Engaged!

On a happy front, we have some new news for our cyberfriends near and far...

Bruce proposed! We are engaged!

A positive step for everyone—we all are doing remarkably well after the passing of his father, and Bruce also couldn't wait any longer! Bruce wanted to turn a page if you will...the next chapter after the summer and look to the future.

The story:
I had wanted to go apple picking and he did it there at Shelburne Farm in beautiful Stow (after picking my favorite apples, empires). He thought of a several other ways, but this summer going the way it did, nothing seemed to work out and nothing fancy seemed right. He wanted a simple fun thing in nature (as we oft do) and wanted to do it before he went back to school. It was a beautiful hot day, the last day of summer.

We were sitting down in the shade to cool down after picking (he had been hiding the ring in his camera bag). The ring is an antique, he said he wanted simple and sparkly (and not pointy as I do a lot of riffling around at work). We went out to eat afterwards on the garden patio at the wonderful Oleana. It's very odd, same, but different.

The date:
No date yet. I've never been a one to go a regular route and we've been together for so long, so no rush. Likely, 2 years, as I would like to aim for the late summer. We want to get Bruce finished with Uconn first and I simply am too behind and too swamped to start planning right now! I will however, in my true fashion, do a goodly amount of research for fun. It could be sooner, but we are just going to enjoy the moment for now!

Fun Friday post - cakes not photos

It's been a rough summer and early fall. A friend sent me this blog, Cake Wrecks (subtitled "when cakes go horrible, hilariously wrong"), and it makes me smile. For example, the original order for the above cake was for a "black high heel." Enjoy the blog and the rest of this post about a cake version of the telephone game here.

PRC landscape show opening this Sunday at Fruitlands Museum, 4-6pm

I hope you can take that wonderful drive out route 2 to Harvard, MA this weekend. The PRC show I curated, New England Survey, gets a reprise in a delightful setting with a beautiful view (seen above). The reception is Sunday, September 14th from 4-6pm.

Surrounded by 200 acres and right next to a collection of Hudson River School paintings, I couldn't imagine a more perfect setting for this exhibition. Come see work by Barbara Bosworth, Tanja Hollander, Janet Pritchard, Thad Russell, Jonathan Sharlin, Paul Taylor again or for the first time.

Click here for directions and more information about this former Transcendentalist and Utopian community and jewell of a museum.

Elusive Okapi photographed in the wild

As reported by AFP, an Okapi was recently photographed in the wild using camera traps. This method gives new meaning to the word "snapshot," which already has hunting overtones. The Okapi looks like a cross between a small giraffe and half a zebra (it's legs have zebra stripes). Click here to read more and see pics of this fascinating animal in captivity. (He looks like he is doing his own impression of the dramatic chipmunk, no?)

An Okapi in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The okapi, an African animal so elusive that it was once believed to be a mythical unicorn, has been photographed in the wild for the first time, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said Thursday.

(AFP/HO/Zoological Society Of London)

Guess Who? Fun photos of famous photogs

I had such a good time composing this post over on the PRC's blog, I thought I'd cast it out into the world again here. Enjoy!

Photoshelter’s Shoot the Blog had another great recent post, pointing me to a treasure trove of wonderful portraits. Photographer Bill Jay has been photographing photographers for close to 40 years. Currently, he has over 1,000 portraits in his files, with more to be added.

Guess who that is above….? John Pfahl in 1980.

I just sent a good 30+ minutes cruising Jay’s amazing Web site and its curious organization, until I realized that I could look at the portraits alphabetically. Oh well, my bad is your gain. Below are some of my favorites from page 1 alone as well as some folks of local interest. Be sure to look up past PRC Lecturers as well! Good news for us, he’ll be releasing a book with Nazraeli Press soon.

CAUTION, this is VERY ADDICTIVE. Enjoy!

Aaron Siskind
Frederick Sommers
A young Jerry Uelsmann
Lucien Clergue, who looks a lot like Dustin Hoffman
Manuel Alvarez Bravo
Martin Parr
Paul Caponigro
Robert Heinecken
Russell Lee

Of local interest:
PRC founder Chris Enos
Nick Nixon
Marie Cosindas and John Szarkowski
Joe Deal
Diana Gaston

ABOVE IMAGE: John Pfahl, copyright Bill Jay

Weather photography/ers

I sit here, safe, on my couch watching the Weather Channel track Hurricane Gustav. Several poor souls are reporting from the storm path and are being beaten down by rain and wind (one fellow just talked about being stung in the face by the rain).

There is nothing like weather to humble humankind. I too am fascinated by it. Weather was in fact the topic of my very first blog post.

I have often wondered, why do we crave such images? Besides the obvious ratings boost, is such weather watching a contemporary desire for the sublime?

I did a quick search and found a photographer "The Weather Paparazzi" and a stock agency "Weather Pix" that specialize in weather photography (visit the former to see his tag line). I share these links only out of curiosity. I hope that all of those in Gustav's path fair the storm. Be safe.

IMAGE: Hurricane Isabel, from here