Airplanes, Airplanes, Airplanes!

So I am in Virginia, 20 miles from Washington, DC, for a photo conference. Fortunately, the conference location is just around the corner from the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum. The original museum is on the mall downtown and it still open. This one opened 9 years ago, and is HUGE. Inside this giant hangar they have the B-29 "Enola Gay," a Boeing 707, a Lockheed Constellation, a Concord, the SR-71 supersonic spy plane, a Space Shuttle, and about a billion other aircraft. It is just stunning. So I wandered around drinking it all in, and photographing, and when they threw me out at closing time, I was on my hands and knees. What an amazing day! To spend this much time looking at airplanes all day is good for what ails you!

Wiggleys

Oh man! He's doing it again... Driving and photographing... At night, no less... Anyhow, the Verrazano Narrows bridge is just stunning, both night and day. At night the lights on the suspension cables look like strings of pearls. Of course, there is no way to pull over to take a proper picture, so you know what I did. Of course since I was moving over a bumpy road, the picture was going to be shaky or blurry. I shot anyway, and I was really surprised at how interesting the little squiggles turned out. I hate to say it, but I think the squiggles made the photo more interesting. Or, it may just be a cheap trick, to try and make up for a lack of creativity on my part... :-) Oh and here is the really cool thing I discovered: Because of thermal expansion of the steel riser cables, the bridge roadway is 12 feet lower in summer than in winter. Twelve feet! Are you kidding me? That is astounding! Don't you love coming here to learn important stuff like this?

The Shadow

I was on my way to the Post Office to mail some letters. I stopped at a stop sign, and happened to glance to the left. Something caught my eye, and you won't believe what it was. The shadow of the bird house! I have no idea why, but it was that long black triangle that drew my attention. So on the way back I stopped to take the shot. I didn't want to be intrusive at all, so I shot from across the street with a 200mm lens. This is a beautiful old house with a wonderful front porch, and it is really cool to see that they have this old wooden cupboard sitting out front. But it was only today that I saw the bird house.

Mirror Image

I never tire of the kitties. I saw this the other day. The two of them, exact duplicates of each other as they took one of their many naps that they take each day. Actually they didn't make a "mirror" image - that would require their heads to be facing each other, or their tails. It is unusual to see them next to each other like this, in the exact same shape. It tickled my fancy to see them this way. I hoped they would not wake up when the camera started clicking, and fortunately they didn't.

Mondrian

I was riding the up escalators to get to the top floor of the galeries, and as I approached the floor, there is this giant window looking out on the rest of the museum. It looked like a possible photo, so then I rode the down escalator, and got another glimpse out the window, but I realized that I couldn't compose properly when moving. Then I discovered if I stood at the railing on the top floor, I could carefully move the camera until I got the perfect composition. It involved moving the camera as little as an inch to make sure that vertical window mullion lined up exactly with the tall building behind. With all the verticals and horizontals in the frame, I realized that it reminded me a bit of a Piet Mondrian painting. Funny that should happen at the Museum of Modern Art, of all places.

Two Statues

I was leaving the Museum of Modern Art, and the last set of stairs brought me to this huge window looking out on the courtyard. I happened to notice this man, who I think probably works at the museum - he looked like he was wearing some kind of uniform. But the reason I noticed him was that he was talking on his cellphone in a VERY animated manner. He was walking back and forth and constantly made gestures with his free hand. So I stopped to watch and photograph for a while. It was hard to get a shot with his hand sticking out, because it was waving around so much. Please click on this photo, and you can see the hand more easily.

Framework Houses

I am a huge fan of Bernd and Hilla Becher. For years they have photographed all kinds of architecture, and industrial structures like head frames for mines, water towers, and blast furnaces, in Europe. They have published a number of books, in different categories, with each of the objects being only slightly different in their appearance. Here is a collection of 21 framed prints in an exhibit I saw at MoMA today, and they are all framework houses, and they are similar, but different in subtle ways. I had to wait until some people came by dressed in black, to make a good contrast to the very light background of matted prints and a white wall. Please click on this image so you can see it in a larger size.