Camargo Arcade

I have told you before how much I love Jane's Restaurant, on 13th Avenue South, just off 3rd Street South.  I walked past an entrance after the lunch hour and got a different perspective.

Downtown Fort Myers

I walked around Downtown Fort Myers.

Fort Myers is the county seat of Lee County, which broke away from Monroe County (for which Key West is the county seat) in 1887.  It was named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who is honored by a statue in a median strip in Monroe Street.  Florida is definitely a Southern state.

It is fitting that a nearby statue of a Florida panther is in danger of falling apart. The Florida panther is on the endangered list.  Only about 200 remain.  Every year about 30 die in collisions with cars.

Housing developments are encroaching on the natural habitat of the panther.

A statue honoring the 2nd Regiment Infantry, U.S. Colored Troops, is in a waterfront park.  In February 1865 Confederate soldiers attacked Fort Myers but were repelled by the 

U.S. Colored Troops defending the city for the Union Army.

Uncommon Friends by local sculptor D. J. Wilkins shows winter residents Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone and Thomas Edison relaxing around a fire in a reflecting pool.

Haley is a high school girl.  She was posing for her friend Kristin, who has a new camera.  They saw mine and asked for suggestions.  I suggested that Kristin come in closer to fill the frame with
Haley's face and that Haley remove all emotion from her expression.  Like this.

Baseball!

The Boston Red Sox start their season tomorrow in Boston.  Last weekend I went to one of the
last spring training games at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers.

Center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. hit a home run.



Inside the fences, the field is a replica of Fenway Park in Boston. The stands are far more modern.



The early weeks of spring training are for evaluating the new players and getting the regular players into condition.  Late in the season, the regulars are playing.



There is plenty to entertain the crowd before the game.



A statue of Hall of Fame player Ted Williams giving his cap to a young boy stands near the entrance.

All Wet

The garden of French Impressionist painter Claude Monet in Giverny, France, is probably
wonderful at all times, but it seemed extra special in heavy rain in 2015. 

 Raindrops pounded the lily pads, so I put away my big camera and took pictures with my iPhone.  The heavy rain on the lily pads gave the scene the feel of Monet's famous lily pad paintings.

On the first day of each month, City Daily Photo bloggers show photographs on a theme.

For April, the theme is "All Wet."  Click here for other interpretations.

Everyone is at the Beach

This is the time of year when the kids and grandkids visit Naples.

Naples Beach is pretty crowded.  And colorful.

Ann Hamilton: Phora

The Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at Florida SouthWestern College recently showed 120 images of mouths taken from carved medieval figures in a Stockholm museum.

"Phora" means "voices."

Great art?  Probably not, though the artist -- Ann Hamilton -- has won numerous honors and has exhibited at important museums.  Still, it caught the eye.  The literature for the exhibition 

indicated that it was supposed to stimulate conversations about public speaking.

Arturo

I first visited Arturo Samaniego more than two years ago.  I was impressed by his realistic paintings.  These days Arturo is experimenting with abstract paintings.

Here, he stands in front of two recent abstracts with a realistic painting in the background.