are stringing lights around the tree, all the way from the base to the top..

Esther Short, for whom the park is named, had a husband (Amos) and ten children; the park was established in 1853, and it's the oldest public park in the state of Washington. If you would like to know some additional details about Ms. Short and the park, you can read all about it on Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Short_Park

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These photos and videos were taken by various people, with various cameras, during our trip to visit the Duclos-Yourdon clan in Portland over Thanksgiving weekend.

Many of the photos are relatively uninteresting shots of family members, which I've decided not to make public here on Flickr. But there were a few that I thought might be of general interest ...

Tags:   Portland Thanksgiving plaza sunlight shadows Esther Short Park

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This is another view from our hotel window -- looking across the street at the southwest corner of Esther Short Park, in Vancouver, WA. On sunny mornings, the plaza is bathed in a warm, golden sunlight -- and there are long shadows across the bricks.

At the end of our visit, this empty plaza was filled with approximately 3,000 people who waited patiently for the lights on a hundred-foot tree to be turned on; meanwhile, a band played, costumed elves danced around, and an enormous Santa Claus figure appeared to entertain the kids.

In this photo, you can see the two trucks on either side of the Christmas tree, with men who are stringing lights around the tree, all the way from the base to the top..

Esther Short, for whom the park is named, had a husband (Amos) and ten children; the park was established in 1853, and it's the oldest public park in the state of Washington. If you would like to know some additional details about Ms. Short and the park, you can read all about it on Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Short_Park

********************************************************************************

These photos and videos were taken by various people, with various cameras, during our trip to visit the Duclos-Yourdon clan in Portland over Thanksgiving weekend.

Many of the photos are relatively uninteresting shots of family members, which I've decided not to make public here on Flickr. But there were a few that I thought might be of general interest ...

Tags:   Portland Oregon Thanksgiving plaza sunlight Esther Short Park

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This was the scene that greeted me when I emerged from the subway at 96th Street, and made my way back up above ground.

The musician's name is Real Rob, and he's got a couple of CD's for sale. You can reach him by email at reallyrob66@gmail.com and he's on Facebook at Facebook.com/real.rob.520 He also has a website, where you can purchase his music at www.realrobbandcamp.com

He probably won't rival the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, but it was a pleasant sound after an afternoon of loud, screeching train sounds ...

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As I reported in a separate Flickr album a couple months ago, most of my business trips have involved air travel from New York City; I’ve seen the insides of more airports and more airplanes than I care to remember.

But most of my trips along the eastern corridor of the U.S. have involved trains, and I find them to be a very relaxing and enjoyable contrast. These trips almost always start with a subway ride to Penn Station, rather than a taxi ride to JFK or LGA or EWR; and they are followed by a relatively pleasant journey along the East Coast on an Amtrak Acela train that has a much greater chance of departing and arriving on time than most of my airplane journeys.

I took a recent trip to Philadelphia in August 2015 and then another one (for a different client) in October 2015. In both cases, my journey began with a subway ride from 96th Street to Penn Station; and then a train trip from the Amtrak terminal in NYC’s Penn Station to the architecturally interesting Amtrak station in Philadelphia, before reaching my client’s office for a day-long meeting. At the end of the day, the journey reversed itself, and I was back home shortly after dinner.

I took a few photos and videos along the way; the ones I’ve uploaded here are representative of the trip...

Tags:   music Real Rob guitar subway New York Manhattan Upper West Side

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(more details later, as time permits)

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As I reported in a separate Flickr album a couple months ago, most of my business trips have involved air travel from New York City; I’ve seen the insides of more airports and more airplanes than I care to remember.

But most of my trips along the eastern corridor of the U.S. have involved trains, and I find them to be a very relaxing and enjoyable contrast. These trips almost always start with a subway ride to Penn Station, rather than a taxi ride to JFK or LGA or EWR; and they are followed by a relatively pleasant journey along the East Coast on an Amtrak Acela train that has a much greater chance of departing and arriving on time than most of my airplane journeys.

I took a recent trip to Philadelphia in August 2015 and then another one (for a different client) in October 2015. In both cases, my journey began with a subway ride from 96th Street to Penn Station; and then a train trip from the Amtrak terminal in NYC’s Penn Station to the architecturally interesting Amtrak station in Philadelphia, before reaching my client’s office for a day-long meeting. At the end of the day, the journey reversed itself, and I was back home shortly after dinner.

I took a few photos and videos along the way; the ones I’ve uploaded here are representative of the trip...

Tags:   Penn Station New York Manhattan Acela Amtrak train

g h i Some Rights Reserved

Over the weekend, I took a train from NYC up to Westchester County to watch one of my grandsons play soccer.

This was the scene on the soccer field, as the boys were warming up for their soccer game.

What makes this different is that I'm using an iPhone6s+ with Apple's new iOS9 operating system. As a result, each photo becomes a "live" photo, which means that it gets stored as a 3-second video ... If you press hard on the image, while looking at it on the iPhone, you can see 1.5 seconds of video before the "traditional" shot, and then 15 seconds of video afterwards.

I'm not sure how important this is ... but that's what you get, for better or worse.

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Sometime in 2014, I created Flickr album for photos that I had started taking with my iPhone5s; and a year later, in the fall of 2014, I started a new Flickr album for photos that I’ve begun taking with my iPhone6, and iPhone6+. But progress doesn’t stop (at least with Apple): as of October 2015, I’ve upgraded once again, to the iPhone6s and 6s+ (yes, both of them) and this new album contains photos created with those camera-phones

In last year’s Flickr album, I wrote, “Whether you’re an amateur or professional photographer, it’s hard to walk around with a modern smartphone in your pocket, and not be tempted to use the built-in camera from time-to-time. Veteran photographers typically sneer at such behavior, and most will tell you that they can instantly recognize an iPhone photo, which they mentally reject as being unworthy of any serious attention.

“After using many earlier models of smartphones over the past several years, I was inclined to agree; after all, I always (well, almost always) had a “real” camera in my pocket (or backpack or camera-bag), and it was always capable of taking a much better photographic image than the mediocre, grainy images shot with a camera-phone.

“But still … there were a few occasions when I desperately wanted to capture some photo-worthy event taking place right in front of me, and inevitably it turned out to be the times when I did not have the “real” camera with me. Or I did have it, but it was buried somewhere in a bag, and I knew that the “event” would have disappeared by the time I found the “real" camera and turned it on. By contrast, the smart-phone was always in my pocket (along with my keys and my wallet, it’s one of the three things I consciously grab every time I walk out the door). And I often found that I could turn it on, point it at the photographic scene, and take the picture much faster than I could do the same thing with a “traditional” camera.

“Meanwhile, smartphone cameras have gotten substantially better in the past few years, from a mechanical/hardware perspective; and the software “intelligence” controlling the camera has become amazingly sophisticated. It’s still not on the same level as a “professional” DSLR camera, but for a large majority of the “average” photographic situations we’re likely to encounter in the unplanned moments of our lives, it’s more and more likely to be “good enough.” The old adage of “the best camera is the one you have with you” is more and more relevant these days. For me, 90% of the success in taking a good photo is simply being in the right place at the right time, being aware that the “photo opportunity” is there, and having a camera — any camera — to take advantage of that opportunity. Only 10% of the time does it matter which camera I’m using, or what technical features I’ve managed to use.

“And now, with the recent advent of the iPhone5s, there is one more improvement — which, as far as I can tell, simply does not exist in any of the “professional” cameras. You can take an unlimited number of “burst-mode” shots with the new iPhone, simply by keeping your finger on the shutter button; instead of being limited to just six (as a few of the DSLR cameras currently offer), you can take 10, 20, or even a hundred shots. And then — almost magically — the iPhone will show you which one or two of the large burst of photos was optimally sharp and clear. With a couple of clicks, you can then delete everything else, and retain only the very best one or two from the entire burst.

“With that in mind, I’ve begun using my iPhone5s for more and more “everyday” photo situations out on the street. Since I’m typically photographing ordinary, mundane events, even the one or two “optimal” shots that the camera-phone retains might not be worth showing anyone else … so there is still a lot of pruning and editing to be done, and I’m lucky if 10% of those “optimal” shots are good enough to justify uploading to Flickr and sharing with the rest of the world. Still, it’s an enormous benefit to know that my editing work can begin with photos that are more-or-less “technically” adequate, and that I don’t have to waste even a second reviewing dozens of technically-mediocre shots that are fuzzy, or blurred.

“Oh, yeah, one other minor benefit of the iPhone5s (and presumably most other current brands of smartphone): it automatically geotags every photo and video, without any special effort on the photographer’s part. Only one of my other big, fat cameras (the Sony Alpha SLT A65) has that feature, and I’ve noticed that almost none of the “new” mirrorless cameras have got a built-in GPS thingy that will perform the geotagging...

“I’ve had my iPhone5s for a couple of months now, but I’ve only been using the “burst-mode” photography feature aggressively for the past couple of weeks. As a result, the initial batch of photos that I’m uploading are all taken in the greater-NYC area. But as time goes on, and as my normal travel routine takes me to other parts of the world, I hope to add more and more “everyday” scenes in cities that I might not have the opportunity to photograph in a “serious” way.”

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Okay, so now it’s October of 2015, and I’ve got the iPhone 6s/6s+. The the camera now has a 12-megapixel lens (instead of the older 8 MP version), and that the internal camera-related hardware/firmware/software is better, too. Obviously, I’ve got the newer iOS9, too, and even on the “old” phones, it now supports time-lapse videos along with everything else.

I’ve still got my pocket camera (an amazing little Sony RX-100 Mark IV, which replaces the Mark III I had last year), and two larger cameras (Sony RX-10 II, and Sony A7 II), but I have a feeling that I won’t even be taking them out of the camera bag when I’m out on the street for ordinary day-to-day walking around.

That will depend, obviously, on what kind of photos and videos the iPhone6s/6s+ camera actually capable of taking … so I’m going to try to use at leas one of them every day, and see what the results look like …

Like I said last year, “stay tuned…”

Tags:   iPhone6s soccer Harrison Owen Coffey autumn

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