Halloween

Scary Costumes?

Tomorrow is Halloween! In the US, this tradition is honored by young and old: children dress up for trick and treat and grown-ups dress up for a different kind of candy...

One month before Halloween, certain stores in New York start to transform in specialty costume stores. You can find funny costumes (clowns, hilbillies, different food types and animals, cartoon characters), scary costumes (witches, skeletons, vampires, devils, ...), the "what's happening now" costumes (Obama, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, the Gosselins, etc) and then for some reasons, there is a big range of slutty costumes for the ladies (Playboy bunnies, French maids, Princess Leia's slave costume, etc). Apparently, certain American women use Halloween as an excuse to dress in very revealing, so-called "sexy" costumes. A strange phenomenon... I thought Halloween was all about dressing up in scary silly costumes... but on the other hand, I guess these "sexy" costumes can be really scary and silly on certain women. Makes you wonder what these women are trick and treating for?

We are dressing up for Halloween too (hey, when in Rome...) but I'm passing on the slutty costume trend. We are going for the funny silly costumes: rich plastic surgeons and their loyal upper class 5th Avenue clientele. We will be showing off our costumes in New York's Village Halloween Parade.

Happy Halloween!

Leaf Peeping

Fall Upstate New York

Every once in a while, we feel the need to escape the city in order to remind us that there is indeed a world outside Manhattan. So, we spent last weekend in upstate New York. The fall colors are legendary, green, yellow, orange, red, even purple and rose: the perfect spot for some "leaf peeping". Of course, also an excellent opportunity to practice my new knowledge on photography.

Our first stop: Sleepy Hollow... If you have heard about the legend of Sleepy Hollow or maybe even seen the movie, you'll know that it's the perfect place to spend the weekend before Halloween. We visited the Rockefeller Estate in Sleepy Hollow: Kykuit - the Dutch word for overlook. The estate is an amazing palace surrounded by even more amazing gardens - unfortunately, we saw the place during a rainy morning. Afterwards, we admired the Rockefellers' contribution to Union Church in Pocantico Hills: glass windows by Mattisse and Chagall ... not bad for a little church.



The next day, we woke up to a beautiful sunny day and drove to Bear Mountain State Park, on the West bank of the Hudson river. The park was crowded with people like us enjoying the fall foliage. It's hard to subscribe how beautiful fall can be in New York state. Lucky for you, the photographer in me - blessed with a wonderful crisp blue sky - couldn't stop taking photos. Our final stop, atop Bear Mountain, gave us a wonderful view of the park, the Hudson highlands, the river, with New York city lurking on the horizon.

Photography 101

No more point and shoot!

This month, I finally managed to cross at least one thing off my "Hobby's I Need To Pursue" list (some of the other ones on there are: making a new CD, writing a science-fiction, updating this blog at least once a week, ...).

I followed a digital photography course at the International Center of Photography: two full time weekends, not cheap but hey, "because I'm worth it!" The course was really interesting and after only two weekends, I'm able to juggle as a pro with fancy photography slang such as aperture, shutter speed, f-stop, ISO, white balance, ... The buttons on my DSLR camera no longer hold any secrets for me!

As part of the photography course, we had to ... can you guess... take photos! Below a few examples of my homework assignment, can you see the difference with my pre-photography course photos?