Picture of the Month: August 2010

I took this month's picture during my last trip to Ithaca. It was swelteringly hot and humid during the days so it was most enjoyable to wander the area at night--though because I'm such a nut, there were a few times I got us out during the worst part of the afternoon (sorry Rob...).

Cornell has a beautiful old campus. The most recognizable feature is perhaps an enormous bell tower sitting atop a hill that looks out over the entire valley below. It is from this vantage that I snapped the photo...you can even see a bit of Cayuga Lake reflecting the last rays of summer sun through the trees.

Another evening, we walked down to the lake shore itself and watched a lovely sunset while feeding the few ducks still congregated around the shoreline. When it got too dark to safely linger, we strolled home through blinking roadside congregations of fireflies. Rob reminded me that different types of fireflies blink for vastly different reasons. In one variety, males fly around using flashing patterns meant to impress a female. The females then respond with their own bioluminescent displays in order to accept a mate. Another species mimics the previous female's "body language", but instead of a roll in the hay, she's just after some dinner! Male fireflies in the first species have no way to discern the difference! Love can certainly be a dangerous game in the insect world.

Picture of the Month: July 2010

In 1970 Robert Smithson, assisted by foreman Bob Phillips and other local construction workers, completed one of Utah's most unique artistic installations: the Spiral Jetty. It turns out that Mr. Phillips is Rob's uncle so during his first visit to me in Salt Lake back in 2008, I suggested that we make a pilgrimage out to the Jetty and see firsthand this odd assemblage of black basalt, white salt, and pink water.

The Great Salt Lake is divided north from south by a solid railroad causeway a little south of Promontory Point. South of the causeway the lake's salinity is most favorable to a blue-green tinted species of phytoplankton and to the north a purplish-red variety of bacteria. For this reason, Smithson chose to locate the Jetty in the striking pink waters of the north. It was easy to see the appeal of this palette as Rob and I walked over lines of dark basalt edged with salt encrusted rocks bathing in the pink shallows. I had never seen the north Salt Lake and had always assumed that photos of the pink water had been doctored for effect, but it is truly no illusion.

The Jetty takes a bit of work to get to. About 2 hours north of Salt Lake City is the Golden Spike National Historic Site where in 1869 the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroad lines were joined with the fabled driving of a golden spike into the final tie that would complete the country's first transcontinental railroad. The rough uneven cattle road that leads to the Jetty lies just past the monument. Most websites insist this gravel road is well maintained and suitable for all vehicles, but if you're driving a little Toyota Yaris hatchback, as I was that day, be prepared for a slow and bumpy 9 miles.

As we neared Rozel point, the road conditions worsened and, not wanting to repeat an unfortunate incident where I punctured my previous vehicle's oil tank on just such a road (a story for another day), Rob and I decided to walk the rest of the way. The day was hot, but fortunately we'd come prepared with hats and water. We had no idea how far the Jetty was from where we'd stopped, but pressed forward anyway. Finally, we rounded the point and a familiar shape started to take shape in the distance...we'd made it!

I was surprised at the sculpture's size. At 1,500 feet long and 15 feet wide, it is suitable for walking when the lake's water is low enough (in the photo below, you can just make out tiny people wandering out on the spiral). The Jetty has been submerged and unseeable off and on since its completion. It had disappeared for 3 decades before drought conditions briefly dropped lake levels in 2004, but was flooded once again in 2005 after a record snowfall. I guess we lucked out on this trip! The pinkish water was just high enough (an inch or two on the Jetty's outer edges) to gently lap against the sides of the stone pathway and provide an etherial and shimmering canvas for the dramatic spiral.

The Jetty's future is uncertain. Over time, a combination of human and environmental factors may erode it into oblivion and there are those who wish to buttress the spiral against such damage. Artist Smithson however tended to favor the idea of natural entropy: a system's deterioration, decline, or breaking down over time. The Jetty's gradual change and perhaps eventual demise could be considered part of his original artistic intention.

Experiencing the Jetty firsthand was well worth the effort and, while it is still visible and reachable, I highly recommend others who are able to make the journey.

Picture of the Month: June 2010

So I was getting a little bored of the first picture I had at the top of my main page:

If you read my "Antelope Island" post (May 2010) you would recognize it from there as well. Anyway, it's a nice photo and all, but I thought it would be fun to change it up now and then...how about once a month?

For June I chose this picture of the "Cloud Gate" that I took while visiting my sister Shannon (ok, ok, I know it's Shaun) while she lived in Chicago. I got this shot standing almost underneath the arch of the "bean" and if you look closely, you can see Shaun in the middle at the bottom with me right behind her holding a camera up to my face...though we also appear in several other spots of the oddly reflecting surface at the same time...who knew geometry could be so spooky!

Shaun was dancing in the Lyric Opera's production of Strauss' "Die Frau Ohne Schatten" (the woman without a shadow), and I came out to watch her performance (which was excellent of course) and see the sights of the city. This was long before I had even considered going back to school and if you would have asked me at the time if I'd ever consider living in Chicago, I would have laughed and asked in response, "why would I ever choose to live in a city that's so freaking cold for half the year?!"

We saw a Chicago Symphony concert together, on which Chris Martin performed the Haydn Trumpet Concerto, and bummed around the city for a couple of days checking out museums, the library, and, what turned out to be the sight-seeing highlight, Millenium Park.

The park is located near downtown right on the shore of Lake Michigan. It's loaded with art and features an outdoor concert stage and adjoining footbridge designed by...can you guess? Yup, the impossible-to-mistake Frank Ghery. In the picture below I made my sister pose on the side of the foot bridge.

The cloud gate is one of the most entertaining pieces of art I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with. It looks a little goofy from a distance--I remember thinking, "A giant kidney bean? Hmmmm...". But then I walked up to it, around it, under it, through it...I started playing with its chrome surface, I began to see how many ways my image could be morphed, stretched, squished, bent, and split into several different versions of itself...and before I knew it, I was hooked.