I have been taking pictures around Manhasset Bay for quite some years now. Except for a few that I uploaded to Wikimedia as an Wikipedian a decade ago, most have never seen the light of the day. I dusted off a bunch of these and re-processed them. I hope they capture a glimpse of the life around the bay that fictionally separated Jay Gatsby from Daisy Buchanan.
The truth is that many people around the bay have very little idea how their towns look from the water. And those not addicted to examining satellite pictures are often unaware of expansive waterfront properties.
Most water-fronting mansions are shielded from unwanted street views. But all of them are clearly visible from the bay, for obvious reasons. After all, if you can’t see someone’s bedroom window from a kayak, then they can’t see the water either from their bedroom.
The bay comes alive in summer. Sailboats, kayaks and all sorts of watercraft abound. Yacht clubs hold races that draw sailors from all around the bay, and often beyond.
Waikiki & Honolulu landmarks seen from departing flight DL650
Delta 650 took off from runway 8R at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport due East at 5:15pm local time. Our pilot seemed to have made a point of banking the aircraft to trace the southern coast in the first 4 minutes of the flight to afford those seating on the left side a great aerial view of Sand Island, Honolulu downtown, Ala Moana, Waikiki, Kaimana, Diamond Head, Kahala, Hawaii Kai, Hanauma Bay, and Koko Head. Then the plane turned East again and flew towards the mainland.
Unlike the JFK arrival video I recorded, I was able to recognize all landmarks as I looked out of my window seat. This is largely due to my month-long research into Oahu before our trip to the island. But still, I figured I would write a post showing these famous Hawaiian landmarks. Here is the recorded video.
Wesley-Anny Wedding: Making of a Photo Shoot
This page hosts pictures taken a few weeks prior to the wedding, documenting the photo shoot session Aaron ran. Most of these are my pictures. Some where I make an appearance are taken by Elisha. I suppose you could call those pictures "Making of the Making of a Photo Shoot". Most of these pictures will be turned into slideshows for use on wedding day. See previous location recon pictures.
Wesley-Anny Wedding: Recon
This page hosts pictures taken a few weeks prior to the wedding, as we checked out the place for lighting and layout. I haven't used the Nikon D700 for 5 years now. I almost thought it stopped working. But as it turned out, the depth of field preview button was stuck in salt, rendering most buttons and the menu dial on the back unusable. After prying the button lose, I now have a functional camera again. I am surprised that the original lithium-ion batteries continue to hold their charges. I have never had a digital camera last for more than 8 years since I bought my first digital camera, the Sony DSC-F505, some twenty years ago. Every other digital camera I bought ultimately failed electronically. This one just keeps going, despite my soaking it in salt water in my 2009 trip.
I took pictures with the D700 as well as the Fujifilm X10, for comparison. Raw on the D700 and JPEG on the X10. I processed the raw files lightly in Lightroom. Maybe Aaron will bring remote flash on the D day. I think I'll just go without flash. Some of these pictures will be turned into slideshows for use on wedding day.
HHAMS in June – HarborFest, Paintball and Field Meeting
This article exists to house pictures that I've turned into a YouTube slideshow. June is usually the busiest month for HHAMS. The first week of June is usually the Port Washington HarborFest where we set up a tent to advance awareness of the aerodrome among natives of this town, and to advertise our upcoming paintball event. The paintball event takes place on the second week of June. Then we have our monthly meeting at the field.
2019 HarborFest Model Boat Regatta
Your reporter has been working for at least 6 years now, as a boat retriever at the annual third-grader's boat regatta. This is an event hosted at the Baxter's Pond, as part of the Port Washington HarborFest. For the first time, we have photographic coverage of the event this year from a new vantage point, by your reporter and his fellow boat retrievers on kayaks.
NorCal for the model aeronautically-inclined
This is a guide and a preview to upcoming articles I'll be publishing, on Northern California through the eyes of a New Yorker, with an inclination to see things from a model aeronautic perspective. It is similar to my model-aeronautic take on Ogunquit and its bipolar beach. Here I'll examine various Napa Valley and Sonoma vineyards on their applicability to flying, while accompanied by my brother's family. I'll show you where to find legitimate flying fields manned by AMA chartered clubs, as well as secret flying places that fanatics frequent. We toured San Francisco, Golden Gate Park, Half Moon Bay, Point Lobos, Fort Ord Dunes State Park and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
What is a Doob 3D Selfie?
Last year my family visited the miniature park, Madurodam. We had ourselves scanned at the Fantasitron, and subsequently our 3D selfies printed by Shapeways. I was so impressed that I wrote an entire article about 3D scanning, stereophotogrammetry and gypsum-based 3D color printing. We have since found another venue for making 3D selfies, this time in New York City. The company, Doob, delivers an impeccable service, starting from the first moment we made an appointment online. This smooth and professional experience extends to email reminders, in-store consulting, and actual 3D scanning. It concludes with flawless 3D-printed figurines delivered to our house.
However, Doob as a company is rather secretive about its scanning process and 3D-reconstruction software. It is almost impossible to find any information about its 3D printing process. Unlike Madurodam and Shapeways, Doob offers no technical details on either its American website, or the English version of its main German website.
Hopefully this article will help answer some of most frequently-asked questions folks may raise, concerning Doob 3D selfies. If you come across this article, make sure you first read the one about Madurodam 3D selfies, to understand the basic concepts.
3D selfies made in Fantasitron at Madurodam
Writing a computer program to map 2-dimensional drawings to 3-dimensional models had once been my obsession. This stemmed from the endless hours I spent drawing, by hand, orthographic projections of 3D models, and vice versa. While this was condemned as a chore universally by my classmates at Escuela Técnica No. 28 in Buenos Aires, I quite enjoyed it. After my family moved to New York, I no longer had to make these homework drawings. Instead I wrote a C program to generate 3D polyhedrons from 2D polygonal views. The long paper I wrote alongside this program won the gold medal at the New York Math Fair.
That seemed like a lifetime ago. In between then and now, algorithms had been invented to generate 3D models of people in color and with great details, all from simple 2D photos. But it is only in recent years that such technologies started to become commoditized. Just a month ago, Elisha and I stepped into, for a few seconds, a photo booth the size of a restroom, at the miniature park Madurodam. Three weeks later we received an exquisite 3D selfie printed by Shapeways.
Droning at and around Ogunquit Beach
This article is a part of the Ogunquit in September Guide I am writing, for the model aeronautically-inclined. It is the main and the last installment in the series. Together with the modern beach equipment installment, it details everything you will ever need, before you head out to fly a drone or two in this beautiful beach town.
Ocean Terrace Rooms at Cliff House
This article is a part of the Ogunquit in September Guide I am writing, for the model aeronautically-inclined. This installment is about the Ocean Terrace Rooms at Cliff House, near Ogunquit. We stayed at this place during the second leg of our trip. And I had a good time flying my model sailplane, while standing on perilous rock formations, with multi-person-tall waves pounding on these same rocks.
We called the booking service of the hotel directly when making our room reservation. The agent convinced me to book a room at the highest floor available, for it afforded the best view of both the ocean and the cliff, despite its higher room rate. But I read afterwards on TripAdvisor that some of the rooms on the higher floors actually had balconies with partially blocked views. Some rooms were situated directly behind other buildings, so they looked over ugly rooftops instead of the ocean and the cliff.
I agonized over this issue before the trip. The uncertainties tortured me. There wasn't much useful information and pictures to be found online, to ease my mind.
Those who have read the previous article on Tidal Rooms at the Norseman can be forgiven for thinking that I have the buyer's remorse syndrome as a chronic condition. This article is born after the trip, partly because I am anal, and partly because I want to help the next guy in my situation.
If you landed on this article during your research for a room at the Cliff House, then you have found the right resource. Most of pictures showcased here are taken by Elisha Huang.
Tidal Suites at the Norseman Resort on Ogunquit Beach
This article is a part of the Ogunquit in September Guide I am writing, for the model aeronautically-inclined. This installment is about the Tidal Suites at Norseman Resort we stayed at, during the first part of the trip. As is usually the case, I spent time writing this article after the trip, because I wished someone had written something about this topic, and had posted some pictures of this place online. It would have helped me tremendously during my trip planning. And it would have eased the anxiety I continued to feel until the day of departure. But there was very little information to be found online about the resort, and almost nothing about the new Tidal Suites.
Modern beach equipment for the model aeronautically-inclined
This article is a part of the Ogunquit in September Guide I am writing, for the model aeronautically-inclined. Obviously, those who enjoy flying radio-controlled planes at a beach will find this article useful. But I am also certain that any modern man or woman planning a trip to the beach will not want to miss this one.
I know it, because I've spent countless nights before the trip googling for the best beach equipment to bring, to no avail. If you are looking for novel contraptions that solve known problems with ancient beach equipment technology, you will not be happy with what you find online today. Even Google isn't smart enough to weed out hastily-assembled, so called "top ten beach equipment" websites that simply scout Amazon for highest-ranking sales. YouTube is full of computer-generated videos with screenshots stole from above-mentioned "top ten beach equipment" websites. And most search engines nowadays only want to show you online shops, because... that's how they make money. This leaves old fashioned research work as the only option. I read and combed through tons of user reviews, and wrote notes. The trip proved that I did find the right beach equipment to buy.
Ogunquit in September – for the model aeronautically-inclined
This is a guide to upcoming articles I will be publishing, on Ogunquit, a small town at the southern tip of Maine. The guide serves as a preview to these articles, before they are written and published, showing this beautiful river, the town and the beach named after it, in September. This was when kids had to leave the beach, to go back to school, and just before the autumn arrived in full force. Some articles will explore the Marginal Way, Perkins Cove, Cape Neddick, York, Wells, Kennebunkport and plenty of public beaches in the area. Some will focus on hotels we've stayed at - the Tidal Suites at the Norsemen and the Cliff House at Bald Head Cliff.
I've also brought the current obsession of my life together with travel and videography. Most of these articles will be of interest to those who are model aeronautically-inclined. While I did not have room to bring big model airplanes, I did pack two micro airplanes and a variety of kites. While flying a sailplane on the peaceful and expansive Ogunquit Beach proved to be a relaxing pastime, fighting the precarious Bald Head Cliff in inclement weather against a stormy sea turned out to be quite challenging.
Did I mention that I adopted a pet seagull during this trip?
Pictures I've taken on a meager iPhone will be culled in time, and the remaining usable and useful ones uploaded to Wikipedia for illustrations on various relevant articles, continuing my series of Wiki Vacations (from here and there).
Restaurants – Sarasota wiki vacation part 5
This is part five of the Sarasota Wiki Vacation series. This trip to the Sarasota barrier islands yielded a large number of pictures which I've added to various Wikipedia articles. The unusually-long post I wrote became too long and unfocused. It is about 90 pages long. I am now breaking it up into specific posts by location and theme.
This one is about restaurants we we stumbled upon in this trip. I loved them, and their food. In the order we visited them: Mar Vista, Phillippi Creek Oyster Bar and Ophelia's on the Bay.
Siesta Key – Sarasota wiki vacation part 4
This is part four of the Sarasota Wiki Vacation series. This trip to the Sarasota barrier islands yielded a large number of pictures which I've added to various Wikipedia articles. The unusually-long post I wrote became too long and unfocused. It is about 90 pages long. I am now breaking it up into specific posts by location and theme.
This one is about Siesta Key. We visited three beaches on this barrier island: Siesta Beach, Crescent Beach and Turtle Beach.
Lido Key – Sarasota wiki vacation part 3
This is part three of the Sarasota Wiki Vacation series. This trip to the Sarasota barrier islands yielded a large number of pictures which I've added to various Wikipedia articles. The unusually-long post I wrote became too long and unfocused. It is about 90 pages long. I am now breaking it up into specific posts by location and theme.
This one is about our trip to Lido Key, comprising an ecotour in the morning of the Sarasota Bay and its red mangrove trees, and a visit to the Lido Beach in the afternoon.
World’s Largest Miniature Circus – Sarasota wiki vacation part 2
This is part two of the Sarasota Wiki Vacation series. This trip to the Sarasota barrier islands yielded a large number of pictures which I've added to various Wikipedia articles. The unusually-long post I wrote became too long and unfocused. It is about 90 pages long. I am now breaking it up into specific posts by location and theme.
This one is about The Howard Bro. Circus, undisputedly the world's largest miniature circus, located within John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.
Anna Maria Island – Sarasota wiki vacation part 1
This is part one of the Sarasota Wiki Vacation series. This trip to the Sarasota barrier islands yielded a large number of pictures which I've added to various Wikipedia articles. The unusually-long post I wrote became too long and unfocused. It is about 90 pages long. I am now breaking it up into specific posts by location and theme. This one is about Anna Maria Island, also known as the Anna Maria Key, where we explored Coquina Beach, Cortez Beach, and marveled at cast-net fishing at beautiful sunset.
Sarasota, Florida 2017 – an iPhone Wiki Vacation
Here is the latest installment of my series of Wiki Vacation posts, from a short stay in Sarasota, Florida. The timing could not have been better - daytime temperature was around 85˚F. Not too hot - a quick application of sunscreen was good enough for walking on the beach all day long. And not chilly - Gulf water was warm enough for swimming.
The range of day trips covered Siesta Key, Lido Key, Longboat Key, Ana Maria Island, and Sarasota City itself. Activities included paddleboarding by the beach, tunneling through red mangrove trees on kayaks, looking at manatees at the aquarium, and marveling at the world's largest miniature circus at the Ringling museum. It's amazing that we managed to visit 7 beaches in just a few days: Coquina Beach, Cortez Beach, Lido Beach, Siesta Beach, Crescent Beach and Turtle Beach. In addition, we also packed fine dinning into this busy schedule. For lazy people who woke up every morning to look at a tourist map gotten at the airport before figuring out where to go, this trip was a resounding success.
Jenn’s Wedding: Saint Thomas 2009
This is an offshoot of a series of Wiki Vacation posts from my tour of the US Virgin Islands in 2009. The series covers Saint Thomas, Trunk Bay and Caneel Bay. This article documents the main reason we were there in the first place - to be at Jenn and Chris' wedding.
Wiki Vacation 2009: Saint Thomas
This article is part of my Wiki Vacation series of posts from my tour of the US Virgin Islands in 2009. The first leg of the trip was to Saint Thomas, where we joined a destination wedding. A short detour to Trunk Bay was documented here. And the second leg of the trip to Caneel Bay can be found on its on article.
Wiki Vacation 2009: Trunk Bay
This is a mini-post, a part of the Wiki Vacation series of posts from my tour of the US Virgin Islands in 2009. The trip to Trunk Bay was our first visit to Saint John, and was limited to half a day, where we went with family and friends. Our second trip to Saint John followed a few day after, where we went alone, documented on the post on Caneel Bay.
Wiki Vacation 2009: Caneel Bay
I dug up more Wiki Vacation pictures from my 2009 to Caneel Bay, following the first in the series from the trip back to Taiwan. Caneel Bay is a resort on the northwest side of St. John, one of the US Virgin Islands, with seven private, picturesque beaches.
My Favorite Wiki Vacation Pictures: Taiwan 2009
I've been uploading vacation pictures to WikiMedia since 2015. I call some of my vacations Wiki Vacations, because I go to places with an explicit intent of taking pictures, processing them afterwards, and then uploading them to WikiMedia, for use on Wikipedia articles. I don't actually know how other Wikipedians refer to this mode of vacation. But I do know the official definition of WikiBreak, nicknamed Wikivacation, means almost the opposite.
Regardless of the terminology, I do find the experience rewarding. As reported earlier in Some of my Most Popular Pictures, time spent getting good, useful pictures for Wikipedia is more than made up by seeing some of these pictures widely distributed online, with or without credits. Here I posted a few of my favorite Wiki Vacation pictures. Not all of them are well appreciated though. But it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Some of my Most Popular Pictures
I have been uploading my best photographs and images to Wikimedia since 2005. Some of these pictures have made it to major Wikipedia articles in many languages. A few have been voted as Quality Images. As a result, I sometimes come across my own pictures when browsing reddit and other online media.
For instance, this autostereogram (MagicEye picture) of a shark is often pirated by online media, even though it is of relatively low-resolution by today's standard. This is because I made it the article picture of Autostereogram on Wikipedia when I wrote that article.
HHAMS 2015 Field Pictures
This article shows pictures taken in 2015 at HHAMS field events. These pictures were processed after I posted 2016 field and plane pictures. Maybe I'll get to 2014 pictures after this one.
The picture of the year 2015 was not taken by me. I don't recall who sent me this picture. It is not of high-resolution, unfortunately. If you are the photographer, please send me your original. The picture shows Eugene and Paul working on a plane in front of the shed.
Hot Air Balloons in Search of a Landing Site
Flipping through pictures on my iPhone, I found a few interesting ones taken in August 2015. They were from an unexpected encounter with hot air balloons while I was visiting Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It turned out that they were from a balloon ride tour agency with a misleadingly official name, The United States Hot Air Balloon Team. Nonetheless, I found the ground crew to be professional, and the pilot to be knowledgeable and helpful. I uploaded some of these pictures to Wikimedia, as I often do with useful pictures taken in my free time.
Pictures of Planes Sighted at the Aerodrome in 2016
I have highlighted some pictures of main HHAMS events in HHAMS Pictures of the Year - 2016. But I have plenty additional pictures of planes, mostly taken at the field. Here is a complete list of all of them. You can click on each one to see the image at the resolution I uploaded them which is enough for most online viewing. But the majority of these were taken at 4 times the uploaded resolution. Ask me if you want a particular picture in its full resolution for other purposes.
HHAMS Pictures of the Year – 2016
I sorted through, in the comfort of my home, pictures I've taken related to model aviation in 2016 on my iPhone. All of them were about HHAMS (Hempstead Harbor Aero Modelers Association). As "the" picture of the year, I nominate Ben's Ironman plane.