[Leica] A night on Route 119 - Dead German - No Head

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

> I took these yesterday with the isDS using the 43mm Ltd, 10-17 DA
> Fisheye and DA 14mm lenses.
> 
> http://www.half-fast.com/Route119-08082006/

I type this now at my Motel which I've been at for two weeks
What a coincidence Jim! Great shots!
I've been living here on route 119 just north of New York this section of
the highway runs between Tarrytown, Elmsford, Greenburgh and White Plains,
I've been loving 119!  Its starting to feel like home.

Last night coming home from a classy soundless A&P in Greenburgh 10 minutes
east of here I saw the totally very impressive spooky full moon and
remembered what I thought I really should do before I headed south to
Yonkers or Mt. Vernon in the next few days closer to "The City".

So I popped over to Tarrytown 5 minutes west from me hooking a roscoe on
route 9. Sleepy Hollow is another 2 minutes north on lovely number 9.
THE Sleepy Hollow. 
One of the "Historic Hudson River Towns of Westchester" as they put it.
I buy all the hype completely.

I had seen a few days ago a cool looking graveyard and church driving down 9
during the day and thought it would make some great night shoots.
Even better during a full moon I thought and I wondered when that would be.

So when I got back from the A&P and Googled the Old Dutch church in Sleepy
Hollow which is on the map I figured out what it was and found out it was
the main setting for Washington Irving?s LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW.
Called by Wikipedia the earliest American work of fiction to still be read
widely today.
On the sleepyhollowcemetery website I got a clue of some of the main photo
ops although during the day. I figured these shots were bound to be a lot
better at night.
http://www.sleepyhollowcemetery.org/odc.html

Washington Irving is buried there.
So is a dead German with no head.
As in for real. This is not a Halloween kiddy spook house made with rolls of
crape paper and cardboard boxes..

The dead German is of course "The Galloping Hessian of the Hollow,"
Says Irving.

http://www.hyland.org/sleepyhollow/intro.wav
:)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Sleepy_Hollow

So I popped over there it was getting late. Found it and a place to park.

I thought I was being real stupid becuae full moon sleepy hollow famous
graveyard... There had to be cue's of tourists going on with popping
flashbulbs

What luck! Turns out I was the only one there!

Found among the papers of the late Diedrech Knickerbocker:

I put a 28mm f1.4 lens on my D-220. Set my ASA or whatever they call it now
to 1600. 
Soon took it off Program and Matrix metering as it was too much of a
struggle and shot most of it in Spot mode in Manual. Manual focus too. An
amazingly easy way to shoot. (Down Spot Down!!)
I shot either at 1/20th or 1/45th at f1.4. Says my metadata.
All of a sudden I heard a thump, thump, thump, thump.
In kind of techno beat.
A beat up sub woofer equipped low rider car was cruising right behind me
real slow on highway 9.
Two guys. Both had heads. In hair nets.
The monitor of my camera was making me very conspicuous.
Lighting my my face.
I was trying to figure out if I was being menaced or not.
Or they were wondering what my floating head in the middle of the graveyard
was doing.
But getting mugged by two inner city gangsters in a Sleepy Hollow full moon
graveyard at midnight, oh yeah it was 12:12 AM I checked my
metadata...seemed too incongruous even for me.
I switched lenses. Got my compact and cheap 55-200 DX out of my pocket.
Shot a bunch more at 1/15th at f4.5 with my elbows on the stone fence taking
another sweep from the other direction on the path along the road. I got
some close-ups of the moon to strip into the shots in which I got the moon
in the picture 
Which looks like a white hole in the film someone put in with a paper punch.
Otherwise. I'm into truth.

On the way back the guys in the hairnets had gotten pulled over at the
intersection of 9 and 119 by two Sleepy Hollow police cars cops with very
long flashlights they were waving around. The low rider guys were very
animated with the help of the wiggling flashlights. Seemed to feel like they
hadn't done anything which they probably hadn't.
Other than waking up the dead at midnight in the municipality of Sleepy
Hollow with their damn sub woofer.
I was almost on their side.

Woof!

Mark Rabiner L.S.M.F.T.

The Village of Elmsford, Westchester County, NY  10523
I tweaked the shots in Bride and Photoshop till 3 am.

Till there was a knock knock knock on my motel door.