Garden of Lights

Garden of Lights at the Norfolk Botanical Garden - We made our annual trip through the Garden of Lights tonight with our grandson Robert. Here are a few highlights from this year's display. Almost all of the displays are designed and custom crafted by Garden staff and volunteers. Canon 5D Mark II.

Tree Lights

Up lit trees with fall colors still inplace along Monticello Avenue in Norfolk Virginia. Canon 5D Mark II, 3.2 seconds at f/11, ISO 100.

MetalMatisse

More of my Norfolk @ Night month. "Metalmatisse is an interactive, stainless-steel, light and sound sculpture designed to compliment the formal European landscape of MacArthur Square. Each flower gives an individual response when prompted by visitors below. Periodically the entire sculpture comes to life in an orchestrated chorus of light and sound. Vase and bouquet are loosely adapted from paintings of flowers by French artist Henri Matisse with a distinctly modern statement of scale and exuberance." description from NorfolkPublicArt.org. Canon 5d Mark II, 2.5 seconds @ f/11.0, ISO 100 mounted on a tripod.

Night Tide

The Tide light rail leaves the MacArthur Plaza Station with the downtown Norfolk skyline as a back drop. Canon 5D Mark II, 4 second exposure @ f/11.0, ISO 100, 24mm focal length.

St. Mary's at Night

The Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception is located in downtown Norfolk. Built in 1858, its clock marks the time of my early morning photo. Canon 5D Mark II, 1 second exposure @ f/4, ISO 100, 45mm focal length.

"I never met a color I didn't like." - Dale Chihuly

We went to see the Chihuly exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts today. It is amazing. I really appreciate his work and his policy allowing educational and non-commercial photography of his work. Please enjoy this mini-tour as captured by my camera. The pictures show the colors and some of the glory of the work but they are no substitute for seeing them in person. The descriptions are from the text presented with each display at the VMFA. I hope my photos inspire you to make the trip to Richmond to experience it in person. Better hurry through the show ends February 10, 2013.

All the photographs were taken with a Canon 5D Mark II with either a 35mm prime lens or a 100mm macro lens.

FIORI AND FLOAT BOATS - They would get in their boats and go down and collect the glass—it looked so stunning in the rowboat—that was a whole new idea for me, and it’s one that I still use today.
—Dale Chihuly

This installation includes two of Chihuly’s wooden rowboats, one filled with Fiori elements and another with Niijima Floats. The Fiori Boat features various garden glass shapes and forms inspired by Chihuly’s love of gardens and conservatories. Niijima Floats were inspired by the artist’s trip to the Japanese island of Niijima and by childhood memories of discovering Japanese fishing net floats along the beaches of Puget Sound. Chihuly first filled boats with his glass pieces in Nuutajärvi, Finland, during the Chihuly Over Venice project in June 1995. Wondering if the glass would float, Chihuly began tossing works into the river and let them float downstream. Local teenagers in small, wooden rowboats gathered them up.

PERSIAN CEILING - The Persians—that’s one of the most difficult series to describe. It started off that they were geometric shapes, I think—it was a search for new forms. It was so interesting, what came out of it—we worked for a year only on doing experimental Persians—so I got to pick and choose from these parts and develop a new series. It has changed in many ways over the years.
—Dale Chihuly

Chihuly began the Persians series in 1986 while experimenting with new forms. Originally, he displayed Persians in pedestal compositions, often with smaller shapes nested in larger pieces. The first Persian Ceiling was presented in his 1992 exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum. Lit from above and resting on a flat glass pane, the elements of the Persian Ceiling come together to provide an immersive experience in color and shape. There are over a thousand Persian pieces in this installation.

MACCHIA FOREST - I think it was in 1981 that I woke up one morning and said,“I’m going to use all three hundred colors in the hotshop in as many possible variations and combinations as I can.” I started by making up a color chart with one color for the interior, another color for the exterior, and a contrasting color for the lip wrap, along with various jimmies and dusts of pigment between the gathers of glass. Throughout the blowing process, colors were added, layer upon layer. Each piece was another experiment. When we unloaded the ovens in the morning, there was the rush of seeing something I had never seen before. Like much of my work, the series inspired itself. The unbelievable combinations of color—that was the driving force. —Dale Chihuly

Chihuly chose the name for this series after asking his friend, artist Italo Scanga, for the Italian word for “spotted” or “stained.” Initially quite small, the Macchia grew in size and, like earlier works, were amassed into groupings or “families.” The Macchia here are installed together on pedestals in a group called a Macchia Forest.

This is a detail of a very small part of the piece called LAGUNA TORCELLO.

NEON TUMBLEWEED Talk about a form of light—neon is light itself. But, of course, neon couldn’t exist without glass. —Dale Chihuly

REEDS ON LOGS - In Finland we started making these long, cylindrical pieces, which looked like spears. This was an exciting new form. It was the first time we ever made anything like that. They can be taken anywhere—they can go outside. They are very strong pieces, and they are very dramatic. —Dale Chihuly

Installations of Reeds, or Spears as they were first named, began when Chihuly was working in Finland in 1995. The first time Chihuly combined Reeds and logs was for an installation at the Marlborough Gallery in New York. Since then, he has continued to create these works in various colors, installing the series both outdoors and indoors.

The Thinker

This young man asked me to take his picture at the park the other day and struck this pose. Normally portraits are taken in the vertical portrait orientation but I thought this worked well in horizontal or landscape mode. See more of my black and white work at the World in Black and White Blog.

Canon 5D Mark II, 1/1250 sec @ f/4, ISO 400, converted to black and white using Silver Efex Pro in Lightroom 4.

DUDE

Enjoyed speeding my day off with Robert. Here he was burning off some energy at Woodstock Park in Virginia Beach. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/40 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 400, focal length 70mm.

High Wire

These high-voltage transmission line are cast against a clear blue sky. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/8000 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 400, 1800mm focal length.

EarPods

EarPods, Apple's redesigned in earphones were released with the iPhone 5. The often maligned original Apple ear buds finally got a facelift along with the iPhone. These new buds offer a better fit and much improved acoustic quality not to mention the distinctive "Apple Style." I'm still sticking with my tried and true Shure sound isolating earphones. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/80 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 1600 converted to black and white using Silver Efex Pro 2 with Lightroom 4.

Five Star Imperial

This 1950 Chrysler Crown Imperial limousine carried Gen Douglas MacArthur to and from his office at the Dai Ichi insurance building in Tokyo during the latter part of the Occupation of Japan. When MacArthur returned to the United States in 1951, the Crown Imperial was shipped to him in New York City where he continued to use it until 1963, when it was returned to the U.S. Army motor pool and subsequently given to the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk Virginia. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/40 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 400, 35mm focal length.

Sand Man

Paid a visit to the Virginia Beach Ocenafront to see the results of the North American Sandsculpting Championship held as part of this year's Neptune Festival. There are 22 sand sculptures on view through Sunday October 10th. This is a closeup from the 3rd place doubles team of Jill Harris and Thomas Koet from Florida entitled In One Ear Out the Other. It's worth the trip and the three bucks ticket charge to see these cool creations. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/60 sec @ f/5.0, ISO 200, zoom at 165mm.

Vail Mountain

Still sharing some of my Colorado pictures on the blog. This is the view from the top of Vail Mountain looking down into the "bowl." You can see a grove of aspen trees, and then bands of thick green pines and the cleared sky run areas. I was at about 10,500 feet for this shot. Canon 5D, Mark II, 1/100 sec @ f/18.0, ISO 200, 105mm focal length.

Reach for the Sky

These aspen trees reach for the sky with their bright yellow fall leaves and white bark contrasting nicely with the blue sky. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/320 sec @ f/14.0, ISO 200, 24mm focal length.

Garden of the Gods

When visiting this area of sandstone formations in 1859 Rufus Cable, exclaimed, "Why it is a fit place for the Gods to assemble." Charles Elliott Perkins, the head of the Burlington Railroad, purchased the area in 1879 and opened it to the public. After his death in 1907 his family conveyed the four-hundred eighty acres to the City of Colorado Springs. It would be known forever as the Garden of the Gods "where it shall remain free to the public, where no intoxicating liquors shall be manufactured, sold, or dispensed, where no building or structure shall be erected except those necessary to properly care for, protect, and maintain the area as a public park." Canon 5D Mark II, 1/160 sec @ f/11.0, ISO 100, 28mm focal length.

Manitou & Pike's Peak Railway

Spent my birthday driving from Vail to Manitou Springs, crossing the Continental Divide at Hossier's Pass, and then taking the Manitou & Pike's Peak Railway to the summit of Pike's Peak. Here the cog wheel trains await at 14,110 feet above sea level while we spend time exploring the summit. All in all, a pretty cool birthday. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/400 sec @ f/11, ISO 400, 35mm focal length.

Piney Lake

Piney Lake is the highest elevation lake you can drive to in Colorado at 9,350 feet. The journey is just a spectacular as the view from the lake. You drive 10 miles on a dirt road full of switchbacks and white knuckle, right on the edge turns. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/250 sec @ f/14.0, ISO 200, zoom at 88mm focal length.

Aspen Glow

The aspen trees just glow in the fall afternoon light near Vail Colorado. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/100 sec @ f/22.0, ISO 400, 65mm focal length.

Home on the Range

The Colorado range at twilight. We visited the 4 Eagle Ranch for dinner and a night sitting around the campfire. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/640 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 800, 105mm focal length.

Sawatch Range

The Sawatch Range in central Colorado taken from atop Vail Mountain. Canon 5D Mark II, 1/200 sec @ f/16.0, ISO 200, zoom at 70mm focal length.