Tag Archives: The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge

October 20, 2012

10-19-12 Travel Theme: Couples

Ailsa chose the theme of the week: couples.

I usually don’t go in for celebrity couples but I do have a few photos of this pair and they are one of my favorite couples in all the world so…I couldn’t resist.

These two became a couple in 1931 when the GWB moved into New York but they did not really bond until the publication of their courtship story in 1942. Since then they have only grown closer in the public’s mind and while they maintain their individuality (the secret of all great relationships) they have a unique bond.

8 comments | tags: George Washington Bridge, Hudson River, Jeffrey's Hook, Little Red Lighthouse, New York City, Photo Challenge, postaday2012, The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge, Travel Theme | posted in Photography

July 14, 2012

7-13-12 Saying Good-bye

By Robert S Johnson

“Never say good-bye because good-bye means going away, and going away means forgetting.” –

Peter Pan

J.M. Barrie

A day of goodbyes. So we wouldn’t have to get up at 4am to get to Putney by 9am we drove to Northampton and stayed with our friend Lindsay (Katherine’s high school roommate) last night. She is getting ready to sell her house and is not sure she wants to or is ready to say goodbye to it but she and her partner need more space. This allowed us 2.5 more hours of sleep, most of which we burned talking deep into the night but so it goes.

At 7:30 we headed off to Putney and Abigail. Stopped at The Putney Diner – a great little place for good food and local chatter – for a muffin and some coffee and arrived promptly at 9am. Spent the next four hours looking at people’s art (very good work if I do say so), visiting the barn, packing Abigail up, listening to spoken word poetry, and singing, but mainly watching teenagers alternately laughing while exchanging numbers and emails, and melting down, crying and hugging. Abigail’s friend, Anya explained post-Putney depression to everyone (It was her second year). We hear it lasts one to two weeks and you really can’t get into anything for a while. You see your old friends and try to pretend you are happy but you just want to be at Putney with your session 1 buddies.

Abigail and Holly

Safae, Mario and Abigail

Safae and Zoe (should have an umlaut over the e)

Anya

Final Sing – 1

Final Sing – 2

“Friends are god’s way of apologizing to us for our families.”

Tennessee Williams

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11/10/10

Old Friends

4 comments | tags: Friends, Hudson River, J.M. Barrie, New York City, Peter Pan, postaday2012, Putney School Summer Programs, teenagers, The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge | posted in Photography

March 20, 2011

3-19-11 Low Tide

By Robert S Johnson

I am discovering that I have a lot of difficulty following through on my daily shooting plans. But it really isn’t my fault. The river just continually confounds me and makes me do something unexpected.

Today’s plan was to shoot the various entrances to the Greenway between 125th Street and 157th Street. What you see as you approach them, what it looks like to be on or in them, and then how they appear from the river. I took some wonderful shots of the entrance at Fort Washington Park (157th Street). As I was walking down a gentleman approached me – seeing my camera and bag and my obsessive shooting, I think he assumed that I was an expert – and asked me what I thought of this spot on the river as the place to take his wedding pictures. I asked him when, he said next week and that he realized that it would not be green yet but did I think he could get some nice romantic pictures…The shore line juts into the Hudson slightly here and you have a clean and unobstructed shot of the The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge. Turn yourself slightly and you get the bridge and the Palisades. I told him with a decent wedding photographer, I thought the spot would work nicely.

So I get down to the bank and shoot back at the walkway and then take my first real look at the river. Never have I seen the Hudson as low. Is it because of the Equinox? The ”Super Moon”? No idea but goodbye entryways, hello “tidal flat.”

I am standing in the river bed here, having climbed down the rocks. This is 4 or 5 feet lower than I have seen The Hudson before. I wonder how long that trash can has been drowned?

As I came back up to the path, a very cute little girl riding her bike stopped and asked me what I was doing. I said that I was taking pictures of the river and had she seen how low it was? She really did not care and asked me if I wanted to take her picture instead? Subtext “silly man – I am cute and my bike is fab and the river is just a river”

She was half right – she was totally cute and her bike was completely fab but the river is always more than just a river. I looked at her Dad and he said “sure”.

I walked further downstream and came to one of the discharge pipes. Under normal circumstances, if I wanted these shots, I would be knee-deep in the river. Not today…

Finally I made my way down to the the north side of Riverbank State Park at 145th Street and was getting ready to go out when I saw a group of 2 adults and 3 teenage girls. They were tying a rope to a bucket. I asked what they were doing and they said that they were getting water samples for a science project at Hunter College High School. The designated thrower asked me if I thought the rocks would be slippery and with my hour of experience walking them I was able to assure him that most…not all but most… were not. He tiptoed down and I tromped down after him.