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

[Jim at hemenway.com (Jim Hemenway)]

A great story, Mark - L.S.M.F.T.  I thoroughly enjoyed it this morning 
with my decaf, with a pinch of caf...  not half-decaf, just part decaf!

I'd like to see some of the resulting photos.

Jim

P.S. Thanks for the >> What a coincidence Jim! Great shots! <<




Mark Rabiner wrote:

>>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.
>