This set is somewhat unsatisfying to me, in that the first two photos were taken a few weeks apart, in the same geographical location (in 2011, in New York state). The third photo was taken this May outside of Dublin. I somehow want there to be a wider spread of time and space, but I do like the images together.
Here are 6 photos I took at different times and in different places in recent(ish) years.
Exeter, New Hampshire. 2008.
Sevilla, Spain. 2009.
MIT. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2009.
Forbidden City, Beijing, China, 2012.
New York City, NY. 2012.
UMass Amherst, MA. 2014.
Here are 3 (largely) unrelated photos that I have taken at different times in recent years.
Botanical gardens in Paris, France in 2007.
Park on the shores of Lake Michigan, Chicago, IL. 2010.
Forbidden City, Beijing, China. 2012.
The Hamilton-Fish Bridge (aka the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge), glowing with rosy light reflected off the Hudson River at sunset in August, 2009.
For the past 5 years or more, we had been going down to my in-laws’ in New York roughly one weekend per month, including most major holidays. In fact, last Thanksgiving was the first that we did not spend down with them for easily more than a decade. (Unless I am forgetting something, which is, of course, possible.) This year, since we have been busy with our move and many other projects, we have not been down to New York since the summer. Happily, John’s two sisters have each been able to visit their mother, and each has even been able to drive her up here for a visit, first see our new house back in September, and then again last week for Thanksgiving. So, we did not make the trip down over the river and through the wood to Grandmother’s house this year. But it did get me thinking, along with my stream-prompted nostalgia for my own grandmother’s house, of the trip we would regularly make over the Hudson river to visit one of my children’s grandmothers. Here are several photos of the Hamilton-Fish Bridge across the Hudson River that I took over the years, from my position in the passenger seat. Most often, the photos were from our departure, as we tend to head down late at night after the traffic lightens. (I do have a few photos of the bridge after dark, but you can’t see much.) I do like the way the bridge looks different at different times of day, in different light conditions.
Looking very stark and gray in December, 2010.
A bright afternoon in January, 2013
Partially wrapped in September 2013.
Silhoutted in August, 2012.
Bright sun and sharp shadows in October, 2012.
Here are 3 pretty birds I’ve come across in recent years. (I did not eat any of them.)
Turkey.
Duck.
Chicken.
Here are three photos I’ve taken in past years of fruit-bearing trees and shrubs. The continued clinging of these fruits to their branches well into December and even into March suggests to me that no birds found these fruits to be palatable.
One of my ongoing projects came to bear fruit today, again of the inedible kind. But not the photogenic kind, either. I got notification that some funding I applied for, my first research grant application that was all my own, is likely going to come through.
This is how I felt much of this past winter.
That door is alarmed, you say? Well, this guardrail is downright dismayed.
This campus sculpture is distressed.
And this leaf is appalled.
Yesterday, I posted a set of photos of happy faces. This seemed like a reasonable follow-up, since some days, you just don’t want to put on a happy face. (You see them too, right? This is not the first time I’ve shared found faces. If you’ve been visiting for a while, you may even recognize the little leafy guy in the bottom photo.)
Sometimes when life is overwhelming, it helps to put on a happy face. Apparently some choose to put their happy faces on other surfaces.
Here are some happy faces that people have put on in various places I’ve been over the last few years.
Alley wall face in Beijing, China.
Rock face in rural Massachusetts.
Cement ball faces in a park in Barcelona, Spain.
Snowy rock smiley face in rural Massachusetts.
Parking lot smiley face in Boston.
So remember, if you can’t manage to bring yourself to smile, you can still put on a happy face. On something.
This week’s friday foto finder theme was “parcel,” and it turned out to be a theme that left me stumped. Since I can’t seem to come up with any photos of parcels tonight, instead I’ll offer photos of stumps.
A stump in Nara, Japan, 2004. (Yes, I know where I saw this stump.)
A stump in Beulah, Colorado in 2005 (I had help from my metadata to remember this stump.)
This one’s from 2011, according to my photo library metadata. I believe it is in New York state.
This stump is from Oakland, California from 2012. (Again, I remembered the location of this stump, if not the date.) (Also, if I had more images like it, I could make another post along the lines of these two.)
This one was from Massachusetts, later in 2012. It reminds me a bit of a volcano.
This one was from New York state as well, at a sculpture garden. (I confess I did not remember where I saw this stump, at least without checking back for other photos taken that day. Maybe there is some hope left for me.)
This one’s really more of a gnarled root than a stump. (From the Marin Highlands, in Sausalito, CA, 2014).
So there are a whole bunch of stumps. Indeed, one could say that I have presented a parcel of stumps. (If one were so inclined…) To see a parcel of potentially more parcel-like parcels, pay a visit to the fff blog.
collecting tokens 