Monday, September 30, 2013

Confession Time


When I come across a photographer taking engagement or wedding photographs,
I sometimes raise my camera and take a few of my own.
The brides always look so happy and so pretty.


Is that creepy?  Am I the only one who does it?

Municipal Building, Hartford, Connecticut

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Football


Trinity College played Williams yesterday in Hartford.  Trinity won
20 - 13, for its 48th consecutive home victory.  The last time Trinity
lost a football game in its own stadium was in 2001.


I don't think Willams' coach was yelling at me.
But, it sure felt like it.


Saturday, September 28, 2013

American School for the Deaf



Last year I showed Gallaudet Hall, the main building at the American School for the Deaf.  It has become too expensive to maintain for a declining enrollment of deaf students.  So, the school built a new, smaller building in front of it.  The new building was ready for the start of school and gets good marks from the students.  Gallaudet will be demolished next year.

The central glass structure of the new building recalls Gallaudet's cupola, shown below behind the new building.  The school is trying to figure out if the cupola can be saved and placed elsewhere on the property.


Friday, September 27, 2013

Texting Times Two


The glass of the Gold Building on Hartford's Main Street is very reflective. 

Please visit James' blog Weekend Reflections for more photos with reflections.  

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Another Pink House


Still in Hartford's West End.
This interesting old house on Kenyon Street was recently repainted.  
The painters were not finished in time to show it off for the September "pink" theme 
of the City Daily Photo bloggers.  
But I thought you might like to see it.

A neighbor told me that eleven different shades of pink were used in the repainting.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Back in the West End


Yesterday's houses were from Norwich, but today we are back in Hartford.  
The West End is a pretty neighborhood of houses from the late 19th and early 20th century.
It is not uncommon to find great houses with multiple colors of
paint highlighting the architectural details.




Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Norwich Victorians

These days southeastern Connecticut is struggling.

But, there was a time when Norwich was prosperous.  Entrepreneurs harnessed the energy of local rivers to power textile mills and other manufacturing plants.
While that was going on in the second half of the 1800s, the captains of industry built handsome homes to celebrate their wealth and good fortune.
Most of the grandest homes are still very well kept up, despite the departure of the engines of the region's former prosperity.


Monday, September 23, 2013

High Line Portrait and Mural



One week ago I was in Manhattan and took a walk on the High Line.  Spectacular!!!

These lovely young Chinese women asked me to take their picture with their iPhone.  I did, then I took their picture with my own camera.  I positioned them near this colorful billboard mural, Waking by Gilbert & George (1984).

Today's post is linked to Monday Mural.


Sunday, September 22, 2013

Black and White in Color

Something different today.  Three photos that look like they are black and white.  But aren't.

It must be a text from his supervisor, not Words with Friends.  Right?


Hartford's Charter Oak Cultural Center has a photographic exhibition by Josh Lehrer, 
called Becoming Visible.  His images were taken with antique cameras and lenses 
and printed on watercolor paper.  The subjects are homeless transgender teens. 


Hello Dolly! is playing now at Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam.



Saturday, September 21, 2013

This and That Again



Great weather now, but still, al fresco dining in greater Hartford is
nearing an end for this year.  Fun while it lasted.


Johnny and I met in downtown New Britain.
I was hoping for a good story about the flaming skull on his baseball cap.
But, it is just a cap.


The guy who was feeding them stood up too fast, scaring the heck out of the ducks. 

Friday, September 20, 2013

Hudson River Valley



This week has been spent exploring the lower Hudson River Valley, the part of New York state immediately to the west of Connecticut.  This is Philipsburg Manor House and its mill, seen across a small pond.

Nearby is Kykuit, the impressive family estate of the Rockefeller family.  An hour north is the Storm King Art Center, 500 acres of rolling meadows and forests, with large-scale modern sculpture placed around.  This is Iliad by Alexander Liberman, from 1974-1976.

This post is linked to Weekend Reflections.

Tomorrow will include a visit to Franklin Roosevelt's home and library in Hyde Park, then on to dinner with friends in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, before returning to West Hartford.


Thursday, September 19, 2013

South Glastonbury


South Glastonbury is on the east bank of the Connecticut River, maybe eight or nine miles 
southeast of Hartford.   But, it always feels like I am way out in the country.




Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Soccer (or Football)




The women's soccer team at Trinity College played Williams in Hartford on Saturday.  


Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Eli Cannon's Tap Room


And here is the rest of the building in yesterday's photo.  (The spilled yellow paint is around to the right of the building.)

Eli Cannon's Tap Room in Middletown, Connecticut.

I really need to go inside some time!  It oozes personality.  Stay tuned.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Spilled Paint






Mural on the side of a building in Middletown, Connecticut.

Linked to Monday Mural.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Horse's A**




The statue of Marquis de Lafayette originally faced away from the Capitol.  
That gave the governor and legislature an unflattering view.  So, the statue was reversed.  


I am starting a movement to turn the statue around again.  
It should be where it belongs, with the horse's a** facing the politicians, not the people.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

The Unveiling

Jodi Rell was Connecticut's 87th governor.  She served in the legislature, became lieutenant governor, and ascended to the governorship in 2004 when the incumbent was forced to resign during a corruption
investigation. Rell was immensely popular and won re-election in 2006 with the highest vote total in Connecticut history.  She decided against running again in the 2010 election and left office at the start of 2011.

On Tuesday, her portrait was unveiled at the Connecticut State Library.  Characteristically, Rell was surrounded by her grandchildren for the unveiling of the portrait.  The artist was Laurel Stern Boeck. 

Friday, September 13, 2013

Reading Room



The Reading Room at the Hartford Public Library is really cool.  Especially when I am looking for a reflection photo.  Reflections off the Gold Building are the only other Hartford reflections as reliable.  I will go back there sometime soon.

If you like photos with reflections, please visit James' website Weekend Reflections.

It is Friday the Thirteenth today.  Yikes!  Maybe I should stay inside . . .

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Not So Fast


Reid Hollister was a great kid.  Who didn't go to his senior prom or graduate from high school.  The car Reid was driving skidded on a rain-slicked highway.  Reid was just 17 when he died.

There are 3 million new teen drivers in the U.S. each year.  Every year 5,000 teens die in traffic accidents and 460,000 are injured.  From ages two to 34, traffic accidents are the leading cause of death in the US.

Reid's father -- a friend of mine -- has channeled his grief into helping other parents and their teen drivers.  Tim Hollister's blog -- From Reid's Dad -- gets 12,000 visitors each month.

Monday night Tim and other experts spoke about teen driver safety at a Hartford church.  The occasion was the launch of Tim's new book Not So Fast:  Parenting Your Teen Through the Dangers of Driving.  Publishers Weekly called the book a "concise, practical, and potentially life-saving book" that should be "required reading for every parent before their teen gets behind the wheel."

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Twin Towers



The terrorism attack on the two towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, was the defining event of the 21st century so far.  This is a detail from an eighteen foot long allegorical painting by Graydon Parrish, commissioned by the New Britain Museum of American Art to commemorate the tragedy.  I showed it before, here.  Every time I am at the museum, I visit the painting.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Mary and Ruth

On a gorgeous September day, I met Mary in West Hartford Center.  On another gorgeous September day I met Ruth.

Mary was walking three white fluffy dogs.  I learned that they are called bichon frises.  I took some photos of the dogs and some of Mary.  Mary exudes youthful energy, enthusiasm and vivaciousness.

A few days later I met Ruth, an artist from Simsbury, near the same kind of planting.  Ruth is a grandmother just back from visiting her family out west.  She has a calm, poised, mature charm.


Monday, September 9, 2013

Historic Voluntown



Voluntown is a neighborhood in the town of Griswold, Connecticut, on the border with Rhode Island.  A colorful primitive-style mural greets people who stop in the center of town.  A metal graphic on a stand in front of the mural explains what is depicted.  I tried to find out who painted it but I was unsuccessful.

This post is linked to Monday Mural, a weekly feature of Oakland Daily Photo.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

More This and That . . .

Pix that might not have carried a post all by themselves.

Skateboarders were practicing their moves when I came across them.  One young man skated alongside, making a video of the action.  They seemed preoccupied, so I didn't interrupt to ask about the video.

An "honor" farm stand in Eastern Connecticut.

Franklinias are uncommon, especially as far north as Connecticut.  They bloom in late August and into September.  Mine is brittle.  It keeps losing trunks and limbs, but it restarts from suckers.

Franklinia were discovered at one remote location in Georgia in the 1790s.  A Philadelphia seedsman gathered seeds just in time, because they became extinct in the wild within a decade.  All existing Franklinia derive from those seeds.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Ken



While I parked my car in downtown New Britain, Ken picked up some nearby trash and put it in the trash can.  We started talking.

Ken is philosophical and talkative.  He has many stories.  He told me stories about playing baseball at UConn.  And football.  And running track.  And setting track records.

I didn't hire a fact checker.  But, I have my doubts.