Reflections on 2013

An so another year comes to an end.

2013 was my first full year of retirement.  All things considered it’s been much better than I thought it would be.  I thought I might be bored, but I’ve been very busy.

We’ve been very lucky to see a lot of our younger daughter, Jasmine; her husband Colin and daughter Divya.

On a sad note, my mother-in-law passed away.  She had a long life (almost 90 years) and I like to think that she’s now with her beloved husband who I believe she missed greatly.

On the photography front it’s been a good year.  I’ve taken more pictures than ever before.  Not that this is any indication of quality.  It does demonstrate that I’m more passionate about my hobby.  I also feel that I continue to improve all be it slowly.  My camera collection continues to grow.  I’ve been able to update this blog regularly (150 posts in total this year) and the number of posts per month has even increased in the last few months.  I have no idea if anyone looks at it (I don’t monitor any statistics) but it does help me to continue taking the pictures.

Many many thanks to my lovely wife, Eirah who continues to be an inspiration to me – even if she doesn’t like me to take pictures of her any more.

Happy New Year to everyone and a happy and prosperous 2014.

2013 Favourites – Color


January – Storefront, New York City

An earlier post describes why I prefer black and white. One of the points made in that post is that I’m just not very good with color. I don’t have a good feel for it. So coming up with twelve pictures in color was a bit of a struggle. It wasn’t helped by the fact that I’d decided to have one picture per month. For some reason the color pictures I liked clustered together in certain months. For example I had quite a few from June, July and October and very little from February and March. Maybe it’s because the sunnier months make for more vibrant colors. Anyway here are a few that I liked:


February – Bryant Pond Farm


March – Canoes, Roaring Brook Lake


April – Fiat 500 through Tires


May – Eirah and Geese


June – Facade, Le Bouchon restaurant, Cold Spring


July – Sailboats – Roaring Brook Lake


August – Butterfly


September – Kateri Tekakwitha, the Lily of the Mohawks at the Church of the American Martyrs, Putnam Valley, NY


October – Apple picking


November – Hessian Lake, Bear Mountain


December – View from Mount Beacon

2013 Favourites – Black and White


January – Divya reading

It’s the end of the year so I thought I’d look back on some of the pictures I’ve taken. Many of them we black and white. Here are my favorites, month by month.


February – Croton Point under snow


March – Ceiling Fan at Holy Smoke BBQ restaurant


April – Cracked wash basin at Cappellos auto


May – Father and so fishing – Roaring Brook Lake


June – Locomotive, Danbury Railway Museum


July – Grommit the cat at Muscoot Farm


August – Julia and friends


September – The bells


October – 9/11 memorial


November – Figures, Grand Central Terminal


December – View from Mount Beacon

Concordia Durano Gorre 1923-2013



My mother-in-law Concordia Durano Gorre passed away peaceful in her sleep on April 6, 2013 – just short of her 90th birthday. Here she is with my father-in-law Vicente Gorre who I never met. He passed away at an unnaturally young age in 1978. I love this picture, which of course I didn’t take. It seems to have been taken by the Robles Agency in Cebu City, Philippines.

Mama was an amazing person. She didn’t talk a lot, but the area we had most in common was cooking. I love to cook and I’m not too bad. However, compared to her I’m a rank amateur. She taught me a lot.

She always seemed a little sad to me – probably because she had lost her much loved husband very early. But she was tough and got on with her life.

RIP Mama.

New Lens – Minolta 45mm f2


Overgrown bleachers

I’d read some reviews of this lens saying it was well made; very sharp and quite inexpensive. So I decided to get one. My first attempt was to buy one with a body attached – in this case a Minolta SCII (essentially a slightly downgraded Minolta SRT-201). I didn’t mind having the body. My neighbor had given me a couple of SRTs, formerly belonging to her uncle, that had been lying around for ages. I quite liked them but unfortunately neither of them worked (although some of the lenses that came with them worked very well): on one the shutter was frozen and on the other the rewind know was missing. Regrettably I know nothing about repairing these old cameras (wish I did). So I bought the SRT SCII and the lens. After a while I got a message from the seller saying that they’d made a mistake. They listed two of these in there inventory and there should only have been one – and that had already been sold. They refunded my money. So then I looked for a good buy on the lens only (maybe I’ll get the SRT some other time) and found one for $25. It was mailed promptly by the seller but took an age to arrive – I guess the US post office is slow around Christmas. Finally it arrived. It’s in great shape. As usual while walking the dog around Briarcliff Manor I took some pictures (see below). I like the lens a lot. It’s small and feels solid and produces great results. Great Value!


Platform Tennis Court


Goal Netting


To wit, to woo!


A wave from Santa


Inside the Maya Riviera