Photographs and thoughts on photography and camera collecting
We’d been walking around for some time and were feeling a little footsore and hungry, so we headed off toward where we were to have lunch – you can see the building in the background.
On our way there we passed this delightful Cascade.
Taken with a Fuji X-E3 and Fuji XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OSS II
The Grounds for Sculpture website describes the gardens as follows:
In 1984, J. Seward Johnson, sculptor and philanthropist, envisioned a public sculpture garden and museum in Hamilton, New Jersey. His desire was to make contemporary sculpture accessible to all, offering visitors the opportunity to become comfortable with contemporary art through a progressive and self-directed journey.
In 1986, an architectural competition was held for the design of a sculpture park to be located at the old New Jersey State Fairgrounds. The site, which had been abandoned for years, was derelict and barren except for three dilapidated exhibition buildings and fifteen gnarled maple trees. Brian Carey of AC/BC Associates in New York City was selected to be the Project Architect.
Grounds For Sculpture (GFS) was envisioned as a place to exhibit sculpture and as a garden and arboretum. The design included formal and informal aspects. Paved terraces, pergolas, and courtyards juxtaposed natural woodlands, ponds, and bamboo groves. Expanses of lawn were delineated by sculptured rose-covered berms.
Landscape construction began in 1989. Since then over 2,000 trees, representing more than 100 species and cultivars, have been planted. In addition to typical nursery stock, many plants were collected from estates and abandoned nurseries, or were salvaged from construction sites. Many of the rare and unusual trees you find here today were selected by Carey and Bruce Daniels, former GFS Facilities Director and Project Manager.
GFS opened to the public in 1992. Since that time, it has welcomed over three million guests. The sculpture park, which started on 15 acres with 15 works of art on display, has expanded to 42 acres containing nearly 300 contemporary sculptures across the ever-changing landscape. It is a work of art itself.
The interplay between sculpture and horticulture is an important part of the vision for GFS. In founder Seward Johnson’s words, the hope is that GFS will “fill people everywhere with the emotional sustenance derived from the powerful and restorative connection between art and nature.”
A complete list of Horticultural Highlights can be found here.
Taken with a Fuji X-E3 and Fuji XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OSS II
Up until now my attempts at infrared photography have focused on black and white. This time I thought I give false color infrared a try.
I don’t really know much about this method, and I’m not sure that it really appeals to me. Still, it’s early days. With practice, maybe I’ll get to like it more.
Taken with a Sony F828 and fixed Zeiss 28-200mm f2-2.8
I was going through some boxes and I came across these old pictures. So I quickly scanned them.
Above: Tübingen, Germany where I studied in the early 1970s.
Although I’m not entirely sure, I think the camera I used was a Minolta Hi-Matic 7sII. Great camera. I still have it.
I’d been reading extensively about infrared photography, and was now more comfortable – comfortable, but not yet good. I had a least figured out how to create a custom white balance using the Adobe DNG Profile Editor.
So I went for a walk around my neighborhood. The weather was not really the best for infrared photography. It was very cloudy, and only rarely did the sun appear. I became convinced that the pictures would be no good and decided to go back the same locations in better light and do them all again. As it turned out I quite liked the pictures taken on the cloudy day. So this batch includes a mixture of pictures from both the second and third attempts.
Taken with a Sony F828 and fixed Zeiss 28-200mm f2-2.8