Urban poetry

I took this photo with my phone while I was waiting for my car to be inspected a few months ago. I love the color and those shadows.

Urban poetry

Here are some fun shadows and geometries from my recent trip before I leave on the next adventure: a bridge over the Truckee River in Reno, and the San Francisco Bay Ferry terminal in Richmond.

Light and shadows

A bridge over the river in Ollantaytambo.

Astronomy Tuesday

This is the shadow of the Hayabusa2 explorer on the surface of the asteroid Ryugu, in October 2018.

Image credit: JAXA, University of Tokyo and collaborators

Urban poetry

I love the shadows on these benches in Central Park.

Insomnia

You know you're a photographer when....your reaction to being unable to sleep is grabbing your phone to take pictures of the shadows on the ceiling.

But that abstract was irresistible!

Shadows

Fire escapes always make spectacular shadows, but I love the way they form a rippling pattern over the curtains in that window.

Life in the time of coronavirus

When this is all over, there will be a flood of memoirs and reflections about the year(s) we all spent in quarantine, and I can already write some of them in my head -- how I learned to appreciate the small things and the dailyness of life, what I saw on my three hundred walks around my neighborhood, why Zoom is not real life.

I won't be writing them. But I have learned to love the views from my windows, and how weather and light and shadow and the seasons change the narrow slice of Manhattan which is all that I see most days.

Urban poetry

 

A pile of trash awaiting pickup on Tenth Avenue is a symphony of shadow and light and interesting shapes.

My tree in autumn

 No wasting time on spectacular crimsons and russets and golds for this tree -- the leaves go from green to brown without pausing for a colorful boast of beauty along the way.

I do love those shadows.

Urban poetry

 

Since Newfoundland feels like such a lovely respite these days, here's a tangle of wire, shadows and light in downtown St. John's.

My classes go until almost 10 pm on Wednesday nights, so when we take our break at 8:45 or so, I've started changing into my pajamas, brushing my teeth and crawling into bed for the second half of class. 

I took a photo of my living room and use that as my Zoom background, so it's not obvious that I've moved to the bedroom. (I don't think I'll be able to get away with the penguin pajamas when the weather gets colder, though.) I mentioned this ruse to another student in a breakout session, and she disabled her own background temporarily to show me that she was actually in bed with her dog.

Zoomworld definitely has its advantages.

Urban poetry

Another playground picture, this time in black and white to emphasize those glorious shadows.

It's some consolation to find that this world is still capable of so much random beauty.

Urban poetry

Flowers and shadows, from my living room window.

Urban poetry

Apparently I never got around to posting this picture -- a normal New York sidewalk on the West Side, last summer. Before.

I love those patterns of shadows. 

Two last photos from Norstead

Astronomy Tuesday

My battery is low this morning as I attempt to readjust to Eastern Standard Time, so I feel a real kinship with the late lamented Opportunity Rover.

Opportunity took this picture of its own shadow stretching into the Endurance Crater in 2004, shortly after the beginning of its amazing odyssey.

Image Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, JPL, NASA

Denver in (mostly) black and white

And welcome to the working week.

I'll post more of the art and architecture in Denver this week; in the meantime, here are some random shots I just liked in black and white.

Urban poetry

Between a ridiculous workload and the news that bringing the wiring in my kitchen up to code is going to add another $7000 to the renovation costs, it has not been a great week. (It goes without saying that on a national and/or world level, it hasn't been a great week for a while now.)

On the other hand, I leave for Santiago five weeks from tomorrow. And there will be no wi-fi or phone service on the ship to Antarctica -- it will just be me and my fellow adventurers and some icebergs. It's as close as you can get to radio silence in this modern world and I'm looking forward to it.

In the meantime, here are some fun shadows on Buckingham Palace Road.

Urban poetry

Lights and shadows in the (mostly) empty lobby of an office building on a Saturday.

Geometries

A bonus photo, and a shout-out to the reality-based community: neat triangles of light carved by the shadows on an iron fence on West 37th Street.

After all the abstracts I've been creating recently, there's something reassuring about patterns and the geometry of simple shapes. And you don't get much more reality-based than rivets on an iron fence.