Pamela had never been to New York. I felt this was something that really needed to be rectified. I have been saying for some time we needed to go and we finally cashed in some points and took a vacation.
The Flatiron building is awesome…the Flatiron building at night is stellar! I have a number of images to work on in the future, but for the first I wanted something that expressed a bit of the gritty nature of the city. It truly is a place like no other on Earth.
Some of the best light imaginable is at sunrise. There is another great thing about sunrise special to us photographers…you can get a shot without people. Almost everywhere I go, this is the secret to shots without throngs of tourists. Just get up at 4am, get to your location, wait for the sun to come up…BAM great photo. The only problem with this is much like everyone else in the world, I have a horrible time getting up early enough to be present for the sunrise. On the day I took this photo, I was up at 4am, rode the train into the city for an hour and braved a pretty blustery Chicago AM all without coffee for the first two hours. Of course I was rewarded with this view. Maybe I need to work on becoming more of a morning person.
There a a HUGE number of tourists at the Lincoln Memorial. I waited around for a long time hoping they would eventually disperse, but I think perhaps if you want unencumbered shots of the monument, it may be advisable to come in the early hours of dawn. The sun would be behind you, but that would be a great shot as well. I attempted to use long exposures on this shot to blur as much of the activity as possible. It gives the shot a milky soup of action sort of feel. Enjoy!
I have shared my love of train stations in the past. This one is perhaps one of the oldest and coolest of the bunch I have photographed so far. It was built for the 1900 Exposition, over the years, the station because unsuitable for modern trains. It went through a number of lives, then in 1970 it was slated for demolition. WHAT!
Luckily for everyone a very smart person in the government ruled against demolition and it was decided the old train station would make a wonderful museum. I can’t image the wonderful architectural treasures we have lost…Orsay is a testament to what can happen to these treasures when they are given modern jobs.
On my last trip to Austin, I went on a photowalk with a number of people. We were an odd group, much like these knobs, but we were all tied together by our love for photography. During that walk I came across the strangest knobs cemented to a store front. I to this day, I have no idea why they are there…if anyone knows what this is, I would love to know! Karen Hutton stopped with me and we both snapped several pictures. Karen kept saying, there’s something there, I think there is something…nope, nothing, there is nothing here, moving on. Her banter that night really made me laugh! Even after Karen stopped shooting, I kept trying and got this. For some reason I really like these strange orbs. They somehow sum up the entire evening.
I am not sure what this guy (woman?) is supposed to be honestly. I used to be decent at various myths, but I am at a loss with this one. Somehow he was important enough to display in the gardens surrounding the palace at Versailles. I still don’t know what it is about this planter that caught my interest. Perhaps its the way he is perched like a handle on this pot atop the head of some other mythological creature that caught my eye. Regardless, he (or she) is forever captured for all to see.
There is just something about old cars. Perhaps it’s simply nostalgia in one of its most basic forms. That sentimental longing for times long past…a simpler time. It’s an illusion of course. Perhaps things were more simple in the past, there weren’t pesky things in the 50’s like airbags or even seat belts requirements. It is an illusion of memory, but one I am happy to revel in when it comes to classic automobiles. I was passing by a local pizza place one day where there were a full gaggle of 1950’s model Chevy’s. I had to stop and have a few fond remembrances of my own.
It is truly staggering how much funding monarchs have. The Palace at Versailles is the perfect example of the excesses of power; its beauty and seductiveness as well as its darker side. The site was originally a hunting lodge for King Louis XIII, then was later expanded by the same monarch to a château. Major construction bringing the palace up to the scope it enjoys today didn’t occur till the reign of Louis XIV and was accomplished in multiple stages (or building campaigns). It is an incredibly overwhelming complex of palaces. If you are in Paris, I highly recommend this day trip. Enjoy the wonderful romp though France’s decadent past! As a side note, yes that is actually gold (leaf) on the roof. If you find that impressive, you should see the inner gate!
A quick photo for today. During SXSWi 2012 (boy are we going to miss SXSW 2013) I attended the Trey Ratcliff Google+ photo walk. It rained and rained and rained for the first half of South-By and the ill fated photo walk was part of this deluge. While waiting around for the even to start I caught this morose smiley-face like character indifferently directing cyclists to the Google bike racks. Enjoy!
One of the fantastic parts of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville Arkansas is the hiking trails around the buildings. Perhaps the greatest treasure of Arkansas is in fact the outdoors. It is also fitting that one of the nations premiere American Art museums should devote such a grand “space” to nature itself. You can’t help but feel like perhaps the greatest exhibit is outside the confines of the walls of Crystal Bridges and rather out in the open air of the Natural State. One early morning Pamela and I hit the trails and took some photos. You can also see my last color shot of the Crystal Bridges Museum here.
