Photographing Children

I sneaked behind this nice tableau to record a man photographing a family.

After posting this, I looked at it this morning and decided to re-crop it tighter, in the second photo.

What would you do?  Show the context, as in the first photo, or crop to focus on the area of interest?

Dads and Sons

I should have waited until Fathers Day, but it is too far away.  So, here are two recent photographs of fathers and sons.

Boat Building

This is a curved, two-sided building, called locally "the boat building."  The two surfaces meet at the right of the building in the top photograph and again on the riverfront side (not shown).  To understand the shape, visualize a lens.  The second photograph gives a better view of the way the two sides meet.

 It was completed in 1961 for Phoenix Insurance Company, still the building's main tenant.

Floral and Flourishing West Hartford Center

This is to honor the recently departed summer season.

The sidewalks lining West Hartford Center have been loaded with planters.  Is it like that where you are?

Fall is here -- and it is finally raining after a severe drought in August and September -- so I guess I needed to post a final reminder of summer.

Red Hot Chilli Pipers

The Red Hot Chili Pipers -- a Scottish rock bagpipe band -- were the featured performers at yesterday's Pipes in the Valley Celtic Music Festival.  They were energetic and fun.

The festival was held at a pavilion on the banks of the Connecticut River in downtown Hartford.

The band played two sets, first in the afternoon and then the last set of the night.

Trinity Bell Tower

You saw the Trinity College Chapel and its bell tower earlier this month.

After giving Trinity a break for a couple of weeks, I thought it woul be OK to show the bell tower again, illuminated in the early evening.

OK.  Enough for Trinity for a while.  It might be time for the University of Hartford or the University of Connecticut.

Weekend Reflections: Connecticut Childrens Medical Center

A view at the regional children's medical center.  Looking in the windows and seeing the nearby pennants, trees and streetlights.

Colt Park

Samuel Colt was an important arms maker in the 19th century.    The Colt .45 pistol is the one most associated with Colt Manufacturing.  I know very little about firearms, so I will refer readers to Wikipedia, since, as you know, everything on the internet is true.

This is part of a statue in the Hartford park honoring him.  The youth represents Colt when he was a young sailor.  Above him is the main statue of Colt   as a powerful industrialist.  I don't like that part of the statue, so I didn't photograph it.

The Whale

Last month I posted about an effort to drum up fan support for a return of major league professional hockey to Hartford.  We had a team -- the Hartford Whalers -- until the team's new owners moved them to North Carolina in 1997.

Yesterday the first step toward that goal was announced. The Whalers' original owner reached agreement with the New York Rangers to manage the Rangers' Hartford-based minor league hockey team.  And . . . they will bring back the name in part, in the form of the "Connecticut Whale."  If they develop a big enough fan base, in a few years an attempt will be made to secure a major league NHL franchise.

I can hear Brass Bonanza playing already.

Institute for Living

The Institute for Living (on Retreat Avenue) has in-patient and out-patient psychiatric services.  (I know this from reading it, not from personal experience!)

The campus combines older cottages and newer facilities.

A Better Christopher Columbus

I'm back.  Yesterday's statue of Christopher Columbus wasn't very good, was it?

I spent the last 11 days in Italy:  Cinque Terre, the Ligurian coast, Chianti and Florence.  Here are two photos of a much better statue of Christopher Columbus, in a park on the waterfront of Santa Margherita Ligure.

Christopher Columbus

Hartford has no particular connection with Christopher Columbus, but, like many American cities, we have a statue honoring him.

Geometry

The owners of this power plant did a pretty good job of fitting a power plant into the middle of a community.

In addition to the brick facing, I particularly like the sharp angles.

Weekend Reflections: Mirrors Again

Here are some more mirrored reflections from the antiques fair I visited recently.

I like the three different sizes of the people in the first mirror.  And, in the second photo, I like the idea of looking through an empty frame toward the sky, but then realizing that a sky shouldn't be there.

My self-portrait is in the last mirrors.  For more Weekend Reflections, click here.

(I am traveling and return home Sunday night.  Sorry if I am slow in responding to any comments.)

Ladies of the Court

The state courts and state library are housed in an attractive and stately but fairly plain building.

But, the architect DID have an eye for attractive ladies, even though he placed them up high where they are hard to spot.

Fire Escape

Multi-family apartment buildings are required to have fire escapes.

So long as you have to have one, you might as well try to make yours beautiful, right?

(I am traveling through the weekend, so I apologize if I am slow in responding to any comments.)

Sarah Cosgrove

One of my first posts in July told about the start of the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, encouraged and funded by the father of a young deaf girl, Sarah Cosgrove.

Today the school is in West Hartford, but it was originally founded in downtown Hartford.

This statue of Sarah Cosgrove is in a small triangular park at the intersection of Farmington and Asylum Avenues, near the original location of the school.

ASD was first called the Deaf and Dumb Asylum.  Isn't "Asylum Avenue" an appropriate reminder of  the area's history?

Cow Parade

Having a herd of creatively painted cows on your town's main street is a lot of fun.  The first time.  And the second time.  It is OK the third time.  But . . .

West Hartford is the home of Cow Parade Holdings, the promoters of similar events around the world.

For those who are unfamiliar, a city or town enlists artists to decorate the cow blanks imaginatively.  Corporate sponsors put up funding.  The painted cows are installed around town amid parties and fairs and other civic events.  They give a city a festive feeling for a couple of months,  Afterward, the painted cows are auctioned off, with the proceeds going to charitable organizations.

I do feel like a grinch, but I think I have seen enough painted cows.

(I am traveling and don't return until the weekend.  Sorry if I am slow in responding to any comments.)

City Arts and Theater Works

Theater Works operates a "black box" theater production company in the basement of a renovated gas company building, on the right.  The theater is just a block or two from the center of the downtown, on Pearl Street.  About one year ago, they entered into an arrangement with the New Britain Museum of American Art to provide rotating works of art for exhibition in an adjoining space.  Together, the performance space and the exhibition space are called City Arts on Pearl.

Weekend Reflections II: Sails

OK, this one is a puzzler.  What is going on here?

At the antiques fair I visited last weekend, one dealer had a recreational vehicle parked next to his tent.  On the RV's dashboard, he had placed a large model of a sailboat for sale.  By moving my camera a little higher, I was able to capture both the sailboat and reflections of exhibitors' tents on the same line, along with great clowds.

I kind of like this one.

For more Weekend Reflections, click here.

(I am traveling, so please excuse me if I am slow in responding to comments.)

Weekend Reflections I: Mirrors

There are lots of mirrors at antiques fairs.  I liked the way the top photo makes it appear that the couple in the right mirror are looking disapprovingly at the woman in the left mirror, even though they were actually in different locations and had nothing to do with each other. 

In the second photo, I waited until the couple strolled into view of the larger mirror, hoping to make it appear that they were at the table behind it.

For more Weekend Reflections, click here.

(I enjoy reading your reactions to my photos, but now I am travelling, so please don't be offended if I don't respond to your comments for a while.)

Real Art Ways

Real Art Ways is an innovative, experimental, entrepreneurial, avant garde art presenter and promoter.  They occupy a large brick building in Parkville, a previously industrial part of Hartford that has fallen on hard times.  RAW's energy and vision have been turning many of Parkville's previously abandoned factories into arts spaces or other new and productive uses.

School Yard Sculpture

I looked around and couldn't find the name of the sculptor or the name of the statue.  But, it does seem appropriate for the yard of two schools, one for mathematically and scientifically-focused high school students and the other for arts-focused students.

His Master's Voice: Barry Manilow?

I am not old enough to remember the RCA ads with a dog cocking his ear toward a victrola, as he hears his master's voice.  But, I have seen them.

We went to an antiques fair on Saturday.  This dealer specializes in collectible music, music players and related items.

Lafayette

The Marquis de Lafayette was a great favorite of the Americans.  He was young, handsome and dashing, and became a friend of George Washington.  The French were pivotal in the Colonists' victory over the British in the American Revolutionary War.  The original of this statue is in the Louvre.  This replica stands in a small triangular park among state government buildings in Hartford.   Lafayette's sword is raised in salute to the state Capitol.

Trinity College Clock Tower

The clock tower on the right is another of Trinity College's signature buildings.  To the left is a building at the end of Long Walk, which houses members of the faculty and administration.  The clock tower is Downes Memorial and the administrative/faculty building is Williams Memorial.

Long Walk: They're Coming Back

I went back to Trinity Friday night.  Trinity has Hartford's best movie theater for foreign, classic and independent films.

Here is Long Walk again.  This time with the streetlights lit and this time with college girls.

Weekend Reflections: Window Shopping

Shopping in, at and around a housewares store.  I am still learning about capturing reflections . . .

For more Weekend Reflections, click here.

Trinity College Chapel

The College Chapel building is one of the most prominent on the campus of Trinity College.  The carillon (bell tower) can be seen above the skyline for miles around.

Freshmen and transfer students are scheduled to arrive on the Trinity campus today.  The serene atmosphere shown here in photographs from last week will not last long . . .

Theme Day: Connecticut Grown

Greater Hartford has numerous small farmers markets, opening on different days of the week.  Most emphasize locally grown products.

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