Just back from a short trip to Maryland’s eastern shore. During our stay, Josh, Jonah, Nancy and I took a delightful stroll around Burton Island, about a 2 mile trail thru typical wetlands and forest. Of the photos I took, here’s a collection I’ve named “Patterns.” I hope you enjoy it.
One of the great museums in Turkiye is the Turk ve Islam, featuring Turkish and Islamic arts. Below you can view a slideshow of some of my favorite exhibits, primarily manuscripts, plus some carpets. Enjoy.
Here’s a slideshow of some pictures I took while visiting Istanbul in February, 2024.
As I experimented with a famous 1848 photo of Edgar Allen Poe, now in the public domain, to come up with an image for the 61st episode of the Eternal Jew’s Tale (found at the Times of Israel, at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-eternal-jews-tale-61-a-raven/) my “darkroom work” produced the following collection of images. For your edification…
My wife and I are visiting NYC, staying in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood in Brooklyn (F train to Carroll St).. I’d call this one of New York’s best “Little Italys” with some completely fabulous shops (Caputo’s Fine Foods is a Mich 3 market in my book, and Monteleone’s Bakery is right up there too, including perfect espresso).
When we arrived at Carroll St station for the first time and walked the 5 or so blocks to our 4 day apartment rental, we were bemused by the many religious shrines in the yards. I’d never seen anything like it. Sure, we’ve seen religious shrines in lots of yards, but here, every 2nd or 3rd house had a shrine. I loved it!! Today is our last day here. I decided I just had to make a photo record of some of the shrines, and here it is. Mind you, these photos were all taken along just 2 1/2 blocks, and on 1 1/2 of those blocks I only took photos on ONE side of the street, not both sides!!
As I was taking one of these photos (#4), the owner of the house came out, clearly pleased that I was photographing his Madonna. He apologized for the algae growing on it, but I told him it looked like it had been painted to bring out the shadows. Nature as artist. Our conversation lasted hardly more than a minute or two, but I think we both walked away elevated, feeling like we’d made a meaningful connection. Well, it was meaningful to me, at least.
Oh, I should mention that the last 5 slides aren’t really shrines, but like the shrines they ARE public-private statements that are an active part of the neighborhood’s personality. And there are a couple of slides in which the “shrine” is just a beautifully gardened yard.
What a great place to stay while visiting NYC. What a great place to live.
Here’s my Carroll Gardens Shrines slideshow:
Here’s a 20 second video, giving an impressionistic picture of the blizzard hitting NYC today. I created it from a single photo that I put thru a series of progressive transformations.
I never much liked Wally Stevens’ poetry, but, hell, I’m not above stealing a good title!
Walking in Riverside Park yesterday I sited a redtail, and snapped a photo of her (him? them?). Interestingly, New York has one of the highest densities of raptors in the US. Lots of squirrels and rats to eat, I guess. Anyway, here are 13 ways of looking at that redtail…
I was skyping the other day and I guess the person onscreen was in a bright light: his face was totally washed out. I took a screen shot, which turned out to have a strong blue shading, and from that I worked up this series of transformations. FYI, they are not presented here in the order in which they were produced. This is not a chronological development of the image, but I did try to present a sort of visual narrative in this ordering.
Always glad to get your feedback, critical or otherwise…
The other night, standing in my study looking into the dining room where Nancy was working, I saw a strange thing: the walls, tho all painted the same color, were all different shades. I pulled out my camera and took a picture to verify that I wasn’t in an altered state. The camera saw it my way too. So I decided to run the camera image thru some altered states, and here’s what emerged:
From my collection entitled ‘8 Miles High’, here’s a series of transformations of a photo taken from the plane as we approached Phnom Penh.
An image of what it feels like while creating poetry and art...
As a diversion while sketching out an essay, I took some photos of myself reflected from the computer screen. Today, Shabbat, not working, I decided to play a bit and shop them up. Here's some of the results. I named this series of 5 slideshows 'Reflections'.
Walking thru Rock Creek Park today, I took a few photos, and then enhanced them. Here are some of the results...
