Park Walks: Lakewood Park

Waterbury, Connecticut

Lakewood Park, at the south end of the Great Brook Reservoir, is a quiet place in winter. I get the impression that it's quite old and may have had more activity in years past. A bit of looking around online shows that it's still a popular spot for swimming from the small beach in hot weather. Still an interesting place to explore on a cold December morning.

Park Walks: O'Sullivans Island, Part Two

Derby, Connecticut

An old railroad bridge crosses the Naugatuck River just a few hundred yards north of its merge with the Housatonic. Both rivers were industrial corridors in times past. Now there's some urban renewal here and there but little industry remains.

TIRE

Meriden, Connecticut

In Progress

Meriden, Connecticut

Yellow Building

Peekskill, New York

Spring Trees, XIII

Peekskill, New York

Spring Trees, VI

Naugatuck, Connecticut

Spring Trees, IV

Naugatuck, Connecticut

Side Yard, Factory Complex

Waterbury, Connecticut

Spring 2009

Waterbury, CT

Waterbury, CT

Spring 2009

Torrington, CT

Torrington, CT

Fenced Tree II

There was no place for the sidewalk snow to go but into the small fenced yard. I don't know how the little trees survive all the road salt.

Fenced Tree

Along a relatively flat shoulder in the hilly terrain, this street is lined with small fully detached houses. The yards are tiny. The buildings likely date back to the early 20th century and range from run down to modestly updated with vinyl siding. On some, earlier, more ambitious projects like decorative iron fences mix with later improvements. There are enough carefully tended trees in this seemingly uncongenial surrounding that I want to do a small project collecting pictures of these city trees as spring and summer roll around.

Exercise Bike

I've never understood why photographers wait for sunny days to make pictures. I seldom like the look of harsh sunlight—I don't mean I don't like what happens photographically but that I just don't like it, period. I suppose it could be connected to the fact that I've always been susceptible to sunburn (through a cotton shirt, through tinted auto glass, under a hat from light bouncing back up off the ground...) but I get a warm, glowing, feeling from the look of an overcast day, not from a sunny one. The way that light delineates and describes objects on an overcast day can be a delight. Not all cloudy days are created equal. Overcast can be sullen and dull, but it can also glow. In particular, the moments just after a sky clouds over, or later the moments when the overcast thickens enough that it just begins to rain, these are times when the light turns rich and photographic description can become especially vivid. All the pictures in this series were made under rich, variable overcast conditions.