Saturday May 21, 2011

WARREN CONNECTICUT – Most of the bushes and shrubs around our Warren house flower at some point between April and July, and everything turns invitingly green during this period. From a photographic standpoint it’s a little bit of a distraction because I doubt that MOMA or Pace will be showing any dynamic new photographers specializing in flowering shrubs any time soon. But nonetheless this pretty conventional landscape is hard to resist, so I spent the weekend wandering around with my Alpa and Hasselblad digital back.

Shade Warren CT
Shade Warren CT

On this day one year ago: Walking back from lunch. The restaurant that I mentioned in this post last year closed with no notice under mysterious circumstances. They just put a sign out saying they were closed. They had received excellent reviews and were always packed. The rumor mill suggests that it was something to do with the owner’s divorce or a litigation involving employee tips. Too bad.

Manhattan

Friday May 20, 2011

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – Have I mentioned the weather lately? I’m sort of a puffy clouds in a blue sky kind of guy. There hasn’t been much of that around here lately. We’ve had a storm system settle down on top of us, like a mother-in-law coming to visit for a couple of days but staying for a month. This was taken on Third Avenue with my Leica M9 and a 135mm APO Telyt.

Rain, rain go away
Rain, rain go away

On this day last year: View from poker game venue.

New York Financial District at Night

Thursday May 19, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – We attended a dinner sponsored by the Harvard Business School Alumni Club of New York, which named my friend of long standing, Tom Barry, as “Business Statesman of the Year”. Past recipients of this award include David Rockefeller, Felix Rohatyn, Paul Volker, Louis Gerstner, Henry Paulson and Michael Bloomberg. Tom spoke on the role that luck (the “ovarian lottery”) has played in the fortunes of the attendees – one of Tom’s recurring themes. Here’s Tom at the dinner, at the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum, taken with my Panasonic GS2 and a 20mm pancake lens.

Tom Barry
Tom Barry

On this date one year ago: Jim and Kelly. May 19 seems to be National Portrait Day.

Jim and Kelly

Monday May 16, 2011

NEW YORK NEW YORK – I’m writing this about a week after I took the picture for May 16. The one week delay in posting gives me a chance to sort through images hopefully making an non-rushed decision on what to post. The scene out my window was the same as it was then and has been unchanged all month. We’ve had the rainiest May in memory. It’s as if the weather system has its coasts mixed up – you might expect this in Seattle but not here. This is three frames stitched with my Leica M9 and 135mm APO Telyt.

Rooftops in the fog
Rooftops in the fog

On this day one year ago: farm stand.

Farmstand

Sunday May 15, 2011

WARREN CONNECTICUT – This was another in a seemingly endless string of rainy, foggy days. This is actually a continuation of the months of very heavy precipitation that we had during out long, hard winter. In reality the rain is a blessing. Steven Solomon’s book Water suggests that we’re on the verge of a global crisis where in many parts of the world the supply of clean water will not meet the needs of expanding population. The North Eastern United States is one of the regions of the world with a water surplus and enough rain to permit agriculture with little irrigation. Of course in Connecticut “agriculture” means digging massive stones out of the earth and fighting frost in May and October . . .

This is Lake Waramaug from the Hopkins Inn taken with my Leica M9 and the Bokeh King.

Lake Waramaug
Lake Waramaug

Earlier in the day I caught this with my M9 and a 135mm APO Telyt lens.

Spring Rain
Spring Rain

On this day last year: Trump Bar.

AT&T Building