Four Heads Is Better Than Two

We carved jack 'o lanterns Sunday night and lit them up on the porch just to get things started. With my big metal Ikea serving spoon I can eviscerate a pumpkin in no time flat.

Can you spot the hidden ghosts in this picture?

Farmington Flow

Autumn leaves reflected in a long handheld exposure of the Farmington River, near Otis, Massachusetts.

Schnazzy Driveway

This is a snap from my Connecticut trip a couple weeks back.

Tannery Bridge crosses the Farmington River near Cold Spring, Mass. and leads to a private residence.

Eat your heart out, Madison County.

What's the Story, Morning Glory?

I snapped this out my plane window just at the right moment as we were descending to land in New York. We flew next to a vertical cloud which made a perfect backdrop for the airplane's shadow, surrounded by a glory.

I was excited to capture this because I thought it was a heiligenschein — and I really wanted to say the word heiligenschein — but a heiligenschein doesn't have a rainbow — that's what makes it a glory.

Autumn In the Air

Flying home to New York last Friday was a gorgeous sight!

Three-Hole Punch

If you're getting sick of seeing my MLK Memorial pictures, here's something completely different: my review of public restrooms at DC monuments and museums.

I do a lot of walking around in Washington, and in spots where I didn't think public restrooms existed, I am getting to know their secret hiding places. Spoiler alert: Martin Luther King officially has the freshest in DC. I have a dream!

There are some truly awful places to go. At the Air & Space Museum's restrooms every surface seems damp or wet. One minute you're looking at an amazing shuttle toilet that works in zero-G, and the next you're brought back down to earth deciding whether to chance it or hold it when you see their restrooms.

The Corcoran Gallery of Art doubles as a museum of antique plumbing.

The Washington Monument is off by itself in a field, so it's not obvious where its restrooms are, they're located in back of a small tickets building to the east. They're pretty new, though not heated in the winter, but a welcome sight if you've been out walking too long.

The Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials have restrooms hidden in their basements, which I didn't know the first time I went to each, and I had to shorten my visits accordingly. It's a decent walk to get to these, so this is nice to know relief is nearby. Jefferson's are nicer than Lincoln's.

This picture above is from the MLK men's room, where they have big mirrors — a total self-portrait magnet. As I was trying to get a shot of me actually in focus, another restroom patron walked in. There I was in front of the toilets with my camera out. Talk about feeling sheepish. I bugged out before anybody could call security.

MLK 4

I had a couple of extra lenses in my bag at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. I used them to try something new — pick out some key words from MLK's speeches that exemplified his goals, and tell his story in shorthand.

The lettering carved into the granite is exquisite. The font used is called "King" and was custom created for the Memorial by the stonecutter who carved the inscriptions. The gift shop book where I learned this fact also uses the font in print, but its spacing has been mangled. You would think it easier to manage letterspacing on a computer than in granite.

The rounded photos came from my 10.5mm fisheye, and for these I'm sticking it right into the engravings, less than a foot away. The photos that fade from sharpness to blur come from my 50mm f/1.4, which you can shoot at an angle to nicely throw backgrounds out of focus, but I had to back up quite a bit to frame the shots. Both of these are prime lenses — they don't zoom ... you have to zoom with your feet.

MLK 3

Engravings from the walls of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC. Walking through the place reading these quotations from his famous speeches, you realize what an important thinker he was, and how crucial he was to America.

I love this one, it transcends race in America, and also applies to events around the world:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."

MLK 2

MLK 1

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial is Washington DC's newest memorial, dedicated four days ago on Sunday. I wanted to be one of the first to see it ... and now you will too, dear readers!

You enter the memorial through a channel clear cut through the center of the Mountain of Despair. The giant slab missing is called the Stone of Hope and it is pushed into the center of the memorial; its back side bears a giant carved MLK statue looking over the Jefferson Memorial and the Tidal Basin. Granite walls on either side of the Mountain of Despair bear inscriptions from his famous speeches.

This was a touching place for me to visit. MLK was killed 8 days before I was born, and has always felt more contemporary to me than the presidents or war heroes usually memorialized in Washington, who have been dead a century or two. And unlike most of these others, he advocated for peace.

The Terrible Truth, The Beautiful Lie

Harkness Tower at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

I walked around for several minutes taking photos of the tower on the Old Campus before I stumbled upon a perfect break in the trees to use as a frame. I took one horizontal frame from this vantage point rather than the multiples I often do — I knew I had nailed it.

Ethical dilemma: the cutout in the trees was not as perfect as I'd like it to be. Is it OK to do some pruning in Photoshop? Or is that like telling a lie?

I strive to be an honest reporter of what I see. When I'm out photographing I'm very careful about framing ... I want to get it right in the viewfinder and tell the story accurately. To me, moving things around in a photo like this feels like lying. On the other hand I can spend hours at the computer messing with colors and brightness of my photos until they're perfect. But I do that because of limitations of what the camera can capture.

In this case I've converted my photo to black and white. Is that another lie? Because when I stood there the leaves were green and the tower was tan.

Am I nuts?

The Farmington

Autumn bordering the Farmington River, near Otis, Massachusetts.

Highway 8 meanders alongside the river at 45 mph through Otis and Roosterville, and it looks like there's not much water flowing through. But as you reach the Connecticut border the waterway opens up into a gorgeous blue lake surrounded by mountains, thanks to the Colebrook Dam.

Fishbowl

You're on display, too, at the Apple Store off Yale campus, New Haven, Connecticut.

They've started using iPad-based mini-kiosks next to each of their products to show specs and features — clever idea.

Lakeside

Waterfront home and rowboat on a golden afternoon. Taken from across the lake, at Becket, Massachusetts.

Becket

Greenwater Pond near Becket, Massachusetts. GPS took me on the scenic route to Connecticut for my class this week. Was it ever!

It's Fall In New York

It's been a gorgeous fall weekend in New York, the daily rain from last week has finally stopped and the weather has been warm and golden. This weekend was Stake Conference and we kept Carter and Claire occupied in the car Sunday by seeing what colors they could find in the trees as we drove into Albany.

I had work off for Columbus Day today, and Joanie and I took Carter and Claire apple picking in Burnt Hills this morning. They ran, picked, and explored — Carter found an excellent view of the orchard from atop a nearby hill. Joanie made apple pie tonight!

After a rest at home, I took the kids to the castle playground at Charlton Heights. On their playground blacktop we found a giant painted map of the U.S.; Carter quizzed me and Claire on state names using the legend, and we'd have to stand on the right spot. I had a perfect record until I mixed up Lakes Superior and Huron. Tricky boy!

Some dinner, baths, and Calvin & Hobbes, and they were wiped out. Truly the sign of a successful day.

Beautiful Disaster

The last few days have been really good in some ways, and extremely difficult in others. Like the worst. Not in just one area of my life.

But I'm usually an optimist. So I'm going to be biased towards the positive, and not rush too quickly into figuring out what it all means or what to do.

My friend Felicia foresaw some of this coming for me, and told me whatever the challenge is in my life, be thankful for how strong it will make me in the end. And that I have hundreds of friends that will be pulling for me. Wow. I haven't forgotten that.