This bud's for you

Still waiting for that green foliage. What is interesting is the buds on our maple tree start out red, and in the fall they return to red. So green is only a transitory hue, but the predominant color during the warm months when the tree is making food for itself.

Here comes the sun

I've got to find a new way to drive to work... too many photos from Ellison Park.

"Sun, sun, sun, here it comes... "

George Harrison's song to greet the spring.

We have started to see some sunny spring mornings and "it's all right."

The grass has greened up but we only have buds on the trees so far. I look forward to the bright clean leaves to come.

Cobblestone architecture

Between the years of 1825 and 1860 a distinctive building style developed that used simple but durable, attractive and easily accessible local materials. This style is known as cobblestone architecture. Almost all examples of this style are with-in a 70 mile radius of Rochester, and roughly follows the path of the Erie Canal, which was being constructed at about the same time.

The many surviving buildings of this style are sought after as homes of historic value. There are also a few churches and other public buildings that are still standing. Here in my home of Webster there are a few examples, including this one, which now incredibly has been transformed into an auto parts store.

The building was constructed 1845 in the Village of Webster as a Universalist Church. In 1925, strangely, it was converted for use as a garage and auto repair shop, and then in the 60's it became a auto parts store.

The photo below shows detail of the cobblestone exterior. If you find this fascinating, like I do, you may want to check out this document that provides a lot more detail about cobblestone architecture.

The tree at the end of the path

When does a photo stop being a photo and become something else?

Photo manipulation with computer software can drastically change the look of a picture. The image can be altered in so many ways. Some have suggested the term "photo art". I can not think of a better term.

This picture was edited in Photoshop, Lightroom and Topaz Adjust. The resulting image has modified content and dramatically altered dynamic range, color, and selective sharpness and diffusion.

So is this a photo... or is it something else?

Street photography

I had not heard the term "street photography" until recently. It is an interesting approach to documenting life in the city, and not too foreign to what I am trying to do with this blog. Observent readers may find something in this photo that has been absent from all my posts up to now.

Red window

Here is a strange window that shouts attention but is ignored by the passerby. My best guess is that behind this window there was once a Chinese restaurant. Now unoccupied, only the bright color remains.

Rule breaker

The theme of this blog is "Observations of the trivial and unnoticed" which of course this photo does not live up to. This picture is taken thousands of times a day by hunderends of tourists. There is not much trivial about it. The photo of course is Independence Hall in Philadelphia PA. It is here that the Declaration of Independence was debated and signed in 1776. So my theme breakage seems pretty trivial compared to the rule breaking done in Philadelphia 236 years ago.

I was in Philadelphia this week for work and was fortunate to have some time to walk around the city a bit. Big cities offer a lot of opportunity for interesting photos, especially observations of the trivial and unnoticed.

Snow boulders

After a storm, and there is a lull, the plows go around and push the snow banks back, making room for the next batch of snow. This conglomerate is at the end of my driveway. The snow is at a consistency that, when the snow is knocked back, it forms a series of snow boulders.