Photographs and thoughts on photography and camera collecting
Incredible though it may seem for someone living in Putnam County, NY this offering at the base of a statue was seen at a nearby Buddhist Monastery. What caught my attention was the contrast between the essentially monochromatic statue and the bright colors of the fruit; and the contrast between the smoothness of the fruit an the rough texture of the statue.
In a nearby park.
I’ve taken pictures of Bannerman’s Island from afar – from both the west shore and the east shore of the Hudson. I finally decided to see it up close and took the tour – the island is about a 25 minute boat ride from Beacon, NY and the tour leaves from right next to the Beacon Metro-North station. Although there’s not a lot to see on the island, what there is is interesting and you won’t find anything like it anywhere else in the lower hudson valley. So to me the tour was worth it. The guides give lengthy descriptions of the history of the island, of Francis Bannerman and over the castle like buildings (actually they are arsenals). I’m sure I would have been more interested in the descriptions had I not recently attended a presentation on Bannerman’s Island at the Briarcliff Manor Historical Society
Crumbling arsenal buildings. Note the metal buttresses. About 40-50 percent of the arsenal buildings have collapsed in recent years.
According to “Scots and Scots Descendant in America. D. MacDougall. New York, April 10, 1917. Part V – Biographies“:
FRANCIS BANNERMAN, the noted merchant and authority on war weapons, is the sixth Frank from the first Frank Bannerman, standard-bearer of the Glencoe MacDonalds, who escaped the massacre of 1692 by sailing to the Irish coast. His descendants remained in Antrim for 150 years, intermarrying with Scottish settlers. In 1845, Mr. Bannerman’s father removed to Dundee, Scotland, where Francis VI was born, March 24, 1851. He came with his parents to the United States in 1854 and has resided in Brooklyn since 1856. The eldest son in each generation is always named Frank. The surname originated at Bannockburn, where an ancestor rescued the clan pennant, whereupon Bruce cut off the streamer from the Royal ensign and conferred upon him the honour of “bannerman.”
Young Francis left school at ten, when in 1861 his father went to the war. He secured employment in a lawyer’s office at two dollars a week, each morning, before going to the law-office, supplying with newspapers the officers of the warships anchored off the Brooklyn Navy Yard, near his home. Summer evenings, after work hours, he dragged the river with a grapple for bits of chain and rope, which he sold to junkmen. When his father returned disabled, he became a dealer in the material the boy collected, with a storehouse at 18 Little Street, also attending the Navy auctions, and later established a ship-chandlery business at 14 Atlantic Avenue. Frank went back to school for a time and won the scholarship for Cornell University, but could not accept owing to his father’s war disability requiring his assistance in carrying on the business.
A large-scale work by Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro. According to the MuseumPublicity website:
Pomodoro has described The Pietrarubbia Group as “a vision of an archaic settlement.” With its visual references to ancient burial traditions and hieroglyphics, the work commemorates the history and crumbling beauty of the nearly abandoned village for which it is named.
The Pietrarubbia Group comprises a patio upon which stand two grand, slab-like bronze doors that visitors can move, providing access to the work’s interior. Expansive areas of the doors and the wall beyond them are incised with patterns that resemble ancient signs or writing, giving symbolic voice to the forgotten society that once occupied Pietrarubbia. A somber line from a poem by Eugenio Montale, Lo sai: debbo riperderti e non passo (“You know: I must lose you again, and I cannot”) is inscribed on the reverse side of one of the doors.
Front Facade.
I’ve posted about Northgate before in Former Stern/Cornish Mansion: Northgate , a ruined mansion just north of Cold Spring, NY. Although the ruin was essentially unchanged other things were different: Different time of year (May rather than December); Different Season (Spring rather than Winter) and perhaps most importantly a different camera/lens combination. The last time I was there I had my Nex 5N with a Nikon 50mm f1.8. While this is a decent combination it wasn’t entirely the right one in this case. The 50mm lens is equivalent to 75mm on my Nex. Unfortunately the woods came close to the ruins so it was hard to get a wide enough view of the mansion without going into the trees and having them obscure your view and clutter up the picture. This time I had the RX100 with its 28mm-100mm lens. This was fine for the wide angle shots.
In addition to the wider views I tried to find some new viewpoints and even some areas of the ruins that I had missed (e.g. the swimming pool) before.
The old swimming pool.
Ruined Mansion from the Swimming Pool
Steps to the Front Facade.
Interior.