My Belated Birthday

So this year for my birthday, Aviva organized a picnic with two of our friends Amy and Max, who happen to be fantastic photographers, so that they could teach me more about photography, particularly of waterfalls ... which are a minor obsession for me. I have been pretty excited about this all year, and when we finally went it was fantastic ... Aviva not only organized the picnic, she also made all the food, all of which was fantastic. She made a series of amazing salads; curry chicken, a crisp, not mayonaise-y potato salad with bacon, a corn-black bean salad and an amazing fruit salad. But I think the best thing of all was dessert, which was an unbelievable sea salt chocolate tart (it was actually huge, more like a cake) - it was ridiculous.

The place we went was also pretty fantastic, the YMCA camp at Frost Valley, about 2 hours north west of Westchester. It was really beautiful, and there was a fantastic plunge/punchbowl type waterfall about 1.5 miles from the picnic site, which was perfect. High falls was fantastic, and I think we got some pretty good shots, and there was another wonderful 4-tiered waterfall on the side of the road .. And best of all, it was a fantastic time, great company incredible food and a beautiful setting. Wonderful birthday all around ... I love my incredible wife :)

My burgeoning career as a photographer?

So as many of you know, during the last 2 years in New York I have become a lot more interested in photography, in no small part due to Aviva's encouragement. I was recently thrilled when I was asked to allow one of my photos to be used in the 6th edition of the Schamp travel guide for Prague, which you can see here. The screenshot to the left shows the photo, a picture of the radnice (town all) in Karlovo namesti. The top window of the tower was where Pragues first defenestration occurred in 1483 ... defenestration, by the way, is the act of throwing someone (or something) out a window.

Anyway, the Schamp guides are great internet travel guides that are available for free on-line, and I am really happy to have been a part of the guide to one of my favorite places in the world. I was also recently accepted to submit photos for sale at iStockphoto, an on-line photo warehouse. While I don't fancy myself a particularly good photographer, I do think my photos have been improving a lot and are worth looking at. If you are interested you can go and see the photos I have had accepted at iStockphoto here.