Year-end housekeeping, continued -- New York

Two more pictures of the TWA terminal at JFK: an exterior shot where it looks ready for takeoff, and a detail of the perfect curves of the jetway.

Year-end housekeeping, continued -- Edinburgh

It figures that a country with a talent for engineering would build excellent castles, and the Scots do not disappoint. Edinburgh Castle looks even fiercer from the front than it does when you're staring up at it from the bottom of a sheer wall of rock.

Year-end housekeeping, continued -- Iran

Watermelon rinds left out for the birds, after someone's picnic in the Shazdeh Gardens.

Below, a  Qajar-era painting from the Niyavaran Palace complex in Tehran.

Year-end housekeeping, continued -- Southend

The modern version of the English seaside resort, in the harsh light of early morning. I like the contrast between the sharp detail of the amusement park in the foreground and the misty ships in the distance, which turned out to be more obvious in black and white.

This was from an overlook just down the road from the B&B where I stayed  -- the famous pier is just out of frame to the left.

Year-end housekeeping, continued -- Istanbul

The New Mosque at twilight.

To call this a wealth of detail is such an understatement, but I love the way the fading light softens and smooths it into a dream.

My goodness how the time has flewn!

How did it get so late so soon?
It's night before it's afternoon.
December is here before it's June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?

If Dr Seuss doesn't know, I certainly don't. As the last of the year trickles away, I'm going to post a few pictures that I never got around to using, and start 2016 fresh, with an empty Blog Ready folder.

Speaking of things having flewn, here's a landscape somewhere between London and Edinburgh in September. At the time I was wondering if the frequent purply-brown patches like the ones on the right were heather and if I'd really see whole mountainsides of it. (Spoiler alert: they were and I did.)

Saturday reflections

I'm not a big fan of Instagram. Most people seem to use it as a vehicle for inflicting more selfies and food pictures on a world that isn't suffering from a shortage of either, and I won't use my phone to take a picture if I have a camera available.

There are some photographers who are creating interesting work within those limitations, of course, but it's mostly not the kind of picture I want to take. With one exception -- I've become fascinated by the square photo, especially for photographing cars and reflections. Or cars and reflections, as in these two pictures. The smaller scope seems to make the shapes more abstract somehow and I love the effect.

Astronomy Tuesday

Christmas on Mars, anyone?

This image, of an area close to the (how seasonally appropriate) North Pole, was taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2008. Sadly, those aren't Christmas trees -- what I could swear are stands of barely rooted tundra-like forest are just streaks of darker dirt on those astonishing pink sand dunes.

If there's a sequel to The Martian, may I respectfully request that it include at least one scene of astronauts skiing down these pink hills?

Image Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA

Saturday reflections

I like the juxtaposition of the crane and the tree in this car window on West 57th Street. The moodiness suits the season, which somehow doesn't feel so festive because it's still too damn warm. It's gloomy in the morning, gloomy in the afternoon, and the sun sets at 4:30, so the temperatures in the 50's and even the 60's every day just feel wrong.

(I'll remind myself of this in February, when I'll probably be complaining that the cold is never going to end....)

Urban poetry

Scaffolding on West 57th Street.

Astronomy Tuesday

It's all a matter of perspective.

Even a face as famous as Jupiter's can be unrecognizable when looked at from a different angle -- in this case, hovering over the planet's north pole and looking down at the northern hemisphere. This is a composite put together from images taken by Cassini in 2000, and even if Jupiter wouldn't look exactly like this from above (I know, I know, there's really no above in space, but shut up) it's surprising to me how un-planetlike it suddenly looks. Turn those familiar bands of color around the equator into these concentric circles and you go from majesty and immensity to what appears to be a large ceramic platter produced by a talented if not terribly original artist.

Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Sunday bird blogging

Like so many of us these days, this gull appears to be saying, Are you *%$*&^ kidding me?

Sadly, no.