Eclipse 2017
One day as Peg and I were shooting the suitcases I began to feel that one of my strobes was misfiring. They are very bright and it was impossible to look into it and see if one of the flash tubes was intermittent or not. Peg said that she thought that she had just the trick to be able to look at it when it was firing. On our next shoot, she showed up with these and they worked a treat. I stuck them back in my camera case and only remembered earlier today that I still had them.
We might have been the only people in the States with glasses from l’Eclipse du 11 août 1999. I love the look of happiness on Cristine’s face.
Protégez-vous les yeux indeed! Thanks Peg!
This kid was the best though. A “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” t-shirt and a welder’s mask. He came prepared.
Any Botanists Out There?
This will be quick as I am off to Rotterdam to work on the suitcases. I was walking the dog in the woods this morning and saw this beautiful object. Looks to me that the little black dots might be eggs of some sort. But oh, that green! Could any of you with botanist friends send this around? I’d love to know what it is.
Block Island
We took the ferry to Block Island today. This evening we walked down to Mansion Beach. Cris has a knack for finding the most amazing things on beaches. She found an iPhone once in South Carolina.
Tonight she found this.
And then she found the box it came in.
It appears to be some kine of weather device that was attached to a balloon.
Here’s the code number.
It’s in the back of the car now.
Here’s a sand castle about to disappear.
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.
Hand Dryer / Sumpter County, SC
Cris and I are back in South Carolina for a quick visit. On the way we stopped at a rest area on the 95 and as I was drying my hands, the dryer did something I have never seen before. Must have something to do with germs and ultraviolet light. I still had to wipe my hands on my trousers though.
Green Liquid
I am back in Brockport shooting at the College for a few days. The people here are always so nice and pleasant to be around. This beaker was in a lab in the department of Environmental Science and Biology. I didn’t ask what was in it, but the green color was quite lovely. It was in a bar in San Francisco last week and saw a small martini glass filled with something that looked just like it.
Transit of Venus
Cris and I took the Pearl for a walk early this evening and we stumbled upon an interesting crowd at the UMASS Sunwheel. It dawned on me pretty quickly that it had something to do with the “Transit of Venus“.
Some of the UMASS astronomy people were handing out these cool little eclipse viewers. Cris had a hard time seeing the dot, but I was able to pick it out at about the 1 o’clock position on the sun. (If you click the link above and look at the Wikipedia page, Venus was in a similar position.)
It is so great to live in a community where you can come across gatherings like this one, and it was so nice that the rainy weather cleared out just at the right time.
Bulbs
Cris and I planted bulbs in the garden 5 or 6 years ago. The daffodils continue to come up in droves, but this year only one tulip bloomed. I remember reading that tulips don’t last for more than a few years, but we had a pretty good run with them.
I have been keeping an eye on the tulip which initially bloomed about 2 weeks ago. I think the weather conditions this year have been almost perfect for the longevity of all of our flowers. About a week ago I noticed that one petal of our tulip started dropping and today it looked as if it was ready to fall off. It offered a perfect view of the important reproductive bits. I was never good at science in school, but the two words “stamen and pistil” come to mind. Am I even close?
Cushing Center
The suitcases project has opened a lot of doors for me. Jessica Helfand teaches a freshman seminar at Yale called “Studies in Visual Biography”. She is interested in (among other things) how ephemeral objects can tell a lot about the individual who owned them. Very early on she noticed my Kickstarter page and invited me to come down to New Haven to talk to the class. I went today and it was a blast. Afterwards Jessica took me to the Cushing Center at the Yale School of Medicine where neurologist Dr Harvey Cushing’s collection of brains resides. There is an amazing story about how the center came about, and the representation of his work and life are housed in a beautifully designed space. It is all very scientific, and not at all macabre. Well worth a visit.
ElementalManhattan / Pieper
This is my friend Richard Pieper. I took this photograph in the elevator of his building in the East Village back in January. (I think he is wearing earmuffs!) Pieper is a great friend and a very interesting fellow. Click here to see his latest project. It is truly amazing.
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
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