Andy Novick portrait

Andy Novick

AI discoveries & other curiosities

Author: Andy Novick

  • 2019 New York Airshow – Blue Angels & RAF Red Arrows

    2019 New York Airshow – Blue Angels & RAF Red Arrows

    The New York Airshow at Stewart Airport featured some great flying, including the Blue Angels and the RAF Red Arrows. I attended with my friend Howard. Getting up close to the planes is fun, but seeing them fly so close is really special and provided opportunity to photograph them in action.


    My Sony RX10 II really shined at this task. Being able to react quickly and shoot in bursts allowed me to capture so many quality pictures.

    Stewart International in Newburgh is a good airshow venue because it isn’t glamorous. It’s just working airport with wide open sightlines.

    2019 New York Airshow - Blue Angels - RAF Red Arrows - Plus
    2019 New York Airshow – Blue Angels – RAF Red Arrows – Plus
    19 photos
  • Backyard Birds

    Backyard Birds

    There are plenty of birds in the backyard. Here are a few favorites photographed in Sudbury, Massachusetts in the fall of 2016.

    The setup isn’t an accident. I put a 6 foot stand behind my first floor office and provided branches to perch on and food to bring them in. Chickadees, white crested nuthatches, cardinals, blue jays, and a tufted titmouse were tempted into posing for food.

    Backyard Birds
    Backyard Birds
    6 photos
  • The Butterfly Place

    The Butterfly Place

    The Butterfly Place is a single glass atrium in Westford, Massachusetts, kept warm and humid year-round. There are hundreds of butterflies flying free among the plantings. And they’re big! It’s a rare setup where you can get within inches of species you could never approach outdoors.

    If you sit still long enough they’ll land on you, so this became a lesson in patience. But he humidity on a cold lens creates fog, so let your gear warm up before you start.

    Butterfly Place
    Butterfly Place
    13 photos
  • Sudbury River

    Sudbury River

    Egrets, herons, ducks, turtles, and quiet water along the Sudbury River in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Early September 2016.

    Sudbury River
    Sudbury River
    11 photos
  • Home Garden

    Home Garden

    We’re not serious gardeners. The beds around our house in Sudbury get intermittent attention. Yet every summer something comes up looking better than we could have expected.


    The snapping turtle lives in the swamp across the road and comes over to our side to lay it’s eggs. She wasn’t happy about it, but couldn’t escape sitting for a photograph.

    Home Garden
    Home Garden
    4 photos
  • Colorado

    Colorado

    In late June 2016 I followed by son, Tom, around Colorado for a few days as he played summer baseball and then headed north to Rocky Mountain National park and the Colorado high country

    Rocky Mountain National Park compresses an enormous amount of landscape into a short drive. Trail Ridge Road climbs above 12,000 feet and took me ponderosa forest through spruce and fir to open alpine tundra in under an hour. The elk and marmots were visible from pullouts along the way.

    Late June is a good window: the road is fully open, wildflowers are starting on the tundra, and there’s still snow on the high faces for contrast. The light is fierce at that altitude.

    Colorado
    Colorado
    30 photos
  • 2016 Baseball

    2016 Baseball

    This gallery spans a summer of baseball at four different levels — Lincoln-Sudbury High School, the Summit Extreme Black Diamonds at Breckenridge Colorado, Sudbury Post 191 American Legion, and the Red Sox at Fenway.

    The contrast is the interesting part. At a high school or Legion field you can stand anywhere and get close to the action. At Fenway you’re locked into a seat with a fixed angle and a long lens, working around a screen. The amateur games are photographically richer even though the professional one is the most impressive baseball.

    2016 Baseball
    2016 Baseball
    28 photos
  • Hawaii

    Hawaii

    We visited the Big Island of Hawaii and Oahu. The volcanos left behind lava fields and dramatic coastline. From March 2016.

    The Big Island is geologically young. It’s Lava fields are from historic flows that run right down to the water in black sheets. The coastline alternates between raw a’a rock and pockets of beach that haven’t existed for very long. Oahu is the opposite — older, greener, more eroded, with the ridgelines of the Ko’olau range cut into deep folds.

    Doing both islands in one trip is worth it precisely for that contrast: you’re seeing the same volcanic process at two very different ages. Make a trip to the active volcanoes on the Big Island if you get a chance.

    2015 Hawaii
    2015 Hawaii
    46 photos
  • So Cal – Imperial Valley, Salton Sea & Palomar

    So Cal – Imperial Valley, Salton Sea & Palomar

    Exploring the Imperial Valley, the Salton Sea, and Palomar in Southern California during the summer of 2015.

    The Salton Sea is a strange place. It’s an accidental lake, created in 1905 when the Colorado River breached an irrigation canal, and it’s been slowly shrinking and growing saltier since. The shoreline is built from fish bones, the resort towns that boomed around it in the 1950s are largely abandoned, and the whole place has an end-of-the-world quality.

    The Imperial Valley next to it is the opposite of the Salton Sea. It should be a desert, but by brining in water from the Colorado River it’s become fantastically productive, intense farm land carefully arranged in a strict geometry. Driving between the two in a single afternoon makes the water politics of the region very concrete.

    Palomar Mountain climbs out of all of the desert, up into pines and cooler air, with the observatory dome at the top. They allow a view of the telescope inside.

    So Cal - Imperial Valley - Salton Sea - Palomar
    So Cal – Imperial Valley – Salton Sea – Palomar
    11 photos
  • So Cal Food Chain

    So Cal Food Chain

    As I traveled So Cal in the summer of 2015 I noticed the food chain that started in California’s Imperial Valley as alphalpha ended up at the In-N-Out in San Diego. Now that’s a tasty burger.

    So Cal Food Chain
    So Cal Food Chain
    6 photos