Drove back to Pittsburgh this evening for Monday AM obligation. Details after the fact. Steve and I went to the Elbow Room around 8. He asked me if I wanted him to drive me to reshoot the Steel Mill at night before the trees are at full leaf. And on the way back home we got the red light at Woodstock and Braddock Avenue . Caught the Super 1 Convenient Store all lit up. No wet pavement tonight to reflect the lights.
Beco (long e) was one today. A first birthday party was held at the Columbus Zoo. We got there late in the afternoon. Saw the carved ice sculpture but not the creation of it. A piece of the trunk had broken off. He’s an Asian elephant.
Thursday night. Just finished shooting a poet for her chapbook photo at Frick Fine Arts. Started to rain. Stabilize camera on a sycamore tree. Experiment with wet pavement/light reflections. Cable remote so no camera shake. Cathedral of Learning behind. Enter stage left- Woman in a raspberry sherbet coat, a huge black umbrella strolls into line of vision.
Pittsburgh’s halls and lodges and posts. Just last week I was at the American Legion in Sheraden. This architecture is listed as Old Style. Arlington Avenue. I’ve never seen a pigeon race. Says the average race is 300 miles at the website American Racing Pigeon Union calling pigeons “the thoroughbreds of the sky”. City pigeons don’t seem particularly hygienic but I am sure the Racing Pigeons are tidy and groomed. Thinking about who belongs to this club, who races pigeons these days? Found an Australian site with pigeonpoetry– poems attached to 8 racing pigeons, a 60K, and bets on winner as a fundraiser, each bird with a flashy name-Old Man Time, Baron,Sydney PEN Shadow… who knew?
The curb used to be yellow, the losing ticket catches your eye. You lean over the curb,focus, see equal thirds in the composition. Shoot. Texture, line, shape, color, space, form. Art elements are everywhere in the world.
Stop on the way to school Pick up contractor bags to Spring clean the art room. They’re 3 ml thick. Return to the car and remember in 6th grade 1963 our teacher, Mrs. Winona Stewart, had us read Salutation to the Dawn from Sanskrit.. “Look to this day for it is iife..”
I wonder if it was part of the curriculum. Colors match the Home Depot and look fake. Rain left wet parking lot to catch the reflection.
This is the Monongahela Incline by Station Square, just across Smithfield Bridge. Travels at 6 mph so hard to get it focused with the shutter open to allow enough light.
Started Saturday at Sheraden’s Pancake Breakfast where Marianne is Kiwanis President. It would have been the daffodils in the milkwhite vase and the syrup bottle still-life, a plate of pancakes. Then drove north to Westview to document the 33rd Annual Eggmaking in West View. Multiple batches of fondant poured onto marble slabs, turned with what looks like giant putty or plaster knives, each egg dipped in a giant bowl of chocolate, left to dry on wax paper. A 25 pound bag of Domino sugar in the trash. Or today is grandson Jack’s third birthday and I washed all of his Dad’s and Uncle’s LEGO I finally found on the third floor. All color and suds photo in the farmhouse sink. This photo caught as the Duquesne Incline headed to the bottom station,freight train running under, shot from the gravel lot on Carson Street.
The usual view can be seen on the link listed.
Poetry Reading Bottlebrush Gallery Friday night. The gallery has a special function on the Third Fridays. Thirty miles north of Pittsburgh, on the Washington Trail is Harmony PA. Timons Esaias and Ziggy Edwards members of Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange were two of the readers after the music. Platters of fancy cheese, salami & pickles, cranberry bread, Yuengling and Yellow Tail. A full list of artists and craftspeople on the site- blown glass plates and Raku bowls, hanks of handspun /handdyed wool, jewelry , felted items, gorgeous shawls. art dolls. Furniture made from a walnut slab. Hand dipped beeswax candles. Maintain single lane. The Harmony Museum in the white brick after the gallery.
J drove me to this little park in Aspinwall, overlooking the Highland Park Bridge. No dogs allowed so she waited in the car. Shooting into the sun, the timing was off, so blocked the sun with a trunk. Plan to shoot the bridge from this vantage point a different day.
