Photographs and thoughts on photography and camera collecting
I came across this appealing composition in a friend’s garden.
The crane statue is a recent addition. I know this because it was one of the items being thrown out at the Law Mansion (See: Sunday Morning Walk Home from The Patio – Walter Law’s Mansion). I initially took this piece, but later decided that it would work better in her garden than in mine. So I gave it to her.
Taken with a Sony RX100 III
Early in his book “Photographing the World Around You“, author Freeman Patterson tells the story of Alice, a participant in one of his workshops. It’s a bit too long to re-tell here, but later on he provides this summary:
Remember Alice, whom you met earlier; she had so little confidence in her personal creativity that she automatically assumed every picture she made was, at best, competent. In her view, non-creative people canmake only non-creative photographs and, since she regarded herself as having no imagination, she felt incapable of improving her seeing and her photographs very much.
I am Alice…but not as much as I used to be.
This brick wall runs from what was once the entrance to Philips Laboratories, along Scarborough Road where it continues along Holbrook Road to a second entrance. Most Briarcliff Residents are familiar with the wall, but few know why it’s there.
Inside the wall there used to be a mansion owned by wealthy financier, James Speyer. The mansion stood in a 130 acres estate called Waldheim, which featured sprawling farmlands, a nine-hole golf course, gardens, and a lake. It was landscaped by the Olmstead Brothers, founded by John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. the nephew (and adopted son) and son of Frederick Law Olmstead the famous architect of New York’s Central Park.
On the nearest pillar in the first picture above (view looking East) you can make out the word “Wald” and on the nearest pillar in the second picture, below (view looking West) you can make out the word “Heim”.
After Speyer’s death in 1941 the estate was sold in 1946 to be subdivided into residential lots. Although the mansion is long gone, the wall and a few other ruins still remain to remind us that it once existed.
Taken with a Sony RX100 III
Almost home. Valentine Everit Macy (March 23, 1871 – March 21, 1930) was an American industrialist and philanthropist, involved in local government. In the 1910s and 1920s, he served in Westchester County, New York, as commissioner of the Department of Charities and Corrections, the Commissioner of Public Welfare, and as Commissioner of Parks. The building in the picture was once the gatehouse to his estate, “Chilmark”. For more on V. Everit Macy see: V. Everit Macy on the Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough Historical Society website.
Taken with a Sony RX100 III
All Saints’ Episcopal Church is a historic Episcopal church in Briarcliff Manor, New York. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. John David Ogilby, whose summer estate and family home in Ireland were the namesakes of Briarcliff Manor, founded the church in 1854. The church was built on Ogilby’s summer estate in Briarcliff Manor.
Richard Upjohn designed the church building, which was constructed from 1848 to 1854 and expanded in 1911. The church has several memorial windows, including one by John LaFarge and a rose window by Frederick Wilson of Tiffany Studio.
It’s the second oldest church in the Village and the oldest functioning church since St. Mary’s closed in the 2015. For more pictures see: All Saints Day Service at All Saints Church, Briarcliff Manor.
Taken with a Sony RX100 III