On our walk home from school.




On our walk home from school.
Kaleidoscope in Motion at Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Columbus Ohio. In the Children’s Garden. A perfect day to play outside as it was sixty degrees.
“A kaleidoscope (/kəˈlaɪdəskoʊp/) is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces tilted to each other in an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of the mirrors are seen as a regular symmetrical pattern when viewed from the other end, due to repeated reflection” Wikipedia
There are wild and elaborate decorations around town and outside of town,but here are a few simple ones.
There are ersatz graveyards in people’s front yards, witches flying in trees,skeletons and cobwebs on mailboxes and Halloween light strung on front porches.
People are going all out. A real Halloween Decoration Extravaganza.
These are a few simple decorations in Pittsburgh and from my sister Mary in Brooklyn NY.
Here’s a giant spider on the South Side of Pittsburgh
Regurgitated pumpkin within pumpkin across from Schenley Golf Course.
Mary sent these from Brooklyn on her phone earlier today
Not a sprig of evergreen or a single bulb at my house. Not an angel or a garland or candy cane.
And then I drive by this place! WHOA.
Serious decorations. I wonder where they store them the other eleven months. The traffic must stop as gawkers drive by. Like me.
By a friend’s special request, the first holiday house spotted and captured at night. Last year, or maybe it was the year before, I used to drive around and shoot inflatable turkeys and then Santas on rooftops and even an inflatable nativity scene and when I got out of the car I could hear the air blowing. Somehow I lost interest in this subject matter. On the way to Virginia, one lawn had 37 inflatables the inhabitants told me. After that spotting, I just didn’t feel moved to try and capture the blowing hot air filling the bright, colored cloth. Everyone had them on their lawn or so it seemed. I stopped saying, “Holy Cow, I can’t believe that display!” and raise my camera to shoot.
It’s not that I am Scroogella or anything. I enjoy other people’s efforts to brighten the darkness (and sunset comes before 5PM these days), I just got out of the “seeing” the decorations and photographing them. .
But I’m back- what else could I do? This scene could not be ignored.
These lights demanded my attention and capture.
But then
Sunday my friend V told me she saw this dump truck decorated with lights and declared it blog worthy. And I told her I’d already photographed it. Thought it was last year. And totally out of the blue, today my sister M sent me the dump truck photo I had emailed her two years ago. Pre-blog. This image is one taken in that series(2008). You’ll see it if you take the back road from Millvale to West View. My friend J is the one who actually drove me to see the truck in 2008t. Wait til you see the house she drove me to. Tom0rrow.
My creative and artistic friends host a great party! I like their imaginative use of the pink flamingo lights wrapped around the water cooler. Unique. I laughed out loud when I saw them.I had to look up the plural of flamingo and both o and oes are acceptable, posted in the order listed. The link states the birds are gregarious. I like that, too! I don’t have a water cooler or flamingo shaped lights but the combo looks fun to me.