PORTRAITS

 Recently, half the pictures I take feel like portraits, especially those I take of dogs.

 

They just have such obvious personalities. Personalities? Well, it's the most fitting word I can think of, even though it is not supposed to apply. Look at the pug above, he looks anxious, doesn't he. Does not want get run-over by the larger dogs.

On the left is Bear. She is old and very sweet. When all the other dogs are zooming around the dog park she will  amble stiffly through the humans, looking for someone to rub her ears.

You kinda knew that from the picture, right?

 


The dog in the top picture is my baby. He is sweet, smart, goofy and socially awkward, which does not in the least stop him from having fun with the other dogs and any human he can recruit. But again, you could tell that from the picture, right?

Cause these are not pictures. They are portraits.

 This female, named Ella, has one of the most beautiful coats I have ever seen. Just watching her move, muscles visibly curving under sleek taupe fur, is joy. Her sweetness, combined with so much strength, feels like a dispensation from the commonplace.

 

 Plus,  she also has a sense of humor. 

 
Humor? Oh yes, I've met dogs with a sense of humor.  And if you mention dogs and humor you have to give a shout-out to the comeliest comedian in any house: the poodle. In fact, I have heard it said that poodles are hard to train as guide dogs. While loving, they are just not quite submissive enough. Meaning, that they will play jokes on their people. Fine in regular life, not so good for a guide dog. Thank God they are as sweet as they are smart.Plus, they like to hold your hand. With their mouths. Very gently. And pull you to where you need to go. My mom used to tell our standard poodle to go get my dad and me when dinner was ready. And so she would.

This little guy above is obviously quick and affectionate. While the big guy below has seen his share of life and aquired whatever dog wisdom there is.

                                                             

  So, see this girl with her shiny pink collar? Not hard to tell she's a lovebug.

While this fellow needs plenty of excercise or he get rammy and eats the sofa.

While this girl wants a lap to sit in and as many humans as possible to tell her how wonderful she is.

Well, you get the point. Funny how accessing a moment with a camera helps you to find out what you've always sorta known, but now you can know it better.

So the next time you're at the dog park, look around and enjoy.

Avast Ye Glummies, or The Homely Glory of New York

It's a hard winter in the East this February. And it may be starting to get to me. To help myself I'm  seeing if I can put together a decent post of some of the pictures I've taken of New York. For me, fighting off the glums means short circuiting their message, the feeling that I've lost ability, intelligence, vision or talent (looks are so long gone they've fallen off the list.)  Insecurities go vast if not refuted or transended.

The New York I love, the New York I see through child-like eyes, is where I love taking pictures in hope that I can get my delight across.

 Above, along one of the Beaux Arts side streets in the East 60's, is a mansion that obviously didn't get the manditory "we are chic," memo. Bless the uninhibited inhabitants and their taste.

Part of the fun of the Upper East Side is the juxtaposition of high swank with more earthy realities. Buildings, no matter how grand, still need pragmatic things like maintenance and back alleys for the garbage.

And then, there are always kids going to the Park.

  

And the Park, even in winter, is perhaps the greatest glory of New York.

It might seem silly taking so many pictures of rocks, paths and sward. But to a child, especially a child who played before all the fences went up, these rocks, paths and sward were worlds. Nannies got left sitting on the benches outside the playground; kids, approx. ages 4-10, scampered off to the mountains, towns, houses and ships that awaited them.

Can you honestly tell me this is not a ship?

Of course it's a ship, one of two ships we used to sail, race, board, wreck and, of course, rescue.  Now the playground is enlarged and modernized. Fences forbid people from leaving the paths. The old gazebo that had so come apart that the only thing holding it up was the wisteria growing thru it is now so spanking and large that it dwarfs the highest rock that was our hideout. What do the kids do today? Actually play in the sanctioned playground? Egads, whats the world coming to? Yet imagination can be sparked off by almost anything, and the city, Thank God,  has an abundance of almost anything.