Categories
Culture Landscape Small town

Tuesday July 24, 2012

GLENS FALLS and SARATOGA SPRINGS NEW YORK – In Utah the 24th of July is a state holiday, celebrated sort of as a second Fourth of July. It commemorates the date on which Brigham Young arrived at the mouth of Immigration Canyon and said “This is the place”.

But we’re in upstate New York, not Utah, so no fireworks. We drove up to Glens Falls today to vist a lovely museum, the Hyde Collection. This is an excellent small collection of important European art assembled by two sisters in the early part of the 20th Century, and a terrific collection of Tiffany Glass. Apologies for the long post but this was an interesting day.

Here’s the central space in the collection captured with my Leica M9 and 24mm Summicron lens; two frames stitched in PTGui Pro.

Hyde Collection
Hyde Collection

The collection (which by itself was worth a drive up here) includes a current show by an artist named Stephen Knapp who does light painting creating colors with precisely shaped and oriented pieces of polarized glass. Taken with the same rig.

Stephen Knapp
Stephen Knapp

Back in Saratoga Springs I had some fun with my iPhone. Here’s a quilt in the Victorian pile of lumber that calls itself the Adelphi Hotel. It’s interesting because it is very similar to a quilt that we have in Connecticut – a quilt that we bought a church rummage sale and then spent a year and a fairly serious amount of money having restored. I’ll shoot it in Connecticut when we’re there next weekend and you’ll see the resemblance.

Quilt
Quilt

More fun with the iPhone in Saratoga:

Wandering Cowboy
Wandering Cowboy

Here’s a sculpture in Broadway (the main street) in Saratoga – I took this with my iPhone to be my screen backdrop in my iPhone – I got bored with gray.

iPhone screen
iPhone screen

As I said – this was a long day. Toward the end of the day I spent some time in Saratoga Spa State Park. In the 1930s the space facility was rebuilt on a grand scale (the scale of the complex reminds me of a Mayan temple complex at Monte Alban near Oaxaca). Good Depression era public works, but the scale is far larger than current demand so much of it appears to be in good condition but disused. Maria took a treatment, so I took some pictures with my ever-present Leica M9 and 24mm Summilux lens.

The Baths at Saratoga
The Baths at Saratoga

Moe of the same:

The Baths at Saratoga
The Baths at Saratoga

Enough of July 24 2012. On July 24, 2011: Hogmead. No kidding on the name. An inn in Nairobi.

Hogmead
Hogmead
Categories
Landscape Travel

Friday July 6, 2012

MILAN ITALY – One last day of tourism in Italy. Maria has finished her meetings so she was able to join me visiting Villa Necchi, Pinacoteca di Brera and shopping on Via Spiga and Via Montenapoleone. One this is clear: these Milanese do design and retail like no one else.

So here are my captures for the day, tank with my Leica M9 and 24mm Lummilux lens.

Villa Necchi
Villa Necchi
Villa Necchi
Villa Necchi
Maria sees the big picture
Maria sees the big picture

On this day one year ago: a sick day. I’ve cropped this to be one of my favorite headers for this site.

Chinese porcelain
Chinese porcelainChinese procelain
Categories
Culture

Wednesday March 28, 2012

NEW YORK NEW YORK – Where is Caravaggio? I’ve been asking myself this question recently. How will people judge us in 400 years (Caravaggio died in Porto Ercole in 1610)? How will they know who we are?

We got an insider’s tour of the Biennial at the Whitney Museum today. Many of the works are ephemeral – accurately reflecting the state of play in the art world today. None of this work will exist in 400 years, so how will people be able to judge us from our art? I’m an effing troglodyte to ask this question but so be it.

I had my Sony Nex-7 in hand with a 50mm Leica Summilux lens.

From a video by Werner Hertzog of works by Hercules Segers and of Ernst Reijseger playing the Cello.

Biennial I
Biennial I

Others:

Biennial III
Biennial III

On this day one year ago: weird angle on the New Preston cemetery.

New Preston
New Preston
Categories
Garden Small town

Sunday January 29, 2012

KENT CONNECTICUT – I dropped by to see my friend Greg at RT Facts here, picking up a side table and a fixed stand for our fire pit. Greg is an antique dealer specializing in architectural debris, much of it very large. I got a new camera body: a Sony Nex-7, a very compact little item with 24 megs of resolution from a sensor that’s about 2/3 the size of a standard 35mm frame. The idea is that I would use it with my Leica lenses. (A lot of people think like this – this is why Leica lenses are currently sold out at every dealer in the world.) This is with the Nex-7 and 24mm Summilux lens – these look like they were removed on the demolition of a 1930’s Federal building.

RT Facts
RT Facts

On this day one year ago: Mustique sky – three frames stitched.

Grenadines morning
Grenadines morning
Categories
Culture Icon Landscape Urban

Thursday November 17, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – Back home. I carried my little Ricoh GRD IV through the day, catching autumn foliage ending up on the sidewalk, and a new installation at Lever House, a salt water aquarium and plants by Paula Hayes. Very cool. Worth a look.

November 17, 2011
Streets of New York
November 17, 2011
Weird Science

On this day last year: on the Acela.

From the Acela at high speed

Categories
Culture Interior

Thursday October 13, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – This is the second day of the annual James Beard Foundation food policy conference, held (as noted yesterday) this year at Hearst’s offices in New York. I spent the breaks giving myself a tour of the very good art collection on the floor where we held the conference. Here’s a view of a Chuck Close self-portrait and of a conference room both taken with my Leica. The Close work is important to me – a while back I appropriated it in one of my 24 hours projects – I posted a typical image from that project below.

Chuck Close
Chuck Close
Good Housekeeping
Good Housekeeping

On this day last year: West Village.

West 12th Street

Here’s my homage to Chuck Close, one of 24 similar images of myself taken hourly over 24 hours (with an 8×10 Arca Swiss view camera):

Categories
Culture Travel

Thursday September 22, 2011

SHANGHAI – We managed to tuck a trip to Spin, a shop that sells porcelain made using classic Chinese techniques but with a slight Japanese fusion feel. The artist-owner, Gary Wang, is actually based in Connecticut. Taken with my trusty Panasonic GH2.

Spin
Spin

On this day one year ago: a dullish exterior of Grand Central Terminal. What the hell – every image can’t be interesting – this is a daily photo project after all.

Grand Central Terminal
Copy Protected by Tech Tips's CopyProtect Wordpress Blogs.