What a Strange Looking Structure

How's this for a strange looking structure!  Not like anything else you would see in New York City.  It looks like a space ship has landed!  What IS this?  Well it is a new entrance directly into Penn Station from the street level.  It was built several years ago as part of the modernization of Penn Station.. I have taken photographs of the front of this entrance, and from looking up inside toward the entrance.  It is pretty spectacular from almost any angle, it just looks strange from this end.  For a large part of the time it was finished there was construction around this back end of the structure and you could never see it.  It was cool to finally see it from this end!

This is a view looking up from down below, showing the three sets of escalators.  What a stunning view of a spectacular structure!

This what we saw when the entrance opened several years ago.  It is so cool looking.  And I started photographing it immediately.  So having known this structure from this view and from riding the escalator down to the Long Island Railroad level has been amazing.  Which is why it was so much fun to see what the back of the structure looked like.  What a surprise!

 

A Little Bit of My History!

This is SO interesting!  I have been finding old color negatives of subjects that I have photographed.  I no longer have a darkroom to make color prints, so when I see something interesting, I use a special close up lens to make a close copy of just one frame.  Then I import the copy of the negative into my photo archive.  So tonight I was looking for something else and saw this negative.  I remember photographing this husband and wife couple, but I could not for the life of me remember who they are!  So I exported the negative into Photoshop and then use the "invert" function in Photoshop to reverse the tones in the image, and then I correct that image for color balance.  And here is what i got...

So then, still not knowing who they were, I used "google images" and uploaded this photograph to Google and it knew who they were right away!  Here are the results of the search: "The image shows Italian designers and architects Lella and Massimo Vignelli posing in their studio alongside a modern white sculptural model. The Subjects Lella and Massimo Vignelli were an influential husband-and-wife tandem in the fields of graphic and industrial design, known for iconic works such as the New York City Subway map, the Stendig Calendar, and corporate identity systems for American Airlines and Ford."  Man oh man, how cool is that!

 

 

A Reflection

After my day in the city, I was walking west along W. 32nd Street toward Penn Station which is the building with all the glass.  I saw a reflection in the windows and decided to take a photograph of the reflection.  I didn't think too much about it, but I did think the reflection was interesting.  After I took the photo I kept walking but began to wonder which building it was.  Then I gradually began to realize it could only be one building.

When I got to Penn I turned around and faced to the east and there was the building that was reflected in the glass - the Empire State Building.  It is kind of pretty surrounded by the gray clouds.  So not a big deal, but the mystery was solved!

 

It Happens to the Best of Us

What happens to the best of us?  Well, getting old, of course. You can see that this old timer hasn't got much time on earth, at least above ground.  He was a good and faithful Jack-O-Lantern but now his time is almost up and he won't be illuminated on the front porch to greet passersby at night, sorry to say.  He has lasted a long time on his perch on the front porch railing.  And that is because he is illuminated by a night light, rather than a candle. We have used candles for years, but the heat causes the pumpkin to deteriorate so much quicker.  So he has lasted a long time, thanks to electricity.  A squirrel did eat one of his teeth and part of his mouth.  I think something else ate the two other teeth and then just normal deterioration caused him to soften and begin to collapse.  He served us well this year and has been a wonderful thing to look up and see, orange and glowing, when night comes on.

 

 

Light and Shadow

This is a funny story about how I came to take this photograph.  I was on the phone with Stan Honda, because it is a Tuesday and we talk each Tuesday.  That is something we started back in the time of Covid.  While I was talking to him I saw the light and the shadow on this glass topped table, and the vase of flowers, and the duck decoy and a pitcher that I bought in France years ago.  So I said to him, "Can you hang on for a minute?  Or two minutes?  I need to take a picture!"  So he did hang on and I photographed this scene and we went back to talking.  So this is all about light and shadow, and dark shapes and bright shapes from the sunlight, more than it is the objects. I think our eyes kind of move all around the image because there are so many things to look at.  I hope you enjoy this photograph because it is really different.

 

Our Magnificent Sycamore Tree

This magnificent Sycamore was a surprise to us the first fall after we bought our house in September. 1970.  About a month or so later this huge tree in our tiny front yard turned a brilliant yellow in color.  What a wonderful surprise!  After 56 years this tree tells me when I have to stop painting outdoors.  I have to stop painting when the temperature is 50 degrees or lower, and once this beautiful tree turns yellow, it is never warmer than 50 degrees, ever!  This tree is such a joy!

 

The "Mystery" Grass Returns

When I was looking up and photographing the brilliant yellow tree across the street yesterday, I had not noticed these decorative grasses right in front of my nose!  So I spent a few minutes trying to find a nice photograph of them.  I love how they stand out because behind them are dark evergreen trees.  So here's the funny part.  Back on September 11,  I did a close up photo of the top of something that looked like this, and I attributed the mystery of where it came to a house up the street and around the corner!  When in fact it was right across the street!  It is Japanese Silver Grass and quite beautiful!