photo of the month -> October 2012
Nov. 25, 2012
I hoped to post some wonderful foliage pictures here. And I hoped to take them in Massachusetts where we traveled around the peak of the foliage season. However, we lacked time, thus I couldn't afford waiting on a right place for the right light. The first picture is from Boston's downtown. The tilt perspective is accidental, and I like how Stanko is looking down, as if he was afraid of sliding and falling. The second photo is from MIT campus, where Stanko was exploring some piece of artwork. Next time in Boston, I really have to spend more time in North End.

photo of the month -> September 2012
Oct. 28, 2012
It's almost the end of October, and the hurricane is approaching. A good time to catch up with this blog. It seems that at least recently, I'm really only satisfied with the travel photos. This is probably because I seldom allow myself to be a tourist in the place where I live. Thus the first of the September photos - the framed view of the world of giant trees in Yosemite's Mariposa Grove. As for the second, it's just a quick snap from our daily life but a kind of memory I'm very glad I saved for Stanko, so that he can look at it in the future, and perhaps get the idea of how our life really was.

photo of the month -> August 2012
Sept. 13, 2012
Another big trip - and a plenty of pictures. This time we chose to travel to California, mainly to see Yosemite National Park but also other parts of Sierra, San Francisco, and the coast. I left the battery charger from my Nikon D90 in Slovakia by mistake, and my mom had to send it to NYC afterwards. It was not clear whether it arrives before we take off to San Francisco but it actually did - on the very same day. However, by that time I decided to try taking pictures the good old-fashioned way - on film rolls (I used Ektar ISO 100 for color, and Ilford FP4 ISO 125 for b&w). Unfortunately, I have a crappy scanner which in addition I forgot to clean before scanning. Some scanned images even had visible Stanko's fingerprints (he loves to open and close the cover) but those I have fixed :).

The first photo (or three of them) I've made at Travertine Hot Springs near Bridgeport on the eastern side of Sierra Nevada. They were tiny but spectacular and so was the bathing. I got very upset when I noticed that the film is not rolling, and pressed the shutter twice more in pure desperation, not knowing how to fix the problem on the spot. I don't think that the picture is all that interesting but it's the story behind it that makes it dear to me. After all, I've got a photo somewhat faithfully capturing that beautiful evening, the photo I didn't hope to have when the stuck film accident happened.

The second photo was made by Michal at Vernal Fall which even in late August was incredibly powerful. What an experience it must be to see it in April or May!

The third photo shows the iconic Half Dome. How could one forget about that one :). The whole gallery (or better said, the portion of photos I scanned) is here.

photo of the month -> June 2012
July 31, 2012
The films I shot in June are not yet developed, and they won't be until I get back to NYC. However, it's the end of July already, and I'd prefer to keep my postings chronologically orderer. I'm not particularly in love with any digital photo I've shot in June, which were mostly quick snaps. The one I chose is Stanko in the pool of colorful balls. Alison and Murray made a 2nd birthday party for little Nathan, and this was one of the proprieties. Nathan preferred to run around, but Stanko had a lot of fun with those balls.

Update Aug 23rd 2012: I got the analog photos today. Hence I replaced the original photo with the following two: The first displays some art happening in East Village, the latter one is the famous Brighton Beach roller coaster in the evening.

photo of the month -> July 2012
July 31, 2012
I need some inspiration, seriously. I've been in Czech Republic and Slovakia pretty much the entire July. However, hardly any luck in terms of a good photo-material. First day in Prague we were too tired to get anywhere. What's more, the car broke. Next day, there was a family gathering, and I don't think that people while eating are particularly good objects to photograph. Neither is a still-life of a cake (what is then?). On Friday, it was terribly hot and sunny, and at the time the light was supposed to get softer, the clouds got gray and heavy, and later a thunderstorm kicked in. Shooting indoors would be an option, if I had the right lens. On Saturday, Stanko woke up having fever which lasted until the evening, and pretty much the entire day evolved around that. On Sunday, the fever was gone, and we visited the zoo, where tireless Stanko was running around for about 4 hours, and I snapped many candids - but nothing else. On Monday, we took a train to Slovakia.

My brother had plans for a Slovak outdoor/nature vacation, and I thought we could join him. However, he and his girlfriend got a stomach bug at the music festival they visited over the weekend, and were forced to spend the entire vacation next to the bathroom. So, we've met with our family in familiar places, which is nice and fun, but quite boring photo-wise. And going anywhere with my parents means that I don't have an undisturbed moment to concentrate and come up with a good idea for a picture.

So my only hope for these days, it seems, is to pack a backpack and set forth on a trip to somewhat less notorious places, like Tatry. The picture btw is from the hill above my parents' house, where I've been probably a thousand times.

photo of the month -> May 2012
June 5, 2012
One of each: Evening at Calamity Pond, Adirondacks (Nikon D90). Evening at Garfield Pl playground, Brooklyn (Nikon N60/Ilford FP4 Plus ISO 125).

photo of the month -> April 2012
April 29, 2012
This month was very special. It doesn't happen to me very often - to have so many wonderful opportunities to shoot. We were driving and hiking in the legendary American southwest. The three pictures below feature a) a small canyon we hiked, somewhere between Hanksville and Lake Powell, Utah (Nikon D90), b) resting at Confluence Overlook in Canyonlands, Utah (Nikon N60/Ilford HP5 Plus ISO 400), c) the morning in Monument Valley, Arizona (Nikon N60/Ilford HP5 Plus ISO 400). The reason why I chose them out of the many photos I've taken, is that they seem quite unique to me - not something I have seen in everybody's southwest album. For the rest, check the set on flickr.