Pingry and Travel
I just spent the past four days shooting a project at the Pingry School in New Jersey. The days were very full, the work was great and since it was with my friends at the Herson Group, we enjoyed ourselves tremendously. / I have been photographing Peter Carroll jumping almost as long as I have known him (which is a very long time). And while I was living in Ithaca, I spent a lot of time photographing portable toilets, and had a very one sided postcard correspondence with The Portable Sanitation Association. These toilets were on the high end of comfort and I believe they were even air conditioned.
The spring is much further (farther?) along in New Jersey than it is in Massachusetts, and these dogwood blossoms were at their peak. Ours don’t even have leaves yet.
As I was driving through Springfield, the sky got really interesting and I pulled into a scenic area on the 91 to check out this beautiful rainbow. Not a great shot, but a lot of cars had stopped to watch it and there was a nice little collection of people taking in the scene. / Enjoy the weekend everyone.
Tiny Daffodils
Good morning everyone. The New York Times doesn’t come until after 9.00 on Sundays so I wander around waiting for it to show up. These daffs are just outside the back door so after my third time checking for the paper, I realized I should take a picture and post it here. / I am at the beginning of a week where I plan to spend maximum time in my studio cleaning, organizing, and generally getting rid of stuff I haven’t used in years. I started yesterday and it feels great. Back to shooting suitcases tomorrow and am very excited to be going with Ilan Stavans, as he has an interest in a particular case. Wishing you all a great week, and early delivery of your Sunday paper.
Wrong
I’m sorry, but this just seems wrong. Mid April and 3 inches of snow. I’m pretty sure these guys will survive though.
Found Earring
Cristine really likes earrings and when I travel, I will often pick up a pair for her if they are unique and not too expensive. On one of my trips somewhere in the vicinity of Lake Erie, I saw a pair made from glass that had been worn smooth by the action of the sand and waves. / About a month ago we went for a long snowshoe walk in the woods above our house. Later that day she realized that one of the earrings was missing. It always bums her out to lose one. I am usually optimistic about finding lost jewelry; it seems to be a Krieghoff family thing that has come down through the generations. My mom definitely had it and I got it from her. Late this morning I was outside just off the deck taking a leak and I looked down and saw this.
With all the freezing and thawing, it was stuck pretty well in ice, but I ran inside and grabbed a butter knife and dug it out. The non-silver metal loop is a bit rusty, but it will clean up nicely.
Oysters / Tilghman Packing Company
I had fun today photographing models of boats at the Tilghman Waterman’s Museum, as well as a great collection of oyster cans that Mark Sadler brought in. I really liked the typeface on this can, and the utensil on top was designed to open the can and then spoon out the oysters.
It rained very hard in the afternoon (tornado warnings for a bit) and then it cleared. Around sunset, more clouds came in and the light was beautiful. This shot was taken just off Bar Neck Road. When the tide is high and the wind is coming from the south, the road is often underwater. It has been a very wet winter on the island. / Ham and oyster dinner at the church tomorrow night and then into DC to see Peter.
National Museum of Natural History / DC
Peter and I had a great visit to the Museum of Natural History this afternoon. I wanted to show him the Hope Diamond and some of the other gems.
The big diamond was ok, but we were drawn more to the emeralds and rubies. This necklace was pretty cool.
These two pieces of chalcedony (quartz) were so cool; especially the green one. Amazing that this stuff appears in nature only to be found, polished, and put on display.
Cool elephant in the main foyer.
Not being much in the way of scientists, we didn’t understand a lot of what was going on in the genome exhibit.
When we told Cris we were going to the Natural History Museum, she said “Ooooh, dioramas!”
The guy here looks like he is hailing a cab in New York City. I have actually seen guys who look pretty much like him doing just that. When I was taking this photograph, a dad beside me was photographing his two kids and one of them said, “Daddy, I want to be a caveman.”
We kept coming back to the elephant.
We had an early dinner reservation at Mon Ami Gabi to celebrate Peter’s birthday. It was great. The escalator at the Bethesda station is enormous.
Back home tomorrow.
I-95
I was meant to be driving to DC as I am writing this, but due to the winter storm nailing the I-95 corridor, I ended up leaving last night. I stopped just North of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, got a room for a few hours and was on the road again by 6.30 this morning. It started snowing just after I parked in Peter’s apartment building in DC, and now at 2.15 it is really coming down. And cold to boot. I really wanted to make it here today as it is his 25th birthday. We’ll get to spend the whole day together and then go out to dinner somewhere in the neighborhood this evening.
Tomorrow I am off to Tilghman to shoot Chesapeake Bay related artifacts for the Watermen’s Museum. Originally Peter Carroll was going to be shooting video as well, but he basically had no safe way of getting here from Ithaca due to the weather. He and I have been working on the island on and off for over 5 years now and it is such an interesting place. / The second of his films about the watermen and their families will be shown on Maryland Public Television Tuesday, 23rd April at 8.30 PM. Here is a teaser. And here is a link to an earlier post of mine about one aspect of the project.
Paperwhites
A few years ago my sister Karen gave us some paperwhite bulbs and told us how to get them to flower. The process seemed to mysterious to me; put some dried up bulbs on some stones, add just enough water to cover the bottom of the bulbs and in a short amount of time…voila, you have the most amazing smelling flowers in your house. In winter! So we do it every year now. Give it a shot. It is a great way to brighten up a household.
Fog and Palm
Heading back North tomorrow. We had time for one last walk on the beach today, but had to bail. Very odd conditions. Foggy, misty, windy, and loud from the roar of the surf. It was very disorientating and made walking difficult. It was hard to stay balanced and the conditions made us both a bit dizzy. Went for a long walk away from the beach and it was nice. Had a bit of a thunderstorm late this afternoon to cap it all off.
Happy 2014 to you all.
Wing
There is a group (collective noun?….any help here?) of bobcats that live next to my brother’s house here in South Carolina. As I was out for my morning walk I saw this wing lying next to the road. I looked around and it seemed to be all that was left of the bird, which appears to me to have been a seagull. / Even though we are surrounded by nature all the time and so close to it in many ways, it is unusual to be so close to the cycle of predators and prey. It made me feel connected in a way that doesn’t often happen.
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
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