The New Entrance

I mentioned the other day how many years I have been coming here to what is now the George Eastman Museum.  Because of Covid, I had not been here for perhaps 2 years.  Imagine my surprise when I drove up and saw this new, modern entrance to the museum!  You used to park right across from this entrance, and then walk down the sidewalk to the left about 100 feet, and turn the corner and enter the museum from the back.  Not fun in the rain and snow!  

Once inside there is a broad corridor with beautiful wood floors, leading to the gift shop and a new larger dining area for the restaurant, and access to both the Eastman House and the photo galleries.  Quite a change for this place that had a feeling of home for me during my college years.

Best Friends

I rarely get to take portraits these days.  I used to do portraits a lot when I was working, and I miss setting up a portrait of someone, as opposed to doing candid photos of them.  There were so many things going on at the birthday party for Vince, and I was trying to photograph everything.  Then I happened to be in the kitchen and noticed Becky and her best friend Rachael standing near each other by the center island.  It's funny, but I think it took me 15 seconds to think "Hey, that would make a great portrait of the two of them" so I asked if I could photograph them, and they said "yes," and I asked them to move closer to one another.  This is such a cool story because they met because both of their husbands were best friends in High School and that's how they met each other!  They are both so smart, and they are both voracious readers - I spent time talking to both of them about what they were reading.  About a book a week, each!  I just think it is amazing how they met, and they are best friend now!  I love stories like this!   

 

The Tappan Zee Bridge and Cumulus

We had a good trip home.  There was not much traffic, and the forecast showers and thundershowers never appeared.  It was blue sky and sunshine all the way.  I stopped to photograph my favorite abandoned farmhouse along the way, but it will take some editing before I post those photographs.  So I wasn't sure what I would shoot.  Then as we went down the long gentle hill toward the Hudson River and the Tappan Zee Bridge, I saw the cumulus clouds in the distance so imaging what I might see on the bridge I got my camera out.  When I went around the curve to drive out on to the bridge, there were the clouds and the bridge pylons in the perfect place, just as I had imagined!

 

A Doe in the Woods

Vince and JoAnne have a section of woods behind their condo, and they have told us that from time to time they have seen deer feeding there.  After dinner tonight, Vincent was looking out the window and said "There's a deer walking around in the woods and he is getting closer!"  So we all got up  from the table and were looking out the windows to see if we could spot the animal.  We watched from different places and then saw this doe walking around feeding on the leaves of the trees.  I went out on the balcony where there was no glass in the way, and put a 400mm lens on my camera, and waited for maybe 20 minutes, photographing the doe as she slowly walked through the woods, and then suddenly, she was out in the open, and I got this one shot where she was clear.

 

The Birthday Boy

                               

Today was a surprise birthday party for Vince's 80th birthday!  He was completely surprised!  Family and friends came from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and around western New York State, and Long Island.  It was so wonderful to have a family gathering after a year and a half of not seeing each other.  Here Kathy has given Vince a gift of one of here handmade zip pouches, and inside she had paper envelopes marked "Emergency Pills" which were M&M's and Red Hots!  It got quite a laugh.

Guests gathered around in Christopher and Becky's kitchen, and sang "Happy Birthday," and Vince was emotional as he thanked everyone who attended.  It was a wonderful day of kids playing games and the adults sitting around conversing, telling stories, and catching up.

And of course there needed to be a photograph of all the family and friends who attended.  I posted a larger than normal image so if you click on this you should be able to see more detail.

The Oculus

I went to the George Eastman Museum today.  I have known this wonderful place since 1960, when it was called "The George Eastman House."  This is a view up the main staircase, toward the oval window in the roof, called "an oculus."  In one of our classes, Minor White had us go to Eastman House and memorize where each photograph was on the walls in each room.  Today, there are no photographs displayed on the walls - it is too bright and the photos would fade.  But I could remember today where I saw my first Ansel Adams photographs, and my first aerial photographs by William Garnett which made me want to learn to fly more than ever.  So I spent the day here today, and looked at photographs, and the old camera collection, and the house where George Eastman lived.  I took a lot of photographs, and had my batteries recharged.  What a day!

George Eastman built this, his residence at 900 East Avenue between 1902 and 1905. He created a unique urban estate complete with 10.5 acres of working farm land, formal gardens, greenhouses, stables, barns, pastures, and a 35,000-square-foot, 50-room Colonial Revival mansion with a fireproof structure made of reinforced concrete.  Eastman's house is a neoclassical Georgian Revival facade of decorative craftsmanship. Beneath this exterior were such modern conveniences as an electrical generator, an internal telephone system with 21 stations, a built-in vacuum cleaning system, a central clock network, an elevator, and a great Aeolian pipe organ. Eastman used the house as a center of the city's rich musical life from 1905 until his death in 1932.

 

I Never Saw One of These Before!

We were driving north on Route 96, north of Trumansburg, in an area that is between two of the Finger lakes - Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake, when we drove up behind this astounding vehicle.  It was driving at about 50 MPH, which seemed amazing to me, since farm equipment usually travels much slower than that.  And I was stunned that it had such huge tires and was so high above ground.  I guessed that it was some kind of crop spraying device, and that the huge wheels and the chassis so high above the ground meant that it could go down rows of corn without flattening the plants.  We followed it for a while, and I am so glad that we were not in a long line of cars, because I would not have been able to get such a great photograph of it.  There was enough traffic from the opposite direction that I was unable to pass it.  Then I started calculating - I wonder if I could go UNDER it, instead of passing it!  I think that there was room to pass under it, but you will will be pleased to know that suddenly there was a dotted line in the roadway, and no traffic coming in the opposite direction.  Easy pass, and we were up to 65  and on our way.

 

Upstate

We headed upstate to Rochester today, to spend some time with Vince and Joanne.  We are looking forward to spending some time with them.  We took a chance back at Thanksgiving in 2020 and came up here for a week.  As couples we were both really careful in going out as little as possible, and always wearing masks, and decided that we were safe enough to spend a week indoors together, and it was wonderful to finally get out.  Since then we are all vaccinated.  I always love coming upstate and we always take route 17 instead of the thruway, because some of the back roads have such beautiful scenery.

 

Some Color on the Beach

A little color on the beach!  It's rare, when we go to the beach, to see people with umbrellas.  I guess this is still early in the season, and usually we are at the beach by 10 AM so it is not the hottest part of the day.  The minute this woman set up her umbrella, I ran to the car and got my long zoom lens - about 400mm and took a few images.  When the goose came by, that was the frosting on the cake.  Without the goose, I would have nothing!

 

More Architecture

I didn't set out for this to be "Architecture Week" but it is looking that way!  This was a church some years ago, which is now turned into a community center for Glenwood Landing.  I ride by this every day I ride my bike.  So I came here to use the steeple in my photo of the moon for Stan's class.  After I did my moon shot, I decided to photograph the building for its own sake.  I like that the light is interesting and different.  The building is illuminated by some faint skylight, and a streetlight which casts a yellow-green color on the street.  I should come back here and photograph this church in different kinds of light.  It would be an interesting project, and viewers of the blog might be surprised by what I find.  Stay tuned.

 

Window in a Red Building

I love architectural details, and New York City is a goldmine for such things.  I saw this building on 94th street, just east of 3rd avenue, when I was on the way to meet Stan in Central Park.  I have no idea what attracted me to this.  It is a window on the second floor of the building, and there was scaffolding just below it because they are renovating the first floor.  I think it might have been the pediment - the triangular decoration over the window - that caught my eye.  I just thought that this was an interesting composition, with a large window, and then right next to it a smaller window without any decoration.  Strange, huh?

I Love Going to "Fun City"

I love to come to "Fun City" because I see photographs everywhere.  I was walking from Penn Station over to Herald Square to catch a train to get uptown to Central Park, and I was on a different street than I normally use.  Suddenly I walked by this restaurant and my life flashed before my eyes!  Sixty-two years ago I came to the city on a high school class trip.  Somehow before the trip I heard about Tad's Steakhouse in Times Square, and I think they offered a steak dinner for $1.19.  I couldn't believe that, so I just looked it up.  The dinner was actually $1.09 and it included a steak, baked potato and salad!   Having a steak dinner in Times Square was the most exciting thing I could think of - forget the Museum of Modern Art, where a few of us went afterwards.  See what happens to a kid from the Connecticut woods when they get to the big city?

Advanced Night Sky Photography Class

This is week three of Stan's Advanced Night Sky Photography class, and so he decided to have a field trip.  All our class meetings, except this one are on Zoom.  Having a field trip had a number of advantages -  he would give an assignment, to photograph the moon and the landscape.  And he would be there to assist students if they had any problems or questions.  And, we would finally get to meet each other in person, now that the Covid risks are reduced.  Here Stan demonstrates a camera tracker to the group.

Here Stan talks with Tony and offers a few suggestions about his camera and lens settings.

This is Grace, one of the students in the class, using a telephoto lens on her tripod

Stan watches as Gabriella sets up her camera and answers a question.

And this is a group portrait of the class which I did, as a record of our trip to Central Park.  What is particularly nice are the number of women in the class.  Since I was taking the photograph, I added a picture of myself to the group after I got home.  Where's Waldo?   :-)

Dusk in the City

 

Stan had a field trip for his class today, and we met at The Great Lawn in Central Park.  It was an amazing turnout of the people in his class - there were twenty of us!  The assignment involved photographing the moon.  Unfortunately the moon was really high in the sky - 45 degrees up from the horizon, so there was no way to get a first quarter moon hanging over these buildings just south of Central park.  We were there for two hours and I got to watch the sun go down, and dusk set in, and the lights come on in the buildings.  I haven't seen that in years, because when I come in to visit museums I usually leave when it is still light out to beat the rush hour home.  This was lovely to watch the lights fade while we were there.

More Moon Photos

Here are two more of my photographs of the moon.  I did these on the same night as the first two photographs I showed you yesterday.  I used a telephoto lens for this photograph, so the size of the moon would be larger.  I love how the high voltage power pole and insulators give human form to the picture.  I parked my car in a fire department parking lot, to do this photograph and when I walked back to my car, I saw this water tank and the moon above it.  I used a wide-angle lens for this photograph, so the moon is much smaller.  This second photograph is clearly more about the water tank and the scene, than it is about the moon.  But I like this second shot a lot.

 

Homework Assignment No. 2

 

The homework assignment for Stan's Advanced Astrophotography Class was to use a special software application for photographers which can show exactly where various objects like the sun, moon, and planets will be in the sky at any time you choose.  So this is the shot I planned.  I hoped that moon would be lower and thus closer to the steeple.  I knew the moon might be too high, but I thought that when I got to the site I could make up for it by moving closer to the steeple of the church.  But there were hedges where I needed to stand.  I was standing in someone's front yard in the dark, surrounded by hedges even to get this shot!  So, close, but no cigar!

On the way home I went to where my favorite line of Sycamore trees are alongside the harbor, and I moved around until I got the moon where I wanted it and decided on this composition of three trees to surround the moon.  So this was not planned with the software, but put together on the spot.  Lovely photograph, but I guess I will get a failing grade because I didn't plan this with software!   :-)  Stan is such a tough customer when grading his students, even if they are his friends...   :-)

Kathy Makes Another Quilt

OK, so this is wonderful, and it is also funny!  Kathy wanted to make a quilt for Amy's friends Phillip and Sophia who are expecting a baby.  So she set to work and made this beautiful quilt.  I, of course, wanted to photograph the quilt to have a record of yet another amazing sewing project that she has done.  So I asked her to hold it up so I could get a good shot of both the quilt and Kathy.  This is what she did!   OK, very funny!

I finally convinced her to let me take another photograph showing her and the quilt!

 

The Magic Tree

 

I was looking at my favorite tree this morning and at all the ivy surrounding its trunk.  I decided to go get my infrared converted camera and see what kind of a photograph I could take, with my camera that makes everything magic!  So this is the result and I love how it makes the normal, magical.  Please click on this photograph to see it in more detail.

Homework Assignment

I am taking a class given by my friend Stan, through the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York, where I am a member.  The course is called "Advanced Night Sky Photography" and trust me, Stan is the master of that.  I have a lot to learn.  So the assignment was to plan a photograph of the setting moon by using special software and a planetarium program on my computer to plan the shot.  Well, my plan fell apart for some reason, and when I got down to the water this was the best I could do - the moon setting with a telephone pole and trees in the foreground.  I may flunk the course!

 

Vivian's Running Shoes!

These are Vivian's new Nike running shoes! Aren't they the cutest things you have ever seen?  I can't believe how clever and amazing they are!  She is not even walking yet, so I never saw her even walking in these.  I can't wait until she starts running in these!  They were on the dining room table, so I never did see her wearing them.

 

Solar Eclipse at Dawn!

 

What a day!  I tried to go to bed early last night, but had a fitful sleep.  I set the alarm for 4:00 AM and then a friend came by and we drove to Stehli Beach, in Bayville, about 20 minutes away.  The weather forecast was not good, but we went anyway.  To our delight, it was clear in the morning, with some thin clouds at the horizon.  This is a partial eclipse of the Sun.  At sunrise the Sun was  mostly covered by the Moon itself.  That is the black circle which is giving the Sun "horns."  It was astounding to watch through my telescope and see the two tips of the horns emerge from Long Island Sound.  For about 10 minutes I could photograph the Sun as the Moon slowly moved off the face of it, as the Sun rose higher.  It was a spectacular sight, and even more moving because of the possibility that because of weather we might not have seen any of this!  Click on this image to see it larger, and have your socks knocked off!

Nice Truck, Needs Work

 

This truck was parked on Amy & Gus' street the whole time we were in Venice.  It is a cool old truck - a Chevrolet, it said on the back. But I have no idea what year it is.  Perhaps the motorheeads out there will be able to let us know what year this truck is.  It would be fun to see it fixed up, and painted just a little brighter yellow.  How cool would this be to see it all shiny and new.  Of course, THAT would be a lot of work!  By the way, notice the cottage in the background.  A classic cottage in beautiful condition.

The End of The World!

About 3:00 PM today it got really dark to the north of us.  We have had thunderstorms passing by us to the north for a couple of days now.  They seem to stay on the other side of Long Island Sound.  So I jumped into he car and drove down to Sea Cliff Beach.  The sky was just astounding, it was so gray and the clouds were roiled.  I could not believe my eyes!  This view is looking northeast.  All I could think of was that this looked like the end of the world.

When I looked over to the west the sky was the same, but the formations were slightly different.  I was absolutely stunned by all of this.  I don't remember the last time I saw such an astounding sky. There was such beauty in all the subtle shadings of gray in the clouds.  It was beautiful beyond description.  It almost seems as if even my photographs cannot translate what I experienced.  I am so thankful I got to see this unusual event.

There were some areas in the clouds that were smooth rather than turbulent looking.  This is a detail of one such area., looking to the west.

 

This photograph shows the rain, in the distance, on the left moving toward us.  I just don't ever remember seeing such formations before.  I took this photograph and then headed for the car.  I was looking at the radar application on my phone, and once again all of the activity was on the far side of the sound, to the north.  We did get a bit of gentle rain for maybe half an hour, but that was it.  What an amazing day!

 

The Ghost Neighborhood of Surfridge

When taking off from Los Angeles, I looked out the window on the right hand side where I was sitting, and, once again, saw these patterns on the ground, right at the end of the runways on the west side of the airport.  I had seen them before and wondered about them.  This time, when I got home, I looked really carefully at the "streets" on Google Earth, and they did really look like streets.  So I went to one of my favorite places on the web, "Quora," which is an American question-and-answer website where questions are asked, answered, followed, and edited by Internet users.  I asked: "What are the cement "roads" in the land off the west end of the the runways at Los Angeles International Airport?"  Within a few hours I received this reply from a pilot named Mike: "Once upon a time there was an area sort of out in the country near a much smaller Los Angeles called “Mines Field”. As aviation seemed to be the next big thing, it opened as an airport in 1930, and in 1937, the City of Los Angeles purchased the airport to serve as their municipal airport. Aircraft were much smaller, and jet engines were not yet in existence. A community grew up around the airport - businesses, and residences as well. A developer had the wonderful idea that the neighborhood between the end of the runways, and the ocean, would be a great place for a community - and it probably was, for a while. With the introduction of larger and louder aircraft, and then the jet-engine powered Boeing 707, the residents of this wonderful community began to complain about the noise of departing aircraft right over their homes. The friction between community and airport became so great that the City of Los Angeles was forced to “buy” all the homes, and tear them down to end the squabble. The roads you see are from yesterday’s community."  Wow, how amazing is that!  Then I got another reply from Robert: That used to be the neighborhood of Surfridge. In the late 1960s and 1970s, Los Angeles bought all those homes (and a number along the north side of the airport), to make room for runway expansion. About 800 homes in total, and the land is now a butterfly sanctuary."  What an astounding story!  And all this from a view of some puzzling markings on the landscape as seen from an airplane!

 

Decorations

 

We were going to drive from Liz & Sarah's house over to Amy's for the afternoon.  I was driving separately to meet Liz and Kathy at a fabric store.  Kathy was riding with Liz and they had another errand.  So I got there first.  Imagine my surprise to see the entire side of the building painted like this!  This is only half the drawing.  I am not into Smurfs, but I love that they brightened up the whole parking lot with this colorful cartoon.  It brightened my day, and gave me a blog post for you!

Family Portrait

I forgot how everyone ended up on the porch, but the light was so nice that I decided to take a group photograph.  The light is really beautiful, because it is "north light."  I love that everyone looks so great!

 

What's Wrong With Venice?

This is what is wrong with Venice.  See the tiny cottage in the center of the photograph?  (Click on the photograph to see it larger...). In some areas, those cottages were the heart and soul of Venice since it began.  When Amy & Gus moved in to the cottage they are in, there were small cottages on either side of this one, and even more up and down the street.  The small cottages were filled with families, and you could hear children laughing an the voices of mothers talking to their children in Spanish.  They would wave and say "hello" when Amy and Gus first moved in.  Since then, the lots and cottages sell for a million dollars and up, and the rich people come in and tear down the cottages and build three story monster homes.  It appears that there are no zoning laws in Venice - I guess that's good for the city because monster homes pay monster taxes.

The Silver Tree

We decided to take a walk around the neighborhood to walk the dog and get some exercise.  There are a lot of interesting homes, some large and some small.  I will show you one of them in another post.  But this tree fascinated me.  It is actually silver-colored, even when you look at the bark closely.  But it was actually the shape of the trunk that attracted me at first.  So strange that the tree does not just grow straight up.  It is interesting to see how different the trees and flowers and other plants are in California.  The gardens in the front of homes are so different than what we see here on the east coast.

 

Look What I Did!

Look what I did!  All by myself!  Aren't you impressed?  Oh, what is this?  Liz asked if I could install the new numbers she bought for their new house.  Sure!  Easy Peasy, right? Well, not exactly...  Their house is stucco on the outside, and it is like cement.  So I went to the hardware store and bought a small masonry bit and some plastic anchors, and some small screws.  So I started by drilling one hole for the "3" to start.  Well, it took forever, drilling into cement.  So then we decided to fasten the numbers not with screws, but with Silicone adhesive.  It is really strong and waterproof.  So first I cut a piece of cardboard and held it with a level while Liz taped it to the column with masking tape.  She had letter-spaced the numbers on a piece of paper so I marked the cardboard to know where the letters went.  then I filled the back of the hollow letters with the silicone adhesive, and stood them on the cardboard, and THEN I used some red duct tape to hold them in place overnight!  And it worked perfectly!  Except here it looks like some Egyptian hieroglyphics in red!

 

Big Hand Little Hands

 

It was so much fun to see how curious Vivian is.  She would pull herself up to a standing position from sitting on the floor, and then hold on to the edge of the coffee table.  She would reach out for anything in sight - a glass of soda, a pair of glasses, a bag of chips.  So one time I put my hand out in hopes that she would be curious and reach for it.  Which she did.  It was so amazing to see the size of her tiny hand and her small fingers as she felt the fingers of my hand.  

(Photograph by Amy Spencer)