Goodbye 2022
Hello people,
The year 2022 has been a remarkable one for me. I suffered a brain bleed in April and had to undergo emergency brain surgery. That surgery was followed by a few others to address complications that occurred. I’ve spent the remainder of the year recovering and regaining my strength. My wife Dawn stood by me all through this. There was not a single day where she did not visit me in the hospital. After I came home she was the perfect care giver and nurse.
As I put 2022 behind me I’m looking forward to the new year. Looking forward to once again playing music with The Flynns and the Accidental Gypsies. Also looking forward to taking lots of photos and creating timelapse videos. I’m hoping my wife and I can finally take our much anticipated and delayed roadtrip together. This was initially put on hold because of Covid and the hold was extended due to my illness.
This entire experience has opened my eyes to just how lucky I am. Not only to have survived this health crisis but also to have received the outpouring of love and caring that friends and family sent my way. I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year.
Website Rename
Hi all. I just yesterday changed the domain name associated with this website. I registered the domain cafe52.com over twenty years ago in 1999. It was kind of done on a whim and the web site was run on a Linux box at the end of a DSL line terminating in my apartment. Good times. The Internet has changed a lot since then.
I decided to change the domain name to ubassman.nyc to better align with my recent side hustle of photography and timelapse clip creation. This name better fits with my social media names. And, doesn’t sound like the name of a restaurant. FYI – cafe52.com was recently nominated for the “Restaurant and Bar Awards 2023” by lux-review.com. The site has never promoted or been affiliated with any kind bar or restaurant but I can see how the name could be confusing. Full disclosure, there is a latino establishment near my home on 52nd Street called the 52nd St Cafe.
I’m hoping to put in a bit more time to the site. Thanks for stopping by.
White Roses
I’ve been surprising my wife with flowers since we were first married. Through the years I have learned that white roses seem to last the longest. If you buy red roses at the same time they will wilt long before the white ones.
I again surprised my wife with a dozen white roses. She created a beautiful arrangement and placed it on our bar by the window in our living room. I just couldn’t resist shooting a timelapse. This was my first attempt at shooting a timelapse of flowers. I configured a 20 second interval and shot over a period of four hours. This produced around three hundred and fifty photos. Only natral light coming through the window was used. You can see that the light / color balance changes as the clip progresses. For the next surprise I might try setting up some lighting.
Moonset Eclipse
On November 8th 2022 I woke up early to catch the tail end of the lunar eclipse. The moon was setting over a cloudy Manhattan that morning.
The vantage point from my apartment terrace prevented me from catching the start of the eclipse. By the time it came into my view the eclipse was already in progress. Unfortunately low lying clouds over New York City caused the moon to disappear before it fully set. But, I captured what I could and you can really see why they call these events the “blood moon”.
You can read more about the event in NYC here: Gothamist WNYC
Cloudy Day Central Park
It was a cloudy but warm day in Central Park when I shot this clip at the Lake. Lots of people enjoying the start of spring. Can you see the turtle in the clip? He was the perfect model and hung out the entire time.
