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

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.

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.

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

Soccer (or Football)

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

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.

Spilled Paint

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

Linked to Monday Mural.

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.

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. 

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 . . .

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.