Category: photo sets

smokestacks from Vassar Street (friday foto finder: chimney)

I may not have a lot of photos of chimneys at hand, and didn’t motivate myself to take anything like an interesting shot of my own house’s chimney. However, I do have quite a lot of photos of smokestacks, which serve more-or-less the same function. Smokestacks are architectural features that have long attracted my eye. While I’m sure that old brick smokestacks were considered eyesores when first built, they now add interest to many old mills and factories.

Here are several views of some smokestacks visible from Vassar Street in Cambridge, Massuchusetts. (Most were taken from a building that is part of the MIT campus, but I don’t believe the smokestacks to belong to MIT.) I took these between November of 2005 and October of this year.

November, 2005


January, 2010


July, 2010


December, 2011


October, 2012

To go see what other structures others have chosen to blow out their smoke, please stop by Archie’s friday foto finder blog.

3 butterflies

Here are 3 butterflies I’ve encountered in the last 3 years.¹


Butterfly in the butterfly garden at the Boston Museum of Science, Boston, MA. June, 2010.


Butterfly on a window, in The Butterfly Pavilion outside Denver, CO. April, 2011.


In the wild on the grounds of the De Cordova Museum, Lincoln, MA. August, 2012.

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¹ I don’t come across butterflies in the wild nearly as often as YTSL of Webs of Significance, whose photos of her hikes around Hong Kong regularly include butterflies (among her other critter sightings).²
² I looked back at my photos from the hike we had together when I visited Hong Kong in August of 2011, but it would seem that I found no butterflies that day!

3 storm drains

Here are 3 storm drain grates I’ve come across in the past year.


Sidewalk, New York City, NY. March 2102.


Parking lot, Milford, MA. May, 2012


Parking lot, Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY. November, 2012.

one door, three seasons

There is a door at BU, on the street where I park, that often catches my eye. It’s a door on an otherwise traditional-looking Brownstone building, and its bright blue contrasts strikingly with the muted red-browns of the brick and stone. I happened to park directly in front of it yesterday, and it was featured among my rainy-window-filtered views. In editing my photos last night, I was reminded that I had photographed this door, and its companion red standpipe and vintage-looking fire alarm bell, a number times in the past. I knew that I had some photos of the door in question in the snow, and when I poked back through my photo library found I had one with it posing with a flower spring shrub. (It’s entirely possible that I have more photos of this door from other times, but I didn’t necessarily tag them for easy retrieval.)


Blue door, November 2012


Blue door, February 2011


Blue door, May, 2011

Finding this set gives me the urge to photograph some same subject many more times, but under different conditions.

ridiculously colorful Fall leaves

New England is known for its spectacular Fall foliage, primarily for the show put on by the sugar maples that are native to the region. However, there are plenty of other plants, trees and shrubs that put on autumnal shows of their own. And I have no idea what most of them are.

These are some photos I took around and about over the last 2 weeks.


This little guy is a shrub on the campus of BU. The leaves reminded me of confetti.


These leaves were on a smallish tree on the MIT campus. I loved the way the colors changed variably across the surface of each leaf, making striking multi-colored outlines.


This plant caught Phoebe’s attention at an apple orchard we went to a couple weekends ago. Likely a weed, these plants grew over 6 feet tall, and had very soft, fuzzy stems. (Phoebe wanted to just stay and pet the plant.) We were all amazed by the varied colors, covering quite a large range of the spectrum, and often over the surface of a single leaf.


This is just another shot of that same plant.

Anyone have any idea what any of these are?

6 unrelated photos

Here are 6 unrelated photos taken over the last 3 years.

From top: 1) a doorknob on a caboose 2) a roll of plastic barrier material 3) macro of a dandelion, 4) plastic bucket with ice, 5) jellyfish in the Boston aquarium, 6) a view from the roof the roof of the garage at the Boston Museum of Science.

3 white birds

Here are 3 unrelated white birds I’ve come across in the last few years.


A white dove at Alcazar in Sevilla, Spain.¹ (Photo taken in September, 2009)


A white rooster at a Massachusetts farm. (Photo taken in June, 2011)


A white peacock at a Massachusetts zoo. (Photo taken last Friday. And sadly not totally in focus.⁴)

I came across the first two photos last week when considering what to post for the friday foto finder theme of white. (I opted to post snow, instead.) On Friday, Phoebe had the day off school, so we went to the zoo, and came across the white peacock. And so my trio of white birds was complete.

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¹ This pigeon-holed dove is also part of my collection of visual representations of idioms.²
² Perhaps someone can come up with expressions for the other two?
⁴ Should I just pretend it’s an artistic choice?

3 fruit silhouettes

Here are 3 pictures of fruits I have taken over several years.
Image
Apples, from October, 2008. (In a Massachusetts apple orchard.)

Image
Oranges, from September, 2009. (In Sevilla, Spain.)

Image
Unknown type of berries¹, a few days ago. (In Massachusetts.)

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¹ I really wish I’d had recent access to a banana tree, since that would make a better set. The last time I saw one was probably in Brazil in 1991, and I didn’t get any photos. But I do like the berries.