New York City

New York City skyline from Brooklyn Bridge Park

Approaching a tower on the bridge

Doug heads across the Brooklyn Bridge

This past weekend Amy and I went to New York City with Doug so that he could participate in  an undergraduate math symposium at Macaulay Honors College.  This was a very short trip that started with a bus departure at 8:00 AM on Saturday and a return trip that had us back in Rochester at 1:30 AM Monday morning.  We arrived in New York at around 3:00 PM Saturday afternoon and walked from the Port Authority on 42nd Street to our hotel on 63rd Street to check in.  Once checked in we headed back out for some sight seeing.  I have always wanted to take pictures of the NY City skyline with the Brooklyn Bridge as part of the shot.  I convinced Amy and Doug that this would be fun even though it was barely 40 degrees out.

The selection at Maison Keyser bakery

Given the framing I was getting with the 24mm lens (not wide enough for what I was after) I decided to shoot several frames in the portrait orientation with my 50 mm lens and create a panoramic image from the 5 frames taken in this fashion.  For those that are unfamiliar with this process it involves taking several shots of the scene by moving the camera between captures with some amount of overlap.  Software like Adobe Photoshop is then used to analyze the images and automatically determine how to stitch the photos together to give a much wider, panoramic view of the scene.  The above shot is my result.


Once we completed the picture taking experience (I thoroughly enjoyed it while Amy and Doug tried

The ballfields in central park.

Doug takes a break.

to keep warm) we decided to return to Manhattan by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.  It took us a while to find the pedestrian access point to the bridge but we finally did and now we can all say that we've walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.  Once back in the Times Square area of the city we found a  pub with reasonable prices to enjoy a dinner and a beer or two.  We skipped desert in hopes of finding something more appealing as we completed our walk back to our hotel.  A french bakery near Columbus Circle did the trick.

Art work near Bethesda Terrace

After checking out of our hotel the next morning we took a stroll through Central Park.  The weather was beautiful and we wished we could spend the entire day walking around the park and taking in the sights.
 The symposium was to begin at 1:00 PM so our walk in the park had to be cut short and we headed to the college on 67th Street for the afternoon's festivities.

Details in the walls at Bethesda Terrace 

The talks were all very interesting and Doug did a great job with his presentation and he fielded several questions after his talk and during the intermission that followed.  I will say, however, that theoretical mathematics is out there and those that study the field must have a unique way of looking at the world.  My head is still spinning!