Vermont Farmhouse

This is the Franklyn Farm Inn in Vermont, where I have stayed for perhaps 20 years now when I am at the Stellafane Convention.  About 5 years ago, it was owned by another family who sold it.  The new young couple who owns it is wonderful and we have great conversations about the improvements they have made, and continue to make each year.  It is so nice to be friends in addition to being guests at the farm.  This building has been here since the late 1700's when it was a stagecoach stop and tavern.  I took this late in the day with a long exposure.  The red light on part of the building is because someone stepped on the brake and the red lights came on, illuminating part of the building in red.

 

Roslyn Park

After Liz was born, and when she was a toddler, I distinctly remember the three of us coming to Roslyn Pond Park and spreading a blanket and bringing lunch.  Liz was a toddler and loved seeing the ducks wandering around on the lawn.  In 2001 it was renamed Gerry Pond Park, after Dr. Roger Gerry and his wife Peggy, both of whom were leading figures in the historic preservation of Roslyn.  Recently I went to a presentation at the Roslyn Library, and afterwards wandered down to the pond to take a photograph.  I would say I haven't walked around here for over 50 years!  It is even more beautiful than I remember!

 

Egret

Now that it is not 90 degrees every day, I decided to go for a walk, down along the harbor which is my favorite route.  Saw this Egret, but I didn't have my telephoto lens with me - it is heavy compared to my normal lens.  But the file size of my Sony a7 III is huge so I was able to crop this closeup from the wider angle view. Beautiful birds, these egrets are.

So this is what the full frame looks like.  The original is a 58 MB file, which is so large that I could make such a tight crop.  My first digital camera was a Nikon D-1 that the company bought all of us.  It  cost $2,500 and the file was only 7 MB!  That was in 2001.  A few advances since then!

 

The Astrophotography Imaging Class

Last night at our astronomy club meeting we did something that had never been done before.  Doing photographs of the night sky through a telescope is a REALLY complicated process.  One of our members, Ken decided to put together single-handedly a 3-hour class just on how to process the images in a computer program that is even more complicated than Photoshop!

The space was limited and more people applied than could fit into the class.  This is Ken, the instructor, and master astrophotographer, teaching during the class.

Another view of the participants, and they are of all ages, both men and women, determined to learn the complex processes needed to create successful images.

I mean, these people are riveted to Ken's presentation and their concentration is intense!

I love seeing the concentration everyone is displaying.   They were really pleased with the class and were writing Ken the next day telling them how great the presentation was.

 

The Dark Place

This is the strangest looking place, isn't it?  But I get it.  I would drive by this former gas station every day I went to work.  It closed up something like 10 years before I retired in 2008 and that was 17 years ago!  The story is that there is a newer, larger gas station on the opposite corner.  And this place has been looking worse and worse as the years went on.  Recently they put in fence poles and then put up black fabric all around the property, I am thinking so that it would hide the gas station, but that looked awful.  So this most recent version of the building is to cover the building with black fabric and paint everything black so that it is much less obvious.  Well it is that, but it is also really strange looking.

 

I Owe You All This

I was going through a bunch of older hard drives to see what was on them, and I stumbled across this photograph.  Wow!  Hey, this is a cool shot, right?  A family on the beach at sunset, with the moon overhead!  I looked at the date in the file and I shot this in California in 2014.  And I owe you a really great shot, after all the ordinary stuff I have been posting lately.  So here it is for you to enjoy!

 

A Portrait of The Photographer

I mentioned that the entire back wall of the Diane Arbus exhibit was a mylar mirror.  So a couple of times I found myself facing the mirror and on two occasions decided to do a selfie, but in the mirror, no with my cellphone.  I like seeing the metal framework all around me, so I like this photo for that, as a reminder of being at this unusual exhibit of photographs.

 

The Eyes, again...

I know you have seen these eyes before, but I thought that this photograph was different from the other one, so I am taking a chance that you might like it.  There is really something about the power of those eyes, and I loved seeing them in the distance through the door.  So I stood in this spot with my camera ready and took a photograph every time someone walked through the scene.  I thought this worked.  But those eyes really grab your attention, right?

 

Hold Your Breath...

The other day I posted a photograph of a tomato plant that someone gave Kathy.  It was not looking very good.  It should have been transplanted a week ago. Sad Tomato Plant  Well, today we transplanted it to the side garden.  What was unbelievable was that while living in the plastic cup, it produced six tiny, ripe tomatos.  Look at how beautiful these are.  And these are so small, less than an inch in diameter.

I was photographing the whole plant and Kathy started watering it, and I realized if I shot as the water came down I would have a more interesting photograph.  So lets hope that the plant will survive and become a darker green and keep producing tomatoes.  Stay tuned.

 

Back to Arbus

I took this the second time I visited this exhibition.  I think I was more calm and less shooting like a machine gun!   :-)   Funny how you can see things differently the second time.  Maybe it was because in the beginning I wanted to see everything, so I was more frantic, possibly.  Second time there I had seen so much it felt as if I finally had time to look around more quietly, and that'w why i saw this.  I love the two doors with figures visible through each door.

 

Maritime History, My History

Some of you will recognize these two ships from a post three years ago.  You will love this story.  After I graduated from college in 1964, I drove up along the Maine coast to photograph, and I also visited Leo Chabot, a friend I met in College, who lived in Kennebunkport.  I stayed with he and his wife a couple of days and then he said I really needed to see Pemaquid Point, about 70 miles north on Route 1. As I headed there I drove through the town of Wiscasset, and as I started to cross the bridge on US Route 1 heading north, I glanced to the right and saw two huge old wooden schooners resting in the mud!  I nearly drove off the bridge!  I managed to stop and photograph them and I could not believe my eyes.  So I photographed them a few more times over the years on trips to Maile.  I think this color photograph was done in the very early 1980’s.  There was a group trying to save them, and I was working for the Sunday Magazine back then and I wrote to the group, hoping it would make a magazine story.   The magazine was not interested in the story.  Both ships had deteriorated further and in 1998 they were completely demolished.  There really was no way to save them.

The other day, I read about an edition of Walt Whitman's “Leaves of Grass” that was published in 1942.  What was unusual about that issue was that the book was illustrated with photographs by Edward Weston.  Weston received a commission a year before to travel the United States and take photographs for that edition of the book.  Then I remembered that I may have bought a much later edition some years ago.  A bit of digging and I found it!  So I was leafing through it to see the photographs and I was stunned to find this one, taken in about 1942.  Wow!  I mean, how cool is this!  What history - this photograph was probably taken the year I was born in 1942!

 

 

Truth and Lies!

The neighbors have this beautiful tree that has come into bloom.  I thought it would make a nice photograph. But there are all these wires in the way.  Well...   No problem at all!  What?  Well, there is this thing called "AI."  Artificial Intelligence.  So I put this image in my newest version of Photoshop.  There is an AI process called "Generative Fill."  You circle the offending thing in your photograph and then choose the GF option.  It is astounding to watch.  The object disappears, replaced with AI generated that replaces, in this case the wires!  To do this effectively, I circled each of the wires individually before applying GF. It is astounding, and it is a LIE!  I just did this as a demonstration for you, so you would learn to not believe everything you see!

Astounding, right?  Please click on each of these to study them in detail, and then you can leave, disillusioned with me!   :-)

Our Poor Tomato Plant

This little tomato plant was given to Kathy by someone she knew, and we were going to transplant it to the garden by the driveway.  We did keep it watered during the heat and I did add a bit of plant fertilizer, but it sat and sat, and some of the tiny tomatoes have ripened.  I wonder if it is too late to save this?  We need to get it transplanted and if we do I will report back to you.

 

Gimbels Skybridge

I have admired and walked under this structure for years.  So I photographed it the other day, and then just now tried to find out what it is.  I put this photo into a Google Image Search and it told me it is the Gimbels Sky Bridge.  In 1910, Gimbel’s department store set up a location in Herald Square near their main competitor, Macy’s. Other departments stores followed suit, and a shopping district was born. To distinguish themselves from the other department stores, Gimbel’s was known for various marketing ploys like the “bargain basement.” If that wasn’t enough to attract attention, they also created a skybridge in 1925 which connected the department store to the newly-acquired annex next door. Architects Richmond H. Shreve and William F. Lamb, who later helped design the Empire State Building, designed the copper, three-story-tall structure to connect offices in the building to the main store. With this marvelous feat of engineering, employees no longer had to deal with crossing the congested street below.

 The first image was taken when I was walking from Penn Station over to Herald Square to take the subway up town to the photo exhibit.  This second image is looking from the other side back toward Penn Station.  This structure is so unique and so beautiful, it is amazing it took me so long to actually  find out what it was.

Twin Guards at the Arbus Exhibit

If I see a major exhibit of one photographer's work, I am liable to start looking for photographs that might look like the ones you saw in the exhibit.  This does not look like any of her work at all, but...  She photographed more than one set of twins and she worked only in black & white.  So I thought this photograph of twin guards would be an interesting thing to photograph.  The guards are not twins, of course, there is one guard and the back wall of the gallery is a mirrored wall.  She also used some square format cameras so I cropped this into a square to complete the comparison. 

 

"STOP WATERING YOUR LAWN"

You may want to click on the photo first to see the headline on the cover of Newsday today!  But I am way ahead of them!  Look at my lawn!  The story in the paper said that Suffolk County is telling people to stop watering their lawns.  We live in Nassau County and the drought is just as bad here.  But I thought you would like to know that I was way ahead of the government!

 

Back to the Diane Arbus Exhibit

I wanted to go back to the Diane Arbus exhibit in the city one more time.  For two reasons.  I found out after leaving the first time there was a 90 minute film that was playing where the former student of hers who printed all of the 450 prints in this show was talking about her work and the way she saw her subjects.  And I wanted to carefully make sure I had looked at each and every photograph in the show.  The last time I realized that I missed a number of images because it was hard to make sure I had walked in and around all the structures that held the photos.  So I did all that.  It was exhausting but it felt good to see it the first time.   I am so lucky.  So I spent my day in the exhibit and then I come home.  But I am not done - I have all the photographs I took of the show and people at the show and I was so excited to look at my camera cards and find some interesting photographs that I know I took.  And this is a favorite!  There is a huge digital screen taller than a person and every 15 seconds it shows another cropped face, just showing the eyes.  So I found a spot and watched the scene and every time someone walked in front of the screen I took a photograph.  I love this one!  What do you think?  I am finally giving you a *real* photograph for a change.  Please click on it - it is a larger image than most.

 

Anselm Kiefer at Mass MoCA

Anselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. Kiefer has developed themes of German history and the horrors of the Holocaust, in addition to spiritual concepts of Kabbalah, which is an esoteric method, discipline, and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. His works are characterized by an unflinching willingness to confront his culture's dark past, and unrealized potential, in works that are often done on a large, confrontational scale well suited to the subjects. This work is called “The Women of the Revolution” (Les Femmes de la Revolution) and is comprised of more than twenty full-size lead beds with photographs and wall text.  It is an astounding work which takes up a huge space.  I wish I could tell you more but this is all I know.  I will say this a powerful thing to see in person.

 

Stan's Talk at ASLI

Stan drove out from the city tonight to speak at ASLI about his astronomy clubs two new remote telescopes.  They have a telescope in an observatory on a remote mountain in Texas. Members can sigh up to get observing time on the scope in order to take astro photographs.  Then they set up another remote telescope in Chile!  Wow!  From there members can photograph objects in the southern hemisphere which we can't see from here.  He had a really attentive audience!  I should add, that his incentive to come speak involved the promise that I bake Mediterranean Salmon for dinner which he loves.  And honestly, I do a pretty good job making that dish.

 

The Whitestone Bridge

I am posting some photographs that I never got around to posting because I was always getting new ones and so forgot about these.  This is the Whitestone bridge and the only reason I could photograph it was because I was riding with Stan on the way back from Vermont and he was driving.  I was sitting in the front passenger seat.  While crossing the Throg's Neck Bridge, you see suspension cables whizzing by and it is hard to time the release of the shutter so that a cable is not blurred in the middle of the shot.  So as we crossed the bridge I was clicking as fast as I could while pointed at the Whitestone.  I must have shot 20 frames and there was only this one that was both sharp, and had no cables.  Lucky me! It is an extra large size image so please click on it to see it so much better.

 

Departure

We took Liz to JFK at suppertime for her flight back to Los Angeles.  It was wonderful having her here and the time sure did go fast.  We did drive up to Connecticut to see family on Saturday, and then mostly it was just hanging around, both before and after.  Maybe we will fly out there before Christmas, I hope.  Otherwise it will be a long time before we see both Liz and Amy again.

 

Full Moon

We were driving back from Connecticut last night and suddenly Liz said "Look at the moon!"  We looked to the east and there, just above the horizon was a beautiful orange full moon rising over Long Island Sound.  It was orange because of the smoke in the sky from wildfires out west.  5 hours later, it finally rose above the trees in our back yard, and so I used one of my telescopes to capture the bright white moon, much higher in the sky.  What a beautiful sight and what a joy to view close-up through a telescope!  I have posted an extra large image, so please click on this to see much more detail.

 

Restoration

We drove to Milford, Connecticut to have lunch with my sisters.  We drove by the pond behind city hall and I was stunned to see what the Congregational church looked like.  This church is a landmark in Milford and a photographer's delight.  If you are in the right place, you can see this church reflected in the Duck Pond behind city hall.  It is a classic photograph that I first took as a high school kid with my Minolta Autocord camera in black & white.  Turns out the church steeple which goes back to 1825, if I have my facts straight, is in dire need of repair and reinforcement.  The cost is estimated to be $500,000.

This church and this scene IS Milford!  Here is what the church looked like before the restoration began. Church Before Construction

 

Photographer at Work

We were in one of the smaller galleries, both shooting different things and then I turned around and saw Stan photographing in this light.  Wow!  And then I notice the two constructed human arms hanging down!  Whoa!  OK, now that's a shot!  The exhibit had to do with the artists dealing with "disgust" in their works.  The two arms hanging down certainly worked for me.  Couldn't wait to get out of that gallery!

  
 

Preacher Man

Come listen to the preacher man!  Look at him talk, look at his gestures.  Clearly he is a long-time preacher man with a lot of experience exhorting his flock to action.  He knows what he is doing, you can tell.  Don't you wish you were here to hear his sermon?

A real preacher man?  Nahhhh...  It is just ACTING!  I wandered into one of the modern artworks and it kind of connected computers to religion, or something like that.  To quote the information: "Petra Szilagyi creates artworks that respond with reflection and absurdity — like Bless Your Hard Drive, a prayer room for a benevolent future for the internet."  There is a beautiful hand made lectern in this exhibition made from a tree trunk.  I went over and stood behind it and immediately pretended to be a preacher.  I was having fun so I handed Stan my camera, and asked if he would take a few photographs as I gave my silent sermon.  Sorry, I just got carried away!

 

Liz is Here!

Liz is here!  We drove down to Kennedy Airport around suppertime and picked Liz up.  She will be here about five days or so and we are really looking forward to just hanging out and catching up.  Well, actually we will be driving up to Connecticut to visit "the cousins" and "the sisters" so that will be really nice for all of us.  I usually try to grab a quick photograph at the arrivals area at JetBlue, but it was so crazy busy that I didn't dare take my eyes off the traffic to take a photograph when we spotted her.  So that's a first for me, but I did get this photo when we got home.

 

Rail Bridge Lattice Structures

I have photographed these power line transmission towers before.  Riding back from Vermont I was sitting in the passenger seat and so was able to carefully photograph these structures again.  These structures carry 115,000 volt transmission lines between a power substation in Stratford and an power substation in Milford.  They were originally built in the 1900's.  United Illuminating attached the power lines to these structures in the 1940's.  I am astounded at how delicate and beautiful these structures are.  The value of the lattice design is that the wind can pass through them without adding putting too much stress on them.  I treasure seeing these structures every time I cross the Housatonic river in Stratford on I-95.

 

The Lawn is Looking Good This Year!

I thought I would show you a drone photograph of our side lawn.  It is looking great this year, for a change.  See how rich and green the lawn it.  I expect Scotts to call and ask if they can send a photographer so they can use a photo of my lawn on their bags of seed!  I refuse to waste water on the lawn!  So this is the price I pay, and I am OK with this.  The soil has never been good here ever since we moved in.  When there is plenty of rain and it is not too hot, the lawn actually looks pretty good.  I actually meant to photograph it with the drone in the spring, and it looked really good.  We are in drought conditions, and this is the result.

 

The Beauty of the Galleries

I never tire of spending time in the galleries at Mass MoCA.  The designers of the conversion from a New England factory to a n art museum were absolutely brilliant.  They sanded and varnished the original floors but, in this case, left the finish on the floor to ceiling poles.  It is so fascinating to look at all the areas in the different galleries that still have the original finish on walls and supports.  It is such a rich experience that is so different from most museums which are built and painted.  This museum is so rich with history, reminding of us of its original purpose - manufacturing things.  In this case it was capacitors for use in electronics, manufactured by Sprague Electric Company.

 

The Boiler House

This is the interior of the Boiler House which was built by the Sprague Electric Company back in 1947.  Here there are remnants of three boilers like this one,  a huge coal hopper, steam fittings, and ash disposal conveyors among other things.  It is absolutely fascinating to see these huge structures.  You are looking at one boiler, which was probably lined with fire brick and the outside covered with asbestos to keep the heat in.  The text in the building talks about it being preserved as a relic of the great industrial age of carbon.

I love the beauty of this piece of equipment and all the pipes.  These pipes carried the water into the boiler where it was heated by the fire of burning coal, to produce steam.  I know the steam was used to heat all the buildings on the property.  To this day you can see the steam pipes crossing the river to other buildings.  What is wonderful about this piece is that it is designed as a very efficient mechanical device, and yet is has such a wonderful beauty to it. 

 

This is an exterior, with the Boiler House on the right and the conveyor belt that carried the coal up to the boilers still in place.  I would loved to have seen all of this in use back in the day.  Now I can only imagine it all, and that is fun to do as well.

 

Vincent Valdez - some portraits

This portrait is one of the first paintings you see when entering the exhibition of Vincent Valdez' work.  There is something about his portraits, and I don't know what it is, but they just hold me.  When standing in front of them, I am just drawn to stand there and study them.  I can't take my eyes off them, and that's a wonderful thing!

This is the second portrait and it is five feet away from the first one and it has the same effect on me as well..

And this one was the most powerful one of all!  It is such a joy to be drawn into a painting like this.  We look at paintings hoping to be moved by what we see, I guess, and I was moved by all three of these.  This entire exhibit was so powerful by what it showed me and what I experienced.