Photographs and thoughts on photography and camera collecting
Yesterday was a sunny, Spring-like day with temperatures near 60F. Some people were wearing T-shirts! And then today….
Taken from our patio around noon today (when it was still snowing) with a Sony Alpha 500 DSLR and Tamron A18 AF 18-250mm f3.5-6.3 LD Di II Macro IF Lens.
Otherwise known as the ‘Snowdrop‘. According to Wikipedia the snowdrop
…is a small genus of about 20 species of bulbous perennial herbaceous plants in the family Amaryllidaceae. The plants have two linear leaves and a single small white drooping bell shaped flower with six petal-like (petaloid) tepals in two circles (whorls). The smaller inner petals have green markings.
Snowdrops have been known since the earliest times under various names but were named Galanthus in 1753. As the number of recognised species increased various attempts were made to divide the species into subgroups, usually on the basis of the pattern of the emerging leaves (vernation). In the era of molecular phylogenetics this characteristic has been shown to be unreliable and now seven moleculary defined clades are recognised corresponding to the biogeographical distribution of species. New species continue to be discovered.
Most species flower in winter, before the vernal equinox (20 or 21 March in the Northern Hemisphere), but some flower in early spring and late autumn. Snowdrops are sometimes confused with the two related genera within the tribe Galantheae, snowflakes Leucojum and Acis.
It’s been a fairly mild Winter so far and I’ve seen a lot of shoots already. However, this clump represents the first flowers that I’ve seen. I wonder how they’ll fare with the 3-5 inches of snow we’re supposed be get today.
When I was taking some color pictures using the Leitz 90mm Elmar f4 LTM (see: Leitz 90mm Elmar LTM in Color) I spotted this blue vase with some Baby’s Breath in it. I was going to take a picture of it with the background out of focus when I noticed the statuette in corner. This just about summed up its sad history and I decided to focus on the statuette instead and throw the foreground out of focus.
Many years ago my wife was in Thailand and bought a statuette (there’s a picture of it in The King and I“>The King and I) in a market outside of Bangkok. She really wanted two examples (so that she could put them up on one of our walls – not doubt framing some other object). Unfortunately carrying two such obects home from Bangkok was too much for her so she settled for one.
As it turned out I also went to Thailand soon afterwards so she asked get get a second one. When I got to Bangkok I asked a Thai colleague where I could get such a thing. She didn’t even seem to think that it was Thai. Maybe it was Cambodian? I was running workshop with participants from all over East Asia so off we went to a participant from Cambodia. No it didn’t look Cambodian. Maybe Laotian? Off to the Laotian participant. Not Laotian either. Maybe Burmese? According to the Burmese participant it wasn’t from her country either. Eventually another Thai colleague suggested that it was, indeed, Thai but from Chiang Mai in the far North of Thailand. Somewhere that I was not planning to visit.
I knew that I would be returning through Thailand soon afterwards en route to India and Nepal so my colleague suggested that she get hold of the statuette and that I pick it up on my next trip. This sounded good.
Shortly afterwards I was back in the airport in Bangkok where I met my colleague who passed to me a rather large, blue golf bag with the statuette inside it. It was significantly larger than our first one and nowhere near as nice. The first one was rather delicate and looked old. This one looked as if it had been made the week by inexperienced artists. I also realized that I would have to lug it to India and Nepal before I could return home with it. Anyway off I went to my flight to New Delhi where Indian customs asked me what was in the bag. I was completely flustered and merely said “It’s my luggage” immediately thinking that this was a stupid thing to say. Strangely, however, this seemed to satisfy the customs official who let me enter.
Eventually I got it home only to find that my wife didn’t like it. It was relegated to an out of the way part of our house in Briarcliff Manor. When we acquired our lake house it was taken there, put in this corner and almost forgotten (except when I vacuum and have to move it).
I was walking around in the village of Briarcliff Manor when I came across an amazing sight in front of a toy store: an enormous (at least 5ft. tall) stuffed giraffe. Remarkable though this was, even more striking was that it was wearing faded, yellow rubber boots.
It was also sporting a bright green hat!
This is the Old Municipal Building in Briarcliff Manor, the town where we’ve lived now for almost 20 years. This is the view from the rear showing the clock tower in all its glory. Briarcliff Manor has a truly excellent set of Wikipedia pages created by Michael Feist under the auspices of the Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough Historical Society
The Old Municipal Building was built in 1913 and opened in 1914.
The original bell from the Old Municipal Building is now on display in front of the modern Fire Station.
Fire department at the village municipal building, c. 1930. Source: Unknown courtesy of Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough Historical Society (Public Domain)
Above, a view of the front of the building as it looked in the 1930s. The lower level was the fire station.
The former fire station is now The Patio restaurant. The windows of the restaurant match the doors of the former fire station and the iron railings above are still place.
The first picture above was taken with a Sony RX100 M3 and the last two with a Sony NEX 5N and Sigma 30mm (45mm equivalent) f2.8 DN.
