Eavesdropping...

This a sculpture in an amazing exhibit at the Met called "Pergamon" - an exhibition about the wealth, artistry, and technical achievements of the Hellenistic period—the three centuries between Alexander's death, in 323 B.C., and the establishment of the Roman Empire, in the first century B.C. The sculpture is titled "Fragmentary colossal marble head of a youth."  It is from Greece, 2nd century B.C.  Anyhow, I was looking at this enormous head, and near me was a distinguished looking older gentleman and his wife.  He was explaining that a curator had explained to him that this statue was not intentionally damaged - apparently there was an unseen fault in the marble, and after the sculpture was finished, it just broke!  Can you imagine the sculptor's reaction!  Oh man!  So it is always good to eavesdrop at these exhibitions.  I like the first photograph a lot.  I got in position to photograph the head, and just then this woman stepped into the frame, and I clicked the shutter when I saw her reaction!  This is an absolutely stunning object to be in the presence of, by the way.

Selfie City

At the south end of the rooftop garden at the Met, there were people lined up, almost shoulder to shoulder, doing selfies!  What a hoot!  I have been to the rooftop garden a lot, but don't ever remember so many people doing self portraits.  I saw this woman with her phone, and I loved her hat, and her concentration.  It was so easy to take a candid photograph of her, because she was so caught up in doing her own portrait.

This Old House

Every year the Metropolitan Museum of Art has some kind of sculpture installation in their roof garden.  They are always fascinating constructs, and I have photographed two others in the past for the blog.  This is called "Transitional Object (Psycho Barn), "  It is by the British artist Cornelia Parker.  This house first brings to mind the house in Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" and then the Edward Hopper painting "House by the Railroad."  I found my reaction to this was immediate - it must be that both of those images are deeply within our psyche.  Everyone on the roof loved this piece and everyone was photographing it.  The brilliant thing about this is the contrast between this iconic house, and the background of the Manhattan buildings.  So here is the other brilliant thing about this construction - it only exists on two sides!  This second photograph shows that the walls of the house are all supported by piping!  The other thing that I learned was that the house in "Psycho" was also built just like this - it only had two sides, and piping held it up!

The Ghost Bike, That's Not...

We were upstate for a week, and when we got back we saw this on Shore Road.  The bicycle painted white is usually called a "Ghost Bike," and traditionally is displayed at a location where a cyclist has died in an accident.  I was worried and did some searching for a couple of weeks before I heard the story.  A troubled young man, who was accused of murdering his roommate with a hammer, was awaiting trial.  He apparently was driving late at night with a female passenger, and he was driving crazy fast.  His car smashed into this giant high voltage power pole, and cut it completely off at the base!  He died instantly, and amazingly, his female passenger had non-life threatening injuries.  Wow!  So this crash was not about cycling at all.

Fishing and Thinking...

I went down to the water again the other day, and saw these fishermen enjoying themselves.  I am so accustomed to doing wide angle landscape photographs, that it's harder to think "closer" when the wider view is more dramatic.  So when I saw these fishermen, I used a longer lens,  and did think to move a bit closer.  But it is still not that close.  Oh well, at least I am thinking a bit different.  Maybe I will put a wide angle lens on and see how close I can get to someone.

One World Trade Center

When we went to the city for Margo's birthday, I got to look out her living room window again.  The last time I did that, I looked down on a brick building with interesting decoration on the front.  This time, I was looking further downtown and spotted One World Trade Center in the rain.  It was almost a faint apparition.  It's interesting that when I shot this, I loved that the distant buildings were very faint.  While adjusting the photograph, I didn't like the light version - this darker version felt like a better representation of how the scene felt to me.

The Expected and the Unexpected

I went for a walk along the harbor, to look for photographs.  It is so scenic, and the weather is always different, so I always come home with something.  I was walking in this direction, and the gentle curve of of the railing against the blue background caught my eye.  So I framed the picture, and waited.  I had passed a woman walking her dog, and I waited until she caught up to me, and then photographed as the two of them walked by me and continued into the distance.  This first photograph, with the woman in the distance, emphasizes the curve of the railing.  But this is the expected photo, I think - a small figure in the distance.  This second photo is the first one I took, and with the woman and dog being so prominent, the fence  seems less significant.  But the woman and dog are more important, and shown in an unexpected way, it seems to me.