A whiff of lacquer paint in the air brings me back to Barclay Manufacturing Company, where the smell of lacquer always pervaded the factory floor. I can still hear the names that would drift through my father’s conversation, and see some of the faces, mostly the foremen I knew: George Fall, Angelo, and Bill, and the maintenance man, Charley Peretta. Either Timmy or Frank ran the machine shop (maybe both at different times).
A long long time ago, my brother and I spent the occasional few hours at Barclay in Union City, New Jersey. It was like heaven to a little boy. We had our own established routine. We would sit in the office and play with Sally’s adding machine or play at typing on Gloria’s or Marilyn’s typewriter, or with stacks of punchcards.
Then we would explore the factory floor where the toy soldiers were made. The machine shop was not of much interest to us, but during World War II it was the only part of the factory that remained open when the government commandeered Barclay for war work.
More exciting were the vast area of conveyor belts and the casting area where molten lead was poured into molds to form the figures that Barclay made. I remember the Dickensian furnace and the pots of lead, and the large pot where the scrap lead was melted down for reuse. Yes, the toys were made of antimonial lead, 87% lead, 13% antimony. Spray painted with, no doubt, lead paint. A different time..
The pervasive scent came from the paint spraying booth. The soldiers and cowboys and Indians and the rest were placed on screens and sprayed with a base coat, then turned over by hand and returned to the sprayer to finish the base coat. After that, the details were individually painted by hand along a conveyor line.
We saved the shipping area, where the finished products were stored on shelves for shipment to Woolworth’s and other five and dime stores, for last. There we would wander around filling a bag with the pieces we had been thinking about adding to our armies. Needless to say, I never bought a Barclay toy at Woolworth’s.
Barclay, before the war, was the biggest producer of toy soldiers in America. It employed 400 people at its peak, and sold millions of figures. After the war, in the 1950s when I knew Barclay, metal costs had risen. The figures, which had stood solidly on bases, were redesigned to save lead. They were reduced in size and given separately standing feet that looked nothing like feet. They are referred to by collectors as pod foot soldiers. As war toys became less popular and cheap plastic toys began to compete, Barclay fell into steep decline in the 1960s, and closed in 1971.
Above with base. Below pod feet.
The company was owned by my uncle. My father was the general manager and “industrial engineer” who designed most of the assembly lines and conveyor belts. My mother for a time before the war worked there as an artist. My only job was to sit on the floor in my bedroom or in the grass out front with my friends playing war games or cowboys and Indians with the products. This cannon was always a favorite since it shot match sticks far across the room.
During the Cold War, the Red Army made its debut:
Vehicles also received a lot of playing time:
Sad to say, many of my figures are gone. They were heavily played with. Some broke and others wandered off with those friends, or maybe they just got lost. But I still have a representative, battle-scarred collection, including some unique pieces I picked up in the scrap pile that I am fairly certain no collector has ever seen: Unpainted figures still attached to the metal from inside the mold;
In this photo, an unpainted lead soldier, a flag bearer with khaki base coat, and three stages of hand painting, one a reject;
As well as various mispainted rejects.
You can see more of my collection of Barclay toys on my website, LewisBogatyPhotography.com here
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Among others on the show, the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter.
The Lucas Oil Pitts performed amazing acrobatics.
See more in my air show gallery
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In fact everything did start out perfectly – even better than perfectly, as the first two flights left early and made up more time in the air. Things went perfectly right up until the moment at Washington Reagan when we were called to board at our gate, Gate 35X. The monitor showed Flight 5173 “On Time,” and boarding began right on schedule.
If you are not familiar with Reagan Airport, let me explain the infamous Gate 35X, which is a gate in name only. In fact it is a series of “Doors” at the bottom of an escalator, through one of which passengers board a bus with mostly only standing room that, when it finally starts to move, winds through the airport at 5 miles an hour to the plane.
On this night – on this our first of six times on the bus! – the bus stood longer than usual, and when it reached our plane stood again with the doors closed, for perhaps five minutes. When the doors finally opened, it was not for us to file out, but for our captain to hop up onto the bus and make an announcement. “I can’t take off because I can’t land,” he told us. White Plains had fog. He needed half a mile visibility to land, and visibility was only a quarter of a mile in White Plains. And so we had our second ride on the bus. The plan was to take us back to the terminal, wait 15 minutes, and see if visibility improved.
To me it seemed highly unlikely that heavy fog was going to lift in 15 minutes, but sure enough, in 15 minutes we were back on the bus for our third trip. Soon we were on the plane, buckled in, moving, taking off, and up in the air. Relief, well, perhaps premature.
Before long the captain came over the intercom to say hello. “As I told you, there is a quarter mile visibility in White Plains. We’re going to try to get you there.”
Excuse me? This was the moment when the 20 of us on the plane began to bond. We frowned at each other. Didn’t he say he needed a half a mile visibility? Try to get us there? Well, I thought, at least if we have to divert to La Guardia I can get a cab home. Better than being in Washington.
Settled in. Drinks, pretzels, reading. A little over a half hour later, the captain: “I’m sorry to say I have some bad news.” Flight controllers would not clear us to land because of the fog. We were already over Long Island at this point. “The Company wants us to return to Washington.” Stunned exhalings of breath rippled through the cabin. LaGuardia was right down there below us, but the Company, American Airlines, to be clear, was sending us back to D.C. Inexplicably, we did a u-turn over Long Island and returned to Washington.
For me, the moment that symbolized the whole American Airlines experience was the moment when we touched down where we had started. The robotic, brain-dead flight attendant began her rote spiel about keeping seat belts fastened until stopped at the terminal by reciting in monotone, “Welcome to Washington.” You have got to be fucking kidding me.
By some strange coincidence when the twenty of us stepped off the plane onto the tarmac at 12:30 in the morning, there were two policemen waiting at the foot of the stairs. The Company was taking no chances.
Our fourth bus trip returned us to Gate 35X, at the usual crawl. Gate attendants met us as we entered the terminal, calling out our names. New boarding passes for each of us on the next morning’s 6:17 flight were fanned out on the table in front of them. Even with a long night ahead, it was a relief to know I wouldn’t have to try to re-book myself.
One person complained bitterly that she was not about to take a 6:17 am flight, and I believe they accommodated her. Several people went to hotels, as we learned when we all re-congregated in the morning. They spent $140 and two cab fares for about 3 hours sleep, if indeed they were able to sleep. American would not pay for hotels because it was a weather-related cancellation. Nor did they give us food vouchers, or offer any other help.
Most of us just decided to sleep in the terminal. Or try. A half dozen of us hung out together: a couple heading home from Nashville; a Mercedes Benz service manager returning from a convention in Phoenix; a college student returning home from one of the Carolinas, and a couple of others who had also come a long way to this dead end at Gate 35X. The first thing we discovered was that every single set of seats in the terminal had arms. With the entire terminal at our disposal, we could not get comfortable. We settled down near recharging stations, either trying to sleep sitting up, or lying on the hard floor.
It was not long before a security guard came along and contradicted the American Airlines personnel who had told us we could hang out anywhere. We had to leave the secure area. After giving some halfhearted argument, we followed him out and downstairs to the long corridor of deserted ticket counters. A single cluster of seats facing the windows looking out on the departures drive would be our new home. Behind us, workers were buffing the floor, communing with each other and passing female workers in shouted banter. Sometime around 2:00 one of the workers sauntered over to one of the women passengers and engaged her in conversation. With people trying to sleep all around him, he shouted to her as if he were standing next to an airliner taking off, until our friend from Nashville eventually said something to him and he retreated. I may have slept for an hour. I ate what few unhealthy snacks I still had (nothing, of course, was open in the airport), refilled my overpriced bottle of water at a fountain, and checked my watch.
A disabled passenger had arrived ahead of us in a special bus for our flight to the skies over Long Island. We had stood on our bus watching the laborious process of lowering ramp and wheeling him onto the plane, retrieving the wheel chair and raising the ramp, before our door opened. Now at 2:30, as I sat staring out through the airport window, I watched as he was wheeled to the curb and loaded into a taxi. Within minutes, one of our fellow travelers had retrieved the wheelchair, enabling her to sit at the bank of charging stations against the wall, working on her computer.
A long night was still ahead. When we had arrived at 12:30, the prospect of sitting until 5:30 didn’t seem that horrible in theory, but by 3:30 it was already feeling very long. Soon thereafter, our Nashville traveler came by, nudging those sleeping, to let us know that TSA would come on duty at 4:00. He suggested that since there had been several other flight cancellations the day before, we might want to stand on line now. And so we trooped back upstairs. At 3:45 in the morning, there was indeed already a line. But we sailed through security, and took up our earlier places in the seats at Gate 35X.
But sleep was over. Now almost family, we took turns watching each other's bags and heading for the just-opening food concessions. By 5:30, faces that had been absent during our long vigil reappeared, and told us of their hotel experience. And then at 5:50 it was time to take the escalator down to boarding Doors.
Tiredly, we staggered out to the bus for trip number five. The doors closed. As usual the bus stood for minutes. But it never did start moving. The doors reopened. Someone shouted for us to return to the gate. Back inside came the announcement: Flight 4048 had mechanical problems. There would be a delay.
At this point, several people were getting irate and laid into the gate attendant, who offered them the pleasure of talking to a manager. They sallied forth, and when they returned, happy that they had unburdened themselves, though with nothing to show for it, they reported what she told them. In 9 out of 10 cases, these mechanical problems had a quick fix. Not to worry. What about the tenth case? I wondered.
The next flight to White Plains was at 2:00 in the afternoon, if there were even seats on it. I could not possibly sit until then. I would have to give it up and go to a hotel. But that was not an option. A massive snowstorm was bearing down on Washington and New York, and would arrive with a vengeance the next day. Suddenly this was becoming a problem without a way out. Amtrak was all I could think, but retrieving bags, lugging them through the city, getting home from Penn Station while exhausted…… And so we waited.
About 20 minutes later, the gate attendant lifted his microphone and began to speak as I watched his expressionless face for some inkling of our fate. They had found another plane for us, he said. When it was fueled and the crew were aboard, we would leave the gate. Not, obviously, a quick fix of an airplane’s mechanical problems this time. But definitely a solution.
A sigh of relief – sort of, maybe.
We did board the bus, for the sixth time, crawled through the airport to our new plane, found our seats, taxied. The flight took off – an hour late. Once in the air, the captain came on the intercom to tell us weather conditions. Cloudy in White Plains, with some ground fog. Turning around to look behind me, I saw raised eyebrows and wide eyes.
Westchester County Airport, White Plains. With relief I saw my bag come around the conveyor belt. (It had been placed aboard five airplanes since I handed it over in Corpus Christi.) The sun was peeking through the clouds on a very pleasant early morning in White Plains as I retrieved my car. I arrived home at 9:20 am, 24 hours and ten minutes after I had left my hotel in Texas.
Others had been quite angry. They had already fired off enraged notes to American Airlines and posted on Facebook by the time we took off. But I couldn’t quite work myself up to real anger. I couldn’t see how exactly American had been at fault. They had certainly tried to get us to New York. And when they couldn’t, they immediately provided us with tickets on the next flight. Maybe that ill-fated flight to the skies over Long Island was misguided, but they tried. As for not diverting to LaGuardia, the captain told me they could not get a slot. Whatever that means and whether I believe him is another matter.
It was more a question of attitude. I can truly say that no one at Washington Reagan cared. Not one American Airlines employee showed the slightest inclination to offer comfort in word or deed. No person made the slightest individual effort on our behalf. We were only 20 people. Just 20. At the least, they could have opened one of their lounges for us. They did not. Would Southwest personnel have treated us this way?
Beyond the uncaring individuals stands the uncaring corporation. Over the course of the night, we had plenty of time to discuss what an airline that cared even minimally about its customers might do in this circumstance, which is not a rare one. It might have an employee prepared to assist us to find hotels. It might even have cots stored on site for a situation such as this. But American Airlines, like most, perhaps all, airlines, is quite content to leave its customers stranded and abandoned.
When we were first kicked out of our seats in the secure area, several of us ventured off to find the American Airlines manager. We headed for the only office that was open. No manager was to be found. The response from the three people sitting in the office: “We’re Baggage,” said one. "We’re just Baggage,” said another. “You can’t sleep at the gates,” chimed in the third. I didn’t stay for the rest of the conversation.
Lewis Bogaty
Note:
I later learned that part of the blame for this fiasco goes to slimy Westchester County politicians and administrators. In this incredibly wealthy county, the airport's REI lights were out of commission and not being fixed for a very long time. For all I know they still have not been fixed.
As I understand it, Runway End Identifier Lights are the first thing the pilot sees when approaching the airport. If the REILs are not working, the rules for visibility are drastically stricter -- thus the problem landing in fog without REILs.
On a subsequent early-morning flight from Westchester on JetBlue, my flight was delayed because the arriving aircraft was circling, due to fog. When we finally took off, our pilot came on the intercom to complain. He asked us to call our elected officials because nothing was being done about the absent REI Lights
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This month, I flew to Corpus Christi Texas to photograph the whoopers in the salt-water marshes in and around the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, where about 350 of them spend their winters feasting on crabs and berries.
See my Whooping Crane Gallery on my website, LewisBogatyPhotography.com HERE
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Sun would have blown out the waterfalls and made the shadows in the gorges irremediably black. So the cloudy weather was perfect for gorges and waterfalls. Wearing many layers and down coat in the cold and snow showers, I hiked light given all the climbing up and down through the gorges: one camera, one lens, tripod, ND filters, polarizer, and a bottle of water.
I must have seen over 40 waterfalls in Watkins Glen State Park, Robert Treman State Park, Taughannock State Park along with several other spots around Ithica. Awe-inspiring sights.
See more photos HERE.
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at absolutely peak fall foliage
with misty dawns
and starry nights. "Forever wild" as protected in the New York State Constitution.
View my Adirondacks Gallery here
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Every summer Black Skimmers,
American Oyster Catchers
and Common Terns
come to Nickerson Beach to lay their eggs and care for their chicks.
Death and Breakfast on Nickerson Beach:
Not a fun day for this chick who strayed onto the beach. Its encounter with a gull lasted only 10 seconds.
To view my Nickerson Beach photo gallery click here
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It was another great Wyoming marathon. I drove just under 2000 miles, as I crisscrossed Wyoming from Douglas in the Powder River Basin, where I photographed coal trains,
to Lovell in the north for Pryor Mountain, through Cody for the rodeo,
to Yellowstone
and Grand Teton,
and on to Green River in the south. Surrounded by monumental buttes -- this is my hotel --
Green River has not only the wild horses but the unique trona trains in the train yard
and on the rugged Peru Hill. Trona, or soda ash, is mined almost exclusively in Green River Wyoming.
In nearby James Town I found this striking, derelict Sinclair Gas Station.
And then there were the horses.
Pryor Mountain: Not easily accessible, the top of Pryor Mountain simply cannot be reached in a car or SUV. Only a high clearance, 4-wheel drive vehicle with damned good tires can make this trip. To drive the 12½ miles took 2½ hours, over the Burnt Timber Canyon Road, an unpaved series of boulders and ditches that left me quite queasy by the time we reached the top.
But what a sight. The scrub and sage brush of the ride up gave way to a rolling plain of grass and wild flowers at the top, with the expansive vista of mountains and prairie far below in the distance.
I had planned for June when the wild flowers would be in bloom, and hoped there would still be some snow. Indeed there was: the last two patches of snow, at the very top, which the day before had been one bigger patch, according to my very friendly and accommodating guide, Steve Ceroni. Another couple of days and all traces of snow would be gone.
All around us were close to 100 mustangs. When we first arrived, many of them were clustered in the snow, both to drink and to avoid the annoying nose flies, according to Steve. At times, as the horses moved about, we could not back off fast enough to keep from being within several feet of them. At one point, as we scrambled to the other side of a boulder as a stallion led his mares in our direction, I left my second camera behind in the haste. The stallion stopped to take a close look at us across the boulder,
and then considered the camera before deciding he did not want it.
Steve’s wife had prepared us a very tasty tailgate dinner, which the two of us ate before setting up for the sunset. The drive down the mountain in the dark from 10:00 to well after midnight was an adventure in itself. All in all, truly an amazing experience in a breathtakingly beautiful setting.
Green River: An entirely different world. With Rich Nobles, an entertaining source of local lore, and a shrewd guide to finding the horses, in an old Austrian Army vehicle that slowed down only for the worst of the ruts and ditches,
off road, careening over the 2-tracks in the vast flat sage brush and dust of the southern Wyoming desert. With the imposing Pilot Butte in the distance, the two of us saw not another person. Unlike the fairly restricted space of Pryor Mountain, here the horses roamed over an immense area, with no boundaries.
We drove over 80 miles, bumping over some barely passable tracks, searching for different groups of horses. In the end, every bit of clothing and equipment was coated with thick dust, but what a great adventure.
See my gallery of Pryor Mountain and Green River wild horse photos here
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Sunset along Route 59 offers especially nice photo opportunities.
Route 59 is the spine of coal country, paralleling the mostly 4-track Orin Line, the BNSF-Union Pacific joint line, for two hours from Douglas to Gillette. The joint line is a rare four-track freight line. In this case, the freight trains are all coal trains, running 24 hours a day. Its spurs feed into the coal mines along the route. The tracks run north from the UP's Shawnee Junction, which is south of Douglas, to BNSF's Donkey Creek Junction east of Gillette.
For about 45 minutes starting 20 minutes north of Douglas, the tracks run directly alongside Route 59, making for well-lit morning photos.
Driving north from Douglas, you first encounter the tracks on an overpass
They then run north on the west side of the road through the town of Bill (population about 1, and consisting of a ramshackle general store with a surprisingly large backroom bar, a post office which may or may not be operational, and Penny's Diner and the Oak Tree Inn.
Bill exists only because Union Pacific has a yard there, where most trains stop for crew changes. The diner and motel are primarily for the train crews, though they are open to the public. Be aware that there are no gas stations at all on Route 59, and other than in Bill, no services except for a bathroom-only rest area.
North of Bill, the tracks again cross Route 59, this time on an underpass,
and continue north a mile or more east of the road, and out of sight.
When I was last in the Powder River Basin in 2014 I spent most of my time on Logan Hill (a couple of miles east of Route 59 on Steckley Road, a dirt road into the Thunder Basin National Grasslands) and at Donkey Creek Yard. See my June 2014 blog: click here
This time I focused on Walker Creek Road, just south of the overpass. Like Logan Hill, the views are good in both directions, both morning and evening. But here the trains are on level ground and moving faster.
My second focus was Antelope Coal Mine Road, about five minutes north of Steckley Road. Along Antelope Coal Mine Road near Arch Coal's Antelope Coal Mine is Converse Junction
and further down the road is Peabody Energy's North Antelope Rochelle Mine.
To see my Powder River Basin Coal Train photo gallery click here
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Ever-friendly Cody people watch my equipment for me as I hurry off to the opposite end of the arena for a better angle on the roping events.
See my new rodeo photos here
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Lots to photograph, from first light at 5 in the morning:
to 6:30 when the sun first broke over some heavy clouds:
through the afternoon:
to 8 p.m. when the setting sun painted the arches a golden red for a fleeting few minutes, as these light engines were about to pass a stack train:
and into the night.
The historic Rockville train bridge spans the Susquehanna River from Rockville just north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on the east, to Marysville, Pennsylvania, on the west, where it leads to the nearby Enola Train Yard, seen here with the Pennsylvania State Capitol building across the river
Completed in 1902, the 3,820 foot Rockville Bridge is the longest stone arch railroad viaduct in the world, with 48 70-foot arches.
Today, the bridge is used by Norfolk Southern freight trains and one Amtrak passenger train a day in each direction.
With at least 4 train lines converging on Harrisburg, and with the Harrisburg, Rutherford, and Enola train yards in the immediate area, and the Reading Bridge -- shown below -- just to the south,
trains are running 24 hours a day.
As many times as I have been here, the weather and the river always provide new images.
And there is always some unusual train activity. The day I arrived, seven freight cars derailed in Harrisburg, so this crane train appeared, on its way to the rescue.
Seen a caboose lately? How about two?
Check out this exotic cargo
Just after dark one night, the rarely seen camp train – living quarters and dining facilities for maintenance-of-way work gangs as they travel around the country – crossed the river.
Over the years, I have photographed the last trickle of Conrail colors, now completely gone.
More recently, Norfolk Southern Heritage engines have frequently appeared on the bridge.
And of course there are many meets.
The only place I would consider staying is Keith Latimer’s Bridgeview Bed & Breakfast in Marysville, perched right on the river south of the bridge. More like going to visit an old friend at his country house than staying at a hotel. Once established in my same favorite room -- one which opens right onto the deck overlooking the bridge and river -- I settle in at a table on the deck, or the swing in the shade under the deck, or the grass at the edge of the river, with scanner (Harrisburg Terminal Dispatcher 160.980; nearby defect detectors at Marysville MP 111 and Banks MP 113 on the Pittsburgh Line, among others) and camera. The indoor viewing room, with its dispatcher board, shows where trains are as they approach the area. At the Bridgeview, I’m just steps from the trains, the birds, the sunrise. Below, Keith Latimer on the deck.
After sunrise on the deck (with coffee that's ready at 5 a.m.), followed later by fresh-cooked breakfast in the dining room, it is time to follow the sun. Off to the east side of the river for the morning,
back to the B & B for the afternoon,
and as the sun moves west and north, it is on to the boat launch just north of the bridge,
returning to the B & B for the highlight of the day, the very brief moments of sunset “glow” in the arches
and then night photos all through the night.
Side trips to Enola are a mere 3 minute drive, and a viewing area at CP Overlook, on the Overlook Bridge has openings in the fence for camera lenses.
Birds are plentiful on the river. Egrets can always be seen,
and on these June days, eagles were fishing on the river and flying over the B & B to their nest in the woods across the road. This year, for the first time I also saw a mink swimming at dawn.
Want to go to the top of the mountain on the Harrisburg side for an overview of the bridge and Enola Yard. Don’t. Dangerous does not begin to describe it. The only spot with a view is on a very narrow ledge. To reach the ledge, you must climb down a short but steep slope, preferably on your butt. Once you get there, you are standing on the edge of the cliff, on ground that is slanting nearly 45 degrees, and with nothing really to hold on to. At least one rail photographer has fallen off the cliff.
Having said that, I confess to having ventured up there. At the time of my first expedition, in one of my early years at the Bridgeview, this involved a long hike through the woods on unmarked trails after driving to the top of the mountain. Keith had made me a map, but many of the trails barely existed or were overgrown or confused by fallen trees. And exactly which tree I was supposed to turn left at was entirely obscure. After walking for what seemed like a half hour or more, I came to the conclusion that I had no idea where I was going. So I called Keith, who soon appeared, his camera in hand, and led me the last bit of the way (I was closer than I had thought). We spent the morning photographing, standing on that uncomfortable slanted ground, until the light was no longer good. Not your ordinary innkeeper.
From CP Hip and CP Mary on the west side of the bridge to CP Wye and CP Rockville on the east, the trains keep coming, and the river flows on. A nice place to be.
You can view a selection of my favorite Rockville Bridge images (most of them different from the ones included here) on my website, LewisBogatyPhotography.com by clicking here: http://www.lewisbogatyphotography.com/p854788448
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May 4th, between 3:00 and 4:00
May 5th, at noon
May 7th, at 10:30 in the morning
Same day, around 7:30 at night, with flash
May 13th, at 9:20 in the morning
By 4:30 on May 13, in the rain, barely a trace of red left, and farewell to the bird feeder until Fall.
See more in the Birds galleries on my website, http://www.LewisBogatyPhotography.com
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Always the same, always so different. Always the place to be in April. You’ll usually find me there the week before or the week after the big Florida Birding Festival, which occurs during a different week in April each year. Avoid the crowds -- of people anyway.
Crowds of birds – that's what we're there for, the sheer chaos.
As you may or may not know, hundreds, maybe thousands of birds – Egrets, Wood Storks (my vote for the ugliest bird in the world),
Spoonbills, Herons, Ibis, and other wild birds come to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm every Spring to build their nests and hatch their eggs in the safety provided by the alligators swimming below the trees.
They somehow know that no rodents dare brave those jaws to steal eggs. And for a few weeks of nest building and squabbling and sitting on eggs and learning to fly, it is an absolute madhouse of squawking and flying, helter skelter in a spring swelter.
Mad, also, like a Bosch painting of hell, as in nest after nest of egrets, the same drama plays out: the bigger chicks pecking the littlest one to death over a couple of agonizing days -- while mom looks on benevolently -- and then fling the limp body out of the nest to the waiting alligators. Mom relieved, one less to feed. You go, girl.
Never forget a hat. Batteries, CF cards, HAT! One day I spied a little teen tourist girl standing under a very dangerous tree engrossed in her phone, while her mother tiptoed carefully through the obstacle course of tripods. “I wouldn’t stand there if I were you,” said I. “Why not,” demanded her mother. On cue: splat splat splat. “That’s why,” I said.
Balmy 7:55 am, the straggly photographer line waits patiently at the unmarked red door, murmuring. Always a nice surprise to look over the line and spy a friend from a previous year or Bosque or Conowingo, or even home. “I didn’t know you were coming.” 8:00 the door creaks open; the line stirs. 8:05, hundreds of thousands of dollars of 100-400, 500 and 600 mm lenses lined up along the boardwalk, ratt-tatt-tatting at 12 frames a second.
At 9 o’clock, the parents with kids troop in. By 11:30 the last of the photographers have trickled out. At 4 we start drifting back in. At 5, closing time, the tourists have evaporated, and the photographers are again alone with the birds and gators till 8:00. Maybe the moon will be rising in the right place for a shot with a bird. Last year it was.
This year not. And maybe the stars will be out: maybe Arthur Morris, who word has it lobbied for early photographer admission – hey Artie, how about getting us 7 am instead of 8?; maybe Chas Glatzer pronouncing his mantra -- Florida Sun/White Bird, 1/1200th of a second, f 8, iso 200. It works. But nothing can solve the dreaded black shadow when the bird turns. Delete delete delete. No stars my week this year.
This year the water level is way low,
because they have drained the marsh to do work on a filter system. And that presents new photo opportunities. Ibis, which generally fly out at dawn and only come back at dark, are wading in the water in large groups.
And spoonbills are splashing.
The weather is mostly perfect, bright and sunny, with just enough puffy clouds,
and at the end of the day golden light.
But variety too, with one rainy afternoon producing this magical shot before the downpour drives me out,
and one morning of overcast, for beautiful white on white shots.
There is also the tiny tiny window of an opening between the leaves and branches of a tree – photographers vying -- a spoonbill nest, in backlit glare, but just barely shootable at some moments of the day.
The shot I’m focusing on this year – the hand-off (or beak-off, I guess) as he brings a twig to the nest and she takes it from him.
Can't leave out this little guy, lost in a 60s Beachboys song with his reflectors out, "Hey dude, pass the sunscreen."
And, of course, if you’re muttering to yourself at this point, “another fucking bird picture”, well, voila:
On the downside, they have built an alligator feeding dock right into the water, which essentially eliminates shots of birds skimming along the water,
and also renders the special photographer section they built the previous year mostly useless. You can’t have everything.
But pretty much everything – just an hour drive from JAX, and the friendly Sleep Inn just 3 minutes from the A-Farm, as easy as it gets.
See more of my images on my website http://www.LewisBogatyPhotography.com
]]>From images of battling wild horses in Wyoming to Sandhill cranes in flight at sunset in New Mexico, steam engines in the mountains of West Virginia, alligators and egrets in Florida, street action in New York City and much more, the exhibit will be open until March 31.
Come to the reception on Saturday March 5, from 2 to 4.
Bosque del Apache in December: Beautiful sunny days, but a frigid 20 degrees at sunrise – layer upon layer of clothing, heavy down coat and hat and gloves, hand warmers and toe warmers. By afternoon, a balmy 60 degrees. We’re there in southern New Mexico for the thousands and thousands of migrating snow geese and sandhill cranes.
Sunrises to die for – 360 degrees of color – from orange in the east to pink and rose in the west, one day more stunning than the next. Into that brilliant color, the snow geese fly.
They land in the water by the thousands. Then after resting a while, they blast off, sometimes in one massive chaotic movement of ten thousand birds, more often in large sections, for distant fields to feed.
The sandhill cranes, which have spent the night in the pools along the road, take off one by one and in groups soon after the snow geese depart.
By 8:00 all is quiet at the pools. The corn fields where the cranes feed, the traditional place to watch them in the later morning, are more or less of a bust. While there are some birds, most are feeding in far off fields.
Personally, I find the farm along the road to San Antonio much more interesting in the mornings, with cranes feeding among the cows, and also among swarms of red winged black birds, which repeatedly rise up in a massive black stain on the blue sky, and then flatten out on the ground, only to rise up and flatten out again – so thick is the cloud of black birds that the cows are all but obscured.
Afternoons, the entertainment is the snow geese flying in to the main pond for a nap, and in the late afternoon their blast off anticipated by probably half-a-million dollars-worth of 500-and-600 mm lenses lined up along the shore.
And as afternoon turns to evening, a coyote feasts on a goose, barely patient with the annoying feathers that stick in his mouth.
For me, though, the highlight of each day is sunset at the crane pools as the sandhill cranes drop out of the sky, silhouetted against the setting sun.
All in all, from the unparalleled New Mexico sunrises and sunsets to the spectacular blastoffs and landings, an amazing time in an amazing place.
To view more Bosque photos, please visit my website LewisBogatyPhotography.com The Bosque del Apache Gallery is in the Birds & Animals Group.
I had perfect weather on the first afternoon, and was lucky enough to find the elevated vantage point with the help of one of the local old-timers I chatted with sipping coffee in the park. I spent the day there in Hudson and on the other side of the river in Athens, shooting until dark. I felt as if the trip had already been productive enough that if the next morning turned out to be a total bust the trip would have been a success.
I spent the night across the river in Catskill. Up well before dawn, I was certainly not expecting the photo of my dreams, the lighthouse engulfed in mist as the sun rose. What were the chances on my one day in Hudson? There certainly wasn’t any mist near my hotel. As I said, my hope was for a few wisps. Maybe I would be lucky.
Then, as I crossed the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, I shouted out “OH MY GOD!” Not a little mist on the water, but a spectacular fog enveloping the entire river.
It was the picture I had dreamed of, and never expected to get. Luck was truly with me, for, as I was told by one of the old timers in the park: the morning before, the mist had been so heavy that the lighthouse was not even visible. You can view a selection of my Hudson Lighthouse pictures on my website, www.LewisBogatyPhotography.com in the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse gallery in the Scenes/ Places group.
Of course, I was repaid for my good luck the next month when I went up to the Adirondacks to photograph the fall foliage. It rained for five straight days.
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On Saturday, I was engulfed in a throng of Times Square tourists, but I was the only person on the corner who had come to see the sunset, since the experts had said Sunday was the better day. On Sunday I was in a crowd of cameras, but nothing like the crowds to the east. And as it happened, Sunday was a far worse day than Saturday, with clouds turning the sun to little more than a smudge after three or four minutes.
At 8:10 Saturday the sky began to glow a golden yellow, which lasted long enough that I wondered if that was all there was going to be. And then, quite suddenly, a blinding explosion of light -- at its center the ball of the sun slid from behind the far building on the left side of the street.
Within minutes the flaming ball had moved into the center of the street.
The whole event lasted about 10 minutes.
Then just as suddenly as it had appeared, the sun was gone below the horizon.
On Sunday, the ball of light appeared again behind the building, but within minutes it was shrouded in cloud for a very different look.
Photographing Manhattanhenge:
Here's what worked for me.
Needless to say,you want to be on the east side of the street so that when the traffic light stops the cars, you can run out into the middle of the street.
After the first blinding moment I realized you DO NOT want to look through the viewfinder. Very dangerous. Use the LCD screen and do not look directly at the sun.
Because the extreme brightness will throw your camera's meter off, it is best to shoot with all manual settings.
Focus: Set focus before the sun appears. Aim at a building deep in the picture and when auto-focus achieves focus, flip the switch on the lens to manual. Take a test shot. If it is sharp, all you images will be sharp, so long as you don't change the zoom length (or your position.) If you want to change zoom length, refocus the same way, but aim at something to the side, away from the brightness.
Exposure: Set the exposure when the sky has gotten bright. Once the sun appears, you'll still have time to adjust on the fly (remember, there is down-time waiting for the traffic light to allow you onto the middle of the street).
I wanted a significant depth of field, so I set the aperture to f16 and did not change that. I set the shutter speed to 1/80 of a second with ISO at 400. And I bracketed. On Sunday, when it was cloudier, I had to go to a slightly slower shutter speed. (Note: do not use auto-ISO. It will defeat your manual settings.)
The lens you will need is dependent on where you are. I shot from 7th Avenue on Saturday and 6th Avenue on Sunday. Depending on whether the shot was vertical or horizontal, zoomed in or zoomed out, the shots ranged from 25 mm to about 170 mm.
See my photography at LewisBogatyPhotography.com More Manhattanhenge images in the City Scenes gallery of the website.
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Leaving Gillette and the Powder River Basin behind, I headed west to Cody, which boasts a nightly rodeo and the nearby McCullough Peaks Wild Horse Herd Management area, where 150 or so mustangs roam 110,000 acres and are completely wild.
The trip west led me through the beautiful Big Horn Mountains. As I happily photographed the foggy mountain tops before me, I did not quite realize that I would shortly be up there straining to see the road a foot in front of me.
And coming down the other side, a beautiful view.
Virtually the only stop between Gillette and Cody was the small town of Graybull, and I was nervously watching my gas tank which was in a close race with the miles to go. As I left Graybull behind, I passed this striking vista.
Cody. After the obligatory gun battle at Buffalo Bill’s Irma Hotel (with a typical 1880s pickup truck strategically placed in the background),
it was off to the rodeo.
Cody has a big-time rodeo, the Cody Stampede, for several days in July, but it also has a decent rodeo on a nightly basis, the Cody Nite Rodeo. Apparently it is the only nightly rodeo in the world. It is more than a local rodeo. The cowboys come to Cody from many states and South America to gain the points they need to advance in the profession. In early June, the stands were not packed on weekdays (though they were on Saturday night), so I was able to move around freely to position myself to photograph different events.
Even cowgirls multitask.
Cody's snow-capped mountains lent a scenic background to the rodeo, but the stands were a cold wind tunnel, and I was quite glad to have my jacket.
It is a fun rodeo, filled with pageantry and a variety of events.
Before the rodeo starts, Hollywood the bull stands out front for kids to sit on and have their pictures taken. One night, arriving after the rodeo began, I encountered these girls leading the bull back to his pen. He was determined to sample a particularly tasty weed he spied, which provided me one of my favorite pictures from the rodeo.
You can view a selection of my favorite rodeo photographs from the trip in the Rodeo Gallery of the Scenes Group on my website, www.LewisBogatyPhotography.com
The Wild Horses:
I went out to photograph the McCullough Peaks mustangs in the early mornings and evenings over several cool days in a landscape of blue skies, sage brush, grasses and a variety of wild flowers. In the photos below: cactus in bloom, a bird, and an antelope bolting away from fighting horses (barely caught in a not very notable photo).
The size of this massive red ant hill can be seen by comparing the indents made by horse hooves in the front of it.
I went to the BLM land with the Red Canyon Wild Mustang Tours. Originally I planned to go with the group once, and then sally forth on my own. The first trip disabused me of that notion. The heavily rutted dirt roads, impassible in places, barely discernible in others, crossing through creeks on occasion, went on for endless miles and intersected in ways that would have left me completely lost.
Moreover, the herd was moving around quite a bit. It was not in the same area twice. Often we would be close, but not know it, because a slight rise in the land completely hid the entire herd from view. It often took the guides, who are very familiar with the horses, quite a while to find them. It is unlikely I would have found them at all. Let me restate that: I would not have found them. At times we were able to drive close to the herd, but at other times we had to walk. On one occasion, while we could see the horses, we could not get near them on any of the dirt roads, and had to walk for about two miles. Walking through the tall grass and sage brush favored by the rattlesnakes was not something I wished to do alone.
So I was very happy to go with the tour group on each of my trips. Everyone there from the woman behind the desk to the owner was extremely nice and welcoming. In fact, for my final trip, Ken told me it would be free. Thank you, Ken. I was fortunate in getting to go out with three different guides, Stoney, Sonny, and Ken, the owner, who has been following the horses for years, seen here.
I had a great time with each of them, and each had a slightly different perspective. Because it was so early in June, I was extremely lucky to be the only person on several tours. Just the guide and me, and in one instance, both Sonny and Stoney took me out.
Hey, you can’t beat two guides for one photographer, especially when one of them carries your tripod while you rush off to grab a shot. Thank you, Stoney. But even when the van was full with twelve people, it did not diminish the experience. The guides were all conscious of my needs as a photographer, and in almost every case were successful in maneuvering us close to the horses and into the best light.
On every trip out there, that moment when we first encountered the massive herd of mustangs was breathtaking. It was truly a sight to behold.
June was the right time to go. It was not yet so hot that the horses were sluggish. The studs were battling and chasing the mares. The herd was constantly moving. There was so much going on at times that I didn’t know where to point the camera first.
The two-year-old mares were very curious and often came so close that we had to back away for fear of the protective male, hovering behind, as in this picture.
One of the more bizarre scenes was this.
This stud had been keeping his two mares running in line in front of him for two weeks to the point that they were getting skinny. Every time we were there, they were in motion in non-stop circles around the herd. The reason can be seen in this next picture. This young stud was determinedly following. The guides had never seen such sustained behavior before.
And then there was this scene on the highway on our way to the horses one morning: A flat bed truck filled with hay bales ablaze. Ya gotta watch those cigarettes flicked out the window, guys.
All in all, it was a great trip. You can view a selection of my favorite wild mustang photographs from the trip in the Animals section of my website, www.LewisBogatyPhotography.com
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The mines of the Powder River Basin supply most of the coal used by power plants in the U.S. The Joint Line, a train line owned by Union Pacific and BNSF, connects the coal mines to the rest of the country. A double track several years ago, then a triple track, it is now four tracks for much of its length. The allure of the Powder River Basin for a photographer is endless strings of twisting coal trains, two, three, and four abreast, a sight that cannot be seen anywhere else in the world.
After hightailing it out of Denver as soon as my plane landed, I spent the first night in Cheyenne, at the historic Plains Hotel, the height of fashion and up-to-the-minute conveniences – well, in 1911 anyway. Its exquisitely beautiful lobby and low price made up for the rather basic room.
Downtown Cheyenne barely stirred on a lazy June day, a month before the madness of Frontier Days. The stately Wyoming State Capitol and elaborate train depot face each other at opposite ends of quiet Capitol Avenue. And the Union Pacific Train Yard a block from the hotel provides nice photo opportunities.
After a leisurely late breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant where I was the only customer, I took a quick side-trip to Laramie’s historic downtown and the train yard that overlooks it.
Then headed north through Shawnee, where I encountered this massive storm, which seemed to be staying on the other side of the mountain – until it wasn’t. I was pelted relentlessly with hail as I drove through it.
Then off to Douglas where I would camp for several days, now back in the 21st Century at the Sleep Inn & Suites, a very new, very modern, very nicely-done hotel, as I photographed the trains of the Powder River Basin. Route 59, from Douglas to Gillette, is the main artery of coal country. Douglas is a boom town. The whole area is alive with railroad, oil fracking, and coal activity. Trucks of every description jam the once-quiet 2-lane Route 59. The two-hour drive on Route 59 from Douglas to Gillette offers no gas stations and virtually no other services. This is the middle of nowhere – nowhere but coal mines and oil drilling and railroad tracks. I spent many hours driving and re-driving that first hour from Douglas north. That is where the trains are.
You first meet the coal trains as they cross Route 59 on an overpass.
From that point, they stretch out for miles on the west side of the road until they again cross Route 59, this time on an underpass, and disappear to the east.
A day of following the coal trains would not be complete without a meal at Penny’s Diner. Between the overpass and the underpass, sits the town of Bill. Well, town may not be the best descriptive word. Bill, the only stop between Douglas and Gillette, has nothing but a ramshackle convenience store, the Oak Tree Inn and Penny’s. The population may be close to 0. Bill only exists because Union Pacific has a yard there, where most trains must stop for crew changes. Union Pacific built the motel and diner for the train crews, but both are open to the public, despite many inaccurate statements to the contrary on the internet. As I write this I am drinking coffee out of my Penny’s Diner mug.
North of the underpass, the line continues a couple of miles east of Route 59. My ultimate destination was Logan Hill, where the trains can be viewed from above as they labor up the incline. Logan Hill is reached by a dirt road called Steckley Road, which is an access road to the Thunder Basin National Grasslands, though Google Maps has never heard of Steckley Road. It has heard of U.S. Forest Service Road 942 only if you type it in a certain way. But the place is not hard to find, a dirt road on the right as you drive north.
Winding along the dirt road, I expected to be quite isolated and alone. Boy was I wrong. From 8 a.m. until 6:30 at night, massive single and double ore trucks thundered down the hill every two to three minutes shaking the bridge over the tracks and throwing up massive dust clouds.
But what a great view. On the one side, empty coal trains speeding along, and on the other side, loaded coal trains struggling up the hill. There are a number of other spots off Route 59, including Antelope Coal Mine Road, but Logan Hill is about as good as it gets.
Next stop Gillette, and my final destination on the “coal train” part of my trip: the BNSF Donkey Creek Yard, east of Gillette, where the Orin Line ends (actually begins, as the mileage is counted from that point) on the triple-track at Donkey Creek Junction.
Trains in the yard, trains to the west waiting to come into the yard, and the trains coming off the triple track all make for striking images.
To view a larger selection of my favorite Wyoming coal train images, see the Powder River Basin Coal Trains gallery on my website, www.LewisBogatyPhotography.com Click Here
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I recently launched my photography website, www.LewisBogatyPhotography.com. My images tend to be mostly set outdoors. And I find that I gravitate toward things on the move, or in landscapes, moments of change. I’ve set up the initial galleries to reflect the subjects I most often photograph: Birds, animals, butterflies; landscapes; and trains. Under landscapes are galleries focused on a recent trip to Niagara Falls and last month’s trip to Elk Lake in the Adirondacks during the height of fall foliage season, as well as others.
The galleries on birds include, among others, images from my recent trip to St. Augustine Florida, as well as small birds in flight taken at home.
The trains galleries include, among others, trains of the Hudson Valley in New York, the Powder River Basin in Wyoming, and the Rockville Bridge in Pennsylvania, as well as steam engines in several places, including Cass West Virginia. For those of you who have followed my trains website, www.wislew.com, the difference between the two websites is one of emphasis. Here the focus is on the artistic quality of the images. On the trains website, I am more interested in capturing particular noteworthy events, trains, places and so forth. I therefore don’t always have control over angle, lighting conditions and other such aesthetic concerns.
I’ll be adding new galleries and more photos over time.
Hope you enjoy the images.
Lewis Bogaty
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