SARATOGA SPRINGS NEW YORK – Still upstate. Francesca finished the bar exam today and Saratoga has given us about all that it has to offer. Here are a few last details from the Adelphi Hotel taken with my iPhone.
On this day one year ago: Lemarti’s Camp. In Kenya. I never really quite knew where we were here. A bit northwest of the beaten track. I couple of hours by bush plane from Nairobi, after meeting Maria after her climb of Kilimanjaro.
GLENS FALLS and SARATOGA SPRINGS NEW YORK – In Utah the 24th of July is a state holiday, celebrated sort of as a second Fourth of July. It commemorates the date on which Brigham Young arrived at the mouth of Immigration Canyon and said “This is the place”.
But we’re in upstate New York, not Utah, so no fireworks. We drove up to Glens Falls today to vist a lovely museum, the Hyde Collection. This is an excellent small collection of important European art assembled by two sisters in the early part of the 20th Century, and a terrific collection of Tiffany Glass. Apologies for the long post but this was an interesting day.
Here’s the central space in the collection captured with my Leica M9 and 24mm Summicron lens; two frames stitched in PTGui Pro.
The collection (which by itself was worth a drive up here) includes a current show by an artist named Stephen Knapp who does light painting creating colors with precisely shaped and oriented pieces of polarized glass. Taken with the same rig.
Back in Saratoga Springs I had some fun with my iPhone. Here’s a quilt in the Victorian pile of lumber that calls itself the Adelphi Hotel. It’s interesting because it is very similar to a quilt that we have in Connecticut – a quilt that we bought a church rummage sale and then spent a year and a fairly serious amount of money having restored. I’ll shoot it in Connecticut when we’re there next weekend and you’ll see the resemblance.
More fun with the iPhone in Saratoga:
Here’s a sculpture in Broadway (the main street) in Saratoga – I took this with my iPhone to be my screen backdrop in my iPhone – I got bored with gray.
As I said – this was a long day. Toward the end of the day I spent some time in Saratoga Spa State Park. In the 1930s the space facility was rebuilt on a grand scale (the scale of the complex reminds me of a Mayan temple complex at Monte Alban near Oaxaca). Good Depression era public works, but the scale is far larger than current demand so much of it appears to be in good condition but disused. Maria took a treatment, so I took some pictures with my ever-present Leica M9 and 24mm Summilux lens.
Moe of the same:
Enough of July 24 2012. On July 24, 2011: Hogmead. No kidding on the name. An inn in Nairobi.
VISCHER FERRY and SARATOGA SPRINGS NEW YORK – We took a hike and picnicked in the Vischer Ferry area – 20 minutes’ drive south of Saratoga – today. There’s a very pleasant trail that follows a towpath of one of the extensions of the Erie Canal. It started to pour just as we got back to the car. By the time that we got back to Saratoga there was one of those post storm moments with amazing light. I captured some images that are the first that I’ve really liked in Saratoga.
Here’s to towpath with my Leica M9 and 24mm Summilux.
Amazing light with same setup.
On this day last year: Nancy has a travel day.
SARATOGA SPRINGS NEW YORK – I guess we must be helicopter parents. Our daughter, Francesca, is taking the New York State bar exam in Saratoga next week so we drove up here to keep her company at meal times. Saratoga is warmed over from the gilded age – Diamond Jim Brady and C V Whitney are long gone, replaced by hordes in t-shirts. It’s the end of the ballet season and the start of the racing season. We stayed in a Victorian relic named the Adelphi Hotel. I’m not in love with any of the images that I’ve taken here.
The carousel in the park taken with my Leica M9 and a 24mm Summilux lens:
In the Adephi, taken with my Fuji X-Pro 1 and a 35mm Fuji lens:
On this day one year ago: Spence School.
