Elizabethan Consort

The University of St. Joseph in West Hartford hosts an outdoor Shakespeare festival every summer.  Before one of last weekend's performances, the Elizabethan Consort performed.  They are an a cappella quartet.  This singer was particularly expressive.

Score!

These days we are connected to electronics all the time.  It seems that we spend the whole day staring at screens.

But now and them I see guys at a school playground playing a simple game of basketball, just like I did many decades ago.

Two Restaurants

Taste of Hartford is going on for two weeks.  Participating restaurants offer an appetizer, entree and dessert for $20.13.  I went to Peppercorns, a restaurant on Main Street.  The dining rooms have a mural of imagined Italian scenes, so I am linking this post to Monday Murals.

About a month ago I posted a photo of the Union League Cafe in New Haven that I took last fall.  Two weeks ago I went back to the restaurant.  While waiting for friends to arrive, I wondered how it would look if I shot through a couple of glasses.  iPhone again.

Really Red

The Spigot is a Prospect Street bar.  It was repainted a month ago.  

It was already bright red.  Now it is really bright red.

Fireworks!

The reason I went to the riverfront last Thursday was to view the fireworks and to practice photographing them.  The previously scheduled July 4 fireworks had been postponed because the water levels were dangerously high.

I wanted to catch fireworks cascading over the Hartford skyline, but I was too close to the barges where the fireworks were ignited, so most of the fireworks were too high in the sky.  But, here are a couple of images that turned out OK.  I learned a few things about photographing fireworks that I can use next year.

The Riverfront at Night

Last Friday I showed a sunset over downtown Hartford, with reflections on the Connecticut River.  This is how it looked an hour later, around 9 p.m.  This is also straight out of the camera, without editing.  To see more photographs with reflections, click here for James' blog Weekend Reflections.

Venice VII

Venice was LOADED with tourists.  As a tourist myself, I was not in a
good position to complain about the number of people crowding into San Marco, was I?

But, some places were not as crowded.

And photography was prohibited in some of the most spectacular places.
I must have inadvertently brushed against the shutter button.

Smile!

At a farmer's market in Farmington, Debby showed off both her winning smile 

and her shirts with the "Whoever smiles wins" motto.

Debby is a calligraphic artist who designed the shirts.  They are made from a mix of hemp
for durability and organic cotton for softness.  The more you wash them,
the softer they get.  The letters are stitched, not printed.

Buy them here.  (Nothing in it for me, just giving a plug for a friendly
entrepreneur who has a nice natural product.)

Student Artists in Korčula

Korčula is a very pretty small fortified Croatian town on an island of the same name in the Adriatic Sea.  The interior streets are quite narrow.  I ran across a dozen students taking an art lesson in one of those streets.

The Busway

If political or financial rants bother you, go away and come back tomorrow.

Connecticut is spending $567 million to build a 9.4 mile busway from downtown Hartford to downtown New Britain.  (The feds are paying about 80 percent of the total, but that is us, too.)  That is $60 million per mile for a busway that will have few riders.  Yes, it is providing 4,000 construction jobs, but any public expenditure of $567 million is going to create temporary jobs.  And add to the tax burden.

I need to take some blood pressure pills.

Remember Sue?

Sue is a blogger from greater Hartford who let me show five of her Connecticut photos while I was in Florida last winter.  She has a gardening blog -- Idyll Haven -- focusing on the extensive plantings in her yard in Wethersfield.  One photo I "borrowed" showed her yard after the 23 inch snowstorm in February, which sure looks refreshing after a six day heat wave!  In midsummer Sue's amazing garden looks like this:

The Russian Lady

For 21 years, The Russian Lady was the hottest bar in downtown Hartford.  It was behind the Civic Center where the Hartford Whalers played hockey and the University of Connecticut played basketball.    But, in 1997 the Whalers announced that the franchise was moving to North Carolina and the bar closed.  Its contents were sold off.  The biggest loss was the sale of the 16-foot bronze "Mother Russia" statue that sat atop the building.

Two years ago the bar reopened with a new owner.  Many of the original furnishings were repurchased and installed.  "Mother Russia," however, was in a New York hotel and could not be bought back.  So, the owners of The Russian Lady had a replica made.  Today it watches over the bar's patrons.

Sunset

Last night I went to the riverfront.  The sun was setting over downtown Hartford and casting reflections of the skyline on the Connecticut River.  This photo is straight from the camera, with no editing.

If you like photos with reflections, please visit James' blog, Weekend Reflections. This post is also linked to Skywatch Friday.

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Yesterday I was asked why so many cities have a train station called Union Station.  Google and I looked into that question.  Union Station is one in which many different railroad lines share a single terminal.  You can read about that here.

Union Station

Amtrak trains come through downtown Hartford a dozen times each day.  The train station is a brownstone Richardsonian Romanesque structure from 1889.  At the near end, Hot Tomatoes operates a bar and restaurant.

Zadar

Zadar is a coastal city in Croatia.  

Young boys everywhere love to dive.  I sure did.

Few of them have as nice a setting.

(Yes, Susie, I would have told him to keep his legs together and straight and
point his toes if I were closer and if I spoke Croatian.)

Connecticut Yankee

This distinguished gentleman was patiently sitting in a store waiting for his wife to finish shopping.

"You have a perfect New England face," I told him.  "Please tell me you weren't born in Wisconsin."

"No," he said.  "I am a physician and I was born in Hartford, one of the few still remaining."

I want to be his agent.  There must be a market in Hollywood for classic Connecticut Yankees.

Black and white?  I know, I know.  Usually my photos are in color, but he was sitting next to a boring beige wall.  I asked him to call me next time he was sitting next to a dark blue or red wall and we both had a good laugh.

Heaven

"Heaven" is the informal name for an out-of-the-way park at the edge of Hartford's downtown.  It is a barren concrete space used by skateboarders (and vagrants).  The City has unfunded plans to spruce it up and install a real skateboarding facility.  Meanwhile, there is a tussle between "legitimate" street artists, who paint authorized murals, and vandals  taggers who spray paint junk.  Currently just about every surface is covered with graffiti.  Expensive downtown offices overlook the park, and the owners of these buildings are not happy with the view.

The City is proposing to permit "art" only on two of the big, formerly blank walls.  In my opinion, it is too late to put the cat back in the bag.  But, I would like to be wrong.

This post is linked to Monday Murals.

Asylum Avenue Baptist Church

This small Baptist church in the Gothic Revival style was built in 1896.

Yes.  I did wait for the pedestrians to space themselves across the front of the church.
I was a split-second too quick with the shutter button, but a car was about
to enter the scene from the right and I couldn't wait any longer. 

Yard Sale

After thirty-three years in the Connecticut house, a yard sale is exactly what I need!!!  

Maybe later in the summer.

A Bicycle Built for Two

Recently I was driving in my neighborhood.  I passed a man on a bicycle with his young child on the trailer bike behind him.  It was one of those cute "can't miss" scenes.  So, I pulled my car over, rolled the window down, and waited for him to pass me.

Instead he turned in the opposite direction, pedaling away from me.  I quickly aimed for the rear view mirror and -- voila! -- here is another photo for James' regular Friday feature, Weekend Reflections.

No Names

A couple of days ago, my camera and I were walking on Albany Avenue in the North End, the heart of Hartford's African American community.  This young woman wanted to know why I was taking pictures, so I told her about my blog.  She let me take her photograph, but she didn't want to give her name.  Nor did the other people who lined up for their portraits while I was taking Ms. No Name's photo.

The Chicken Coop

These days daughter Susie and her husband Wes work in Johannesburg but offset the stresses of corporate-type jobs by enjoying a small farm in the countryside on nights and weekends.  They are accompanied by two dogs, three sheep, numerous guinea fowl and -- at the stables next door -- six horses.

That isn't enough.  Here are her latest iPhone photos.  Last weekend work began on constructing a coop so they can add some chickens and have their own fresh eggs.

Believe me, this is not how Susie lived back in West Hartford, Connecticut.  South Africa is a long ways off, in so many ways.

Art Walk

Art Walk, the third floor gallery of the Hartford Public Library, is exhibiting vibrant works by JoeSam.  He left a job as a municipal government administrator in San Francisco to become a full time mixed media artist.  JoeSam now lives in the Hartford area.  The exhibition -- Art For the Rest of Us -- continues until August 9.

It is Day Lily Season in Hartford

And daisy season.

Red Dress 5K Race for Women

The annual Red Dress 5K Race for Women was yesterday.  It began in Elizabeth Park, wandered throughout my neighborhood in West Hartford, and then ended back in the park.  The race draws attention to heart disease in women.  It is always colorful.

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And . . . Ta Da! . . . today I introduce "Naples and Hartford in Season."  These days I spend more time in Florida and on the road than I do in Connecticut.  For a couple of years I have posted Hartford photos from Florida from October through May.  Increasingly I have been including photos from my travels.  As the header indicates, the two anchors of the blog will be Naples, Florida, and Hartford, Connecticut, so now I can be more above-board about posting from wherever I might be.

Regular viewers do not need to change the link.  I am using the same url I used when this blog was Hartford Daily Photo.  But from now on, the blog will have more freedom to travel around with me.  Please fasten your seat belt and join me on life's adventures!

Rose Arches

Three years ago today, the first post on this blog appeared.  I showed a plot of roses in Elizabeth Park, the wonderful municipal park and garden two blocks from my West Hartford house.  No one looked at it and, of course, no one commented.  That was OK.  I just needed something to do after I retired, which had happened six days earlier.

The blog is still here and these days far more people visit every day than I ever expected.  Isn't that cool!

Thanks for visiting and for letting me know what you think.

Out of the Jurisdiction: Venice VI

Back to Venice for another window reflection.  Do you know the tale about the unicorn under the bridge?  Neither do I, but there should be one . . .

Like reflection photos?  Visit James' website, Weekend Reflections.

Greeting the Fourth of July

The building housing the historical society in Duxbury, Massachusetts, is on Washington Street, on the parade route for the Fourth of July parade.  The historical society is ready.

Last night on a Duxbury beach the neighbors lit a bonfire and put on quite a fireworks show!

Applied Relaxation

VP operates a fine blog in Livorno, Italy, that shows benches from around the world.  And Malyss in Nice, France, has a second fine blog about benches.  This is a bench that I saw on a college campus in Providence, Rhode Island, at the end of May.

Wouldn't you love to have the Rheta Martin Chair of Applied Relaxation named after you?  If your name were Rheta Martin, of course.

Out of the Jurisdiction: Venice V

Last week I wrote that my hotel in Venice was just north of Piazza San Marco and overlooked a canal.

Did I also mention that you can arrive and depart in water taxis?  And that you get into the water taxi -- or a gondola -- by crawling through a window in the sitting room?

Locanda Orseolo.

Façade

A building's façade is its principal front.  A façade is also a false front
maintained to hide a less desirable scene behind it.
This one is in West Suffield, Connecticut.

On the first day of each month, City Daily Photo bloggers post photos illustrating a theme.  

This month's theme is "façade."  To see other interpretations, click here.