Uploads from Ed Yourdon, tagged centralpark

Simcha and Dan's first date

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Thu, 23 May 2013 07:42:31 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

If you've never been to Central Park, you might not realize that every one of the wooden benches has a small metal tag like this one, which can be purchased by people who want to commemorate something (or someone) special in their lives.

The inscriptions vary quite a lot; for one set of examples, you might want to peek at my October 2009 Flickr set, "I forgive you, Alice." And by all means, take a look at the photo of the Bill Godshalk memorial bench.

This particular inscription is not quite so momentous -- though Simcha and Dan might disagree with me. In any case, it brought a smile to my face, and I thought it was eminently worth sharing with everyone else ...

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As I wrote in another Flickr set a few years ago, you can be reasonably sure that there will be lots of interesting people to photograph in Central Park if you happen to visit when on a weekend when the weather is nice. My typical plan, on such photo expeditions, is to walk through and around several different parts of the park -- in order to see different groups of people, and also to take advantage of different scenes and backdrops. But it means that I don't spend very much time in any one place, and most of my shots end up being "ad hoc" in nature, with almost no planning, preparation, framing, or composition.

On this particular weekend in early May, I decided to restrict my wandering to just one area -- the "Great Lawn" that's more-or-less in the center of the north-south expanse of the park. I walked around the sidewalk perimeter of the large grassy area, starting at the north end (because I had entered the park at 86th Street), heading down to the south end by the Delacorte Theater and the Belvedere Castle, and then back north again to my starting point.

I had an 18-250mm zoom lens on my Sony Alpha-65 camera while I was walking, and while that made it relatively easy to capture some interesting scenes of people out in the middle of the lawn, as well as people just a couple feet away from me. Normally, I would just shrug and mutter to myself, "Well, that's the way it goes" -- and perhaps resolve that, next time, I would use the 18-200mm zoom lens that covers both a wider range between wide-angle and telephoto. For most of the walk,I set the lens to its maximum wide-angle setting, and take advantage of quick, unfocused, wide-angle "hip shots" whenever there was something interesting nearby that I had to shoot quickly.

When I got home, I decided to take a quick look at the Wikipedia article about the Great Lawn, to see if there was anything special that I needed to mention in these notes. I didn't expect to find much, because -- as far as I knew -- it had always been part of Central Park, and had always been the same. To my surprise, I found that that was definitely not not the case. Indeed, today's Great Lawn is situated on a flat area that was occupied by the 35-acre "Lower Reservoir" that was constructed in 1842 to supply water to the residents of the city. After the Croton-Catskill reservoir system was completed, the Lower Reservoir became redundant -- but political battles ensued for several decades before the city finally settled on a plan for an oval lawn.

That plan basically fell apart because of the Depression, and the open area was filled with a "Hooverville" of improvised shacks for quite some time. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia finally brought in the legendary Robert Moses (the visionary force behind so many other parks around New York City and the rest of the state) to implement the plan -- and it was essentially finished in 1934.

And there's more to the history, too, but I'll let you read that on your own if you're interested. (You might be interested to know, for example, that in 1995, Pope John Paul II held an open-air mass for 125,000 on the Great Lawn. Yes, it is that big!)

In any case, I finished my second loop around the park, went home and uploaded several hundred photos and one long video, which I've winnowed down to the ones you'll find in this set...

Tulips in Central Park - May 2013

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Thu, 23 May 2013 04:57:46 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

Note: I chose this as my "photo of the day" for May 23, 2013.

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

As I wrote in another Flickr set a few years ago, you can be reasonably sure that there will be lots of interesting people to photograph in Central Park if you happen to visit when on a weekend when the weather is nice. My typical plan, on such photo expeditions, is to walk through and around several different parts of the park -- in order to see different groups of people, and also to take advantage of different scenes and backdrops. But it means that I don't spend very much time in any one place, and most of my shots end up being "ad hoc" in nature, with almost no planning, preparation, framing, or composition.

On this particular weekend in early May, I decided to restrict my wandering to just one area -- the "Great Lawn" that's more-or-less in the center of the north-south expanse of the park. I walked around the sidewalk perimeter of the large grassy area, starting at the north end (because I had entered the park at 86th Street), heading down to the south end by the Delacorte Theater and the Belvedere Castle, and then back north again to my starting point.

I had an 18-250mm zoom lens on my Sony Alpha-65 camera while I was walking, and while that made it relatively easy to capture some interesting scenes of people out in the middle of the lawn, as well as people just a couple feet away from me. Normally, I would just shrug and mutter to myself, "Well, that's the way it goes" -- and perhaps resolve that, next time, I would use the 18-200mm zoom lens that covers both a wider range between wide-angle and telephoto. For most of the walk,I set the lens to its maximum wide-angle setting, and take advantage of quick, unfocused, wide-angle "hip shots" whenever there was something interesting nearby that I had to shoot quickly.

When I got home, I decided to take a quick look at the Wikipedia article about the Great Lawn, to see if there was anything special that I needed to mention in these notes. I didn't expect to find much, because -- as far as I knew -- it had always been part of Central Park, and had always been the same. To my surprise, I found that that was definitely not not the case. Indeed, today's Great Lawn is situated on a flat area that was occupied by the 35-acre "Lower Reservoir" that was constructed in 1842 to supply water to the residents of the city. After the Croton-Catskill reservoir system was completed, the Lower Reservoir became redundant -- but political battles ensued for several decades before the city finally settled on a plan for an oval lawn.

That plan basically fell apart because of the Depression, and the open area was filled with a "Hooverville" of improvised shacks for quite some time. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia finally brought in the legendary Robert Moses (the visionary force behind so many other parks around New York City and the rest of the state) to implement the plan -- and it was essentially finished in 1934.

And there's more to the history, too, but I'll let you read that on your own if you're interested. (You might be interested to know, for example, that in 1995, Pope John Paul II held an open-air mass for 125,000 on the Great Lawn. Yes, it is that big!)

In any case, I finished my second loop around the park, went home and uploaded several hundred photos and one long video, which I've winnowed down to the ones you'll find in this set...

Trust me: it's this way, not that way!

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 05:03:01 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

(more details later, as time permits)

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Note: to see the overall theme, summary description and thumbnail images of photos in this particular Flickr set, click here.

Good job … I think we can walk the rest of the way

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 05:07:55 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

What are you looking at, buster?

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 05:06:20 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

A little ribbon keeps us together ...

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:18:21 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

Note: I chose this as my "photo of the day" for Apr 22, 2013.

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Note: to see the overall theme, summary description and thumbnail images of photos in this particular Flickr set, click here.

You sure you know where you're going?

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 05:35:01 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

I ordered a "Boston Strong" shirt, but it hasn't come yet ...

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 05:29:40 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

Note: I chose this as my "photo of the day" on Apr 21, 2013.

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Note: to see the overall theme, summary description and thumbnail images of photos in this particular Flickr set, click here.

Everyone from Cal State runs with their thumbs up. It's what we do ...

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 05:06:32 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

So which one are you -- Bert or Ernie?

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 04:19:03 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

(more details later, as time permits.)

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Note: to see the overall theme, summary description and thumbnail images of photos in this particular Flickr set, click here.

Class of 2005 … jeez, I'm feeling really old now.

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 04:31:53 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

Note: I chose this as my "photo of the day" for Apr 20, 2013.

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Note: to see the overall theme, summary description and thumbnail images of photos in this particular Flickr set, click here.

Pay attention to where I'm pointing: we turn that way!

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 04:29:06 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

Why do those Google guys always have to be faster than the rest of us?

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 05:26:43 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

Note: I chose this as my "photo of the day" on Apr 19, 2013.

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Note: to see the overall theme, summary description and thumbnail images of photos in this particular Flickr set, click here.

I think the way you hold your hands when you run is very funny

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 04:36:06 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

Why are you looking over there? Strawberry fields is the other way, on our right side!

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:42:00 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

Note: I chose this as my "photo of the day" for Apr 18, 2013.

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Note: to see the overall theme, summary description and thumbnail images of photos in this particular Flickr set, click here.

Mom, are you sure that guy back there isn't my Dad?

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 04:38:27 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

Hey, you're only listening to one earphone -- how about sharing the other one with me?

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:52:32 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

Note: I chose this as my "photo of the day" for Apr 17, 2013.

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Note: to see the overall theme, summary description and thumbnail images of photos in this particular Flickr set, click here.

My wife and I have been arguing with each other all the way around the park. I'm not even going to look at her now ...

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:55:54 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

Strawberry Fields, Aug 2011 - 30

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:15:21 -0800

Ed Yourdon posted a photo:

Note: this photo was published in a Nov 28, 2012 blog titled "[Mostly] Wordless Wednesday."

Note: I had originally uploaded this photo to Flickr in Aug 2011, along with several dozen others I had taken in the vicinity of Strawberry Fields (Central Park). But while pruning my archives from 25,000 down to a more compact 5,000 in the summer of 2012, I decided that this particular photo was not really "good enough" to stay. So I deleted it ... and then discovered, in late November 2012, that some blog had decided to use it (presumably by downloading it prior to my deletion from Flickr) in the blog posting mentioned in the preceding paragraph. So I tracked it down on my hard disk and restored it to Flickr ...

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Ironically, Strawberry Fields was the farthest thing from my mind when I decided to head over to Central Park last weekend to take some photographs. It had occurred to me that the intersection of the north-south "loop road" inside the park, with the 72nd Street east-west transverse road was likely to be a good spot where I could find an unobtrusive place to watch the usual weekend activities moving past me. On a mild, pleasant Saturday afternoon, there were bound to be a nearly infinite number of people jogging, biking, skating, and walking west towards the park exit on 72nd Street -- or east towards Fifth Avenue, or south toward the Sheep Meadow, or north towards the Great Lawn and ultimately around the north end of the park at 110th Street.

I, too, entered the park at 72nd Street, and strolled a couple blocks to the east to find my convenient spot at the intersection -- and paid no attention to the fact that I had entered the park just across the street from the massive Dakota apartment building where John Lennon once lived, or that my path led me past the Strawberry Fields memorial a little above me. I didn't see the sign marking the eastern boundary of the field, even though it was plainly visible, and even though I began taking photos almost immediately of the bikers and joggers and skaters as they moved past me with the sign just behind them. And as you'll see from the photos in this set, it's pretty clear that most of them didn't see the sign either; they were too busy concentrating on the roadway in front of them, or on the conversation they were having with the people next to them.

Along with the bikers, joggers, and skaters, there were also a large number of "pedicabs," with energetic young men (and a few young women) pedaling their way across the east-west transverse, while simultaneously keeping up a non-stop monologue about whatever noteworthy things they thought their passengers (who were mostly tourists) would be interested in. After a while, I began to notice a pattern; actually, I began to hear a pattern, when I realized that I had heard snatches of the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" over and over again ... and then I listened a little more closely to the pedicab-drivers' chatter, which almost always involved their pointing to the hilly area straight ahead of them and saying, "Strawberry Fields - it's right there!"

I didn't really notice the pattern from a photographic perspective until I got home, and uploaded the nearly 2,000 photos I had taken during the course of my two-hour visit (yes, I really can take a thousand photos an hour). As usual, I kept less than 10% of the photos that I shot ... and as it turns out, nearly half of what I kept involved cyclists, joggers, or skaters moving past the small "Strawberry Fields" sign in the background.

When I was finished photographing, I walked back towards Central Park West along a small sidewalk -- instead of the more "obvious" path of following the wide east-west roadway transverse to the 72nd Street exit. As a result, I came directly into the center of the Strawberry Fields memorial area, where a few people were picnicking, and a much larger number of people were standing around the huge "Imagine" plaque that had been laid into the paved stones. All in all, it seemed like a nice way to wrap up the set of photos ...

"Summertime" in Central Park - May 2013

nobody@flickr.com (Ed Yourdon) — Wed, 22 May 2013 05:19:40 -0700

Ed Yourdon posted a video:

Note: I chose this as my photo/video of the day, for May 22,2013

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

As I wrote in another Flickr set a few years ago, you can be reasonably sure that there will be lots of interesting people to photograph in Central Park if you happen to visit when on a weekend when the weather is nice. My typical plan, on such photo expeditions, is to walk through and around several different parts of the park -- in order to see different groups of people, and also to take advantage of different scenes and backdrops. But it means that I don't spend very much time in any one place, and most of my shots end up being "ad hoc" in nature, with almost no planning, preparation, framing, or composition.

On this particular weekend in early May, I decided to restrict my wandering to just one area -- the "Great Lawn" that's more-or-less in the center of the north-south expanse of the park. I walked around the sidewalk perimeter of the large grassy area, starting at the north end (because I had entered the park at 86th Street), heading down to the south end by the Delacorte Theater and the Belvedere Castle, and then back north again to my starting point.

I had an 18-250mm zoom lens on my Sony Alpha-65 camera while I was walking, and while that made it relatively easy to capture some interesting scenes of people out in the middle of the lawn, as well as people just a couple feet away from me. Normally, I would just shrug and mutter to myself, "Well, that's the way it goes" -- and perhaps resolve that, next time, I would use the 18-200mm zoom lens that covers both a wider range between wide-angle and telephoto. For most of the walk,I set the lens to its maximum wide-angle setting, and take advantage of quick, unfocused, wide-angle "hip shots" whenever there was something interesting nearby that I had to shoot quickly.

When I got home, I decided to take a quick look at the Wikipedia article about the Great Lawn, to see if there was anything special that I needed to mention in these notes. I didn't expect to find much, because -- as far as I knew -- it had always been part of Central Park, and had always been the same. To my surprise, I found that that was definitely not not the case. Indeed, today's Great Lawn is situated on a flat area that was occupied by the 35-acre "Lower Reservoir" that was constructed in 1842 to supply water to the residents of the city. After the Croton-Catskill reservoir system was completed, the Lower Reservoir became redundant -- but political battles ensued for several decades before the city finally settled on a plan for an oval lawn.

That plan basically fell apart because of the Depression, and the open area was filled with a "Hooverville" of improvised shacks for quite some time. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia finally brought in the legendary Robert Moses (the visionary force behind so many other parks around New York City and the rest of the state) to implement the plan -- and it was essentially finished in 1934.

And there's more to the history, too, but I'll let you read that on your own if you're interested. (You might be interested to know, for example, that in 1995, Pope John Paul II held an open-air mass for 125,000 on the Great Lawn. Yes, it is that big!)

In any case, I finished my second loop around the park, went home and uploaded several hundred photos and one long video, which I've winnowed down to the ones you'll find in this set...

Uploads from Ed Yourdon, tagged centralpark

Simcha and Dan's first date

Tulips in Central Park - May 2013

Trust me: it's *this* way, not *that* way!

Good job … I think we can walk the rest of the way

What are you looking at, buster?

A little ribbon keeps us together ...

You sure you know where you're going?

I ordered a "Boston Strong" shirt, but it hasn't come yet ...

Everyone from Cal State runs with their thumbs up. It's what we do ...

So which one are you -- Bert or Ernie?

Class of 2005 … jeez, I'm feeling *really* old now.

Pay attention to where I'm pointing: we turn *that* way!

Why do those Google guys always have to be faster than the rest of us?

I think the way you hold your hands when you run is *very* funny

Why are you looking over there? Strawberry fields is the *other* way, on our right side!

Mom, are you *sure* that guy back there isn't my Dad?

Hey, you're only listening to one earphone -- how about sharing the other one with me?

My wife and I have been arguing with each other all the way around the park. I'm not even going to look at her now ...

Strawberry Fields, Aug 2011 - 30

"Summertime" in Central Park - May 2013

Trust me: it's this way, not that way!

Class of 2005 … jeez, I'm feeling really old now.

Pay attention to where I'm pointing: we turn that way!

I think the way you hold your hands when you run is very funny

Why are you looking over there? Strawberry fields is the other way, on our right side!

Mom, are you sure that guy back there isn't my Dad?