The Walking Streets

In Venice, there are a couple of streets known as "The Walking Streets." They are called that because they are not streets at all, but rather sidewalks. You walk down the sidewalks, and you are looking into the front yards of homes. The trick is that there are alleys behind these homes, and that's how residents bring their groceries home and park their cars. It is a delight to walk these streets. A small number of homes have fences along the sidewalk, and very elaborate doorways. Here are three photographs, the first one giving a sense of one of the walking streets, and the others are details of two doorways.

New Bicycle Finish

It's worth clicking on this image right away. You need to see the details of how the bicycle is "finished." It is almost completely covered in fabric. No multiple coats of shiny enamel here, nosiree. Fabric. To be fair, this bike is obviously not meant for riding - it is a display outside a store at, of all places Santa Monica Place. You are going to think that all we do is hang out at the mall. We only went there twice. You know how I love bikes, and this may be the most novel bike that I have ever seen. It is not the most beautiful bike, however - just the most clever.

Reading Tea Leaves

It was her hat that I spotted first. Very elegant for the Santa Monica Promenade. In fact she was elegant as well. So I stopped to see what she was up to. The sign on the front said "Irish Tea Leaf Readings - Only Lovely Fortunes Are Found In My Teacups." So I am liking the sound of this, and it was fun to see these two young women have their tea leaves read. I was not close enough to hear what she was saying to them - I just watched as each of the girls stirred the leaves with the whisk and then scooped some up with their cups. They all seemed to be having fun, and I got a photograph as well.

Eugene Atget

Eugène Atget, who lived from 1857 to 1927, was a French photographer noted for his photographs documenting the architecture and street scenes and the parks of Versailles, Saint-Cloud and Sceaux of Paris. I have known of his work for years, and he had this wonderful way of capturing the landscape. Characteristics of Atget's photography include a wispy, drawn-out sense of light due to his long exposures, and a fairly wide view that suggested space and ambiance. So in my garden photography I have attempted from time to time, to photograph in the manner of Atget. This is a wonderful garden in the Hamptons that I have photographed a number of times. The original is in color, but I converted it to black and white, and toned it to look like it is an old photograph. I stumbled across this photo from 6 years ago, when perusing an old hard drive the other day.

Father and Son

Back to the Getty again. I photographed most of the afternoon, between looking at exhibits. When the museum was closing, I looked around one last time, and saw this plaza which had been jammed with people all day long. What I saw was this father and son. I watched for a bit, and realized that the father was photographing his son. In any case, it made an interesting photograph because the father and son were so tiny, compared to the scale of the architecture. I hope you can forgive me for all these California photographs, instead of me having to go out in the freezing cold to look for photographs around here!

A Patient Dog Waits at the Mall

We have been back in New York for nearly a week now, and I still haven't finished showing you all the interesting things I photographed in Sunny California. I found this wonderful dog at Santa Monica Place - the upscale mall. His masters were having lunch, and I am guessing they don't allow dogs in the restaurant, so they were pretty creative, and brought the leash through the planters. They get to have lunch, and the dog doesn't feel completely abandoned. I did feel badly for him, though, because he seems so left out.

A Garden in Passing

We took the dog for a walk and walked from Venice a short way up to Santa Monica. We passed all kinds of things, and I photographed along the way. This was one of my favorite photographs. I have no idea, of course, what kind of plant this is. One of those always green California plants. I loved the sense that this plant was kind of like a giant green spider, slowly walking out of the garden.