Wandering NYC – Daughters with Doughnuts, Plus Museums, Meatballs, & Matilda

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The Star of Breakfast © 2014 Bo Mackison

Visiting the Lower East Side while in NYC…

My Trifecta includes breakfast at The Doughnut Plant – the number of donuts consumed was justified by the infrequency of our visits…

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Daughters with Donuts © 2014 Bo Mackison

And doughnuts with daughters makes the doughnuts incredibly special!

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Tenement Museum © 2014 Bo Mackison

Followed by a tour at the Tenement Museum

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City Scenes on a Rack © 2014 Bo Mackison

And a long stop in the Tenement Museum Gift Shop which is perfect for browsing and a few purchases, too…

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Three Meatball Sliders All in a Row © 2014 Bo Mackison

Last stop while walking the Lower East Side is The Meatball Shop for a lunchtime snack before heading to…

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Waiting for Matilda © 2014 Bo Mackison

Broadway and the musical Matilda.

Since a visit to Manhattan happens only once every few years, we made the most of our long weekend! Pacing is key!

Playing with Photography – A Focus on Light, Glass, and Silver at the Vineyards

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Five Bottles and a Pitcher © 2014 Bo Mackison

Exploring what my camera will do with a row of glass bottles stored on a shelf behind a white wooden shed.

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Filling the Pitcher © 2014 Bo Mackison

Add a spigot with running water as it is filling a silver pitcher.

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Still Life and a White Shed © 2014 Bo Mackison

The glass bottles and pitcher, running water from spigot, and two silver pitchers.

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Silver Pitchers © 2014 Bo Mackison

Two silver pitchers, overflowing with bubbling water.

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Glass, Water, and Light © 2014 Bo Mackison

And finally the glass pitcher surrounded by bottles with caps.

… from Mattebella Vineyards’ website:

Mattebella Vineyards is a small family farm, in New York State’s oldest town, Southold (established in 1640), on the eastern end of Long Island. The vineyard is a gently sloping 22 acre parcel of land and has predominantly European clones of grape varietals, tight spacing (6×3), and low vigor rootstock.

At Mattebella Vineyards things are done the old way, by hand. No mechanical harvesters or leaf removal equipment. Fine wines are difficult to make consistently if mechanized harvesters and other machines are introduced into the process. Machines simply cannot execute our commitment to quality and make the decisions we consistently must make throughout the growing season. Hand crafting includes fruit thinning to ensure even ripening and higher quality concentrated juice, leaf pulling, weed removal, pruning, canopy management and, most importantly, hand harvesting of all our fruit.

Mattebella Vineyards is committed to using sustainable viticultural practices and incorporating organic practices as feasible into our farming methods, hoping to make a “footprint in your memory but not on the environment”.

Playing with Photography, Part VI – The Vineyards

Channing's Daughters Vineyards, Long Island

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season
without thinking of the grapes it has borne.
~ Marcus Aurelius

Atlantic breezes cool Channing Daughters Vineyards and create a climate hospitable to a wide array of grape varieties.

 

Channing's Daughters Vineyards, Long Island

The Vineyards are on a beautiful plot of land in Bridgehampton on the North Fork of eastern Long Island. Twenty-five acres of vines, a small winery and a bustling tasting room.

Channing's Daughters Vineyards, Long Island

Owner/Sculptor Walter Channing’s works are present in the vineyards, tasting room, and almost anywhere you look around the estate.

Channing's Daughters Vineyards, Long Island

Sculpture © 2014 Bo Mackison

Sculptures emerge unexpectedly the end posts of vineyard rows and less subtly in the form of towering inverted trees against the horizon.

Channing's Daughters Vineyards, Long Island

We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy,
even if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry. ~ E.B. White

Experimenting – or Playing – with Photography. Part V, Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere

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Flowers in the Fountain © 2014 Bo Mackison

“I must have flowers, always, and always.” ~ Claude Monet

While I was visiting New York City and Long Island over the extended Labor Day weekend, our timing was perfect. The flowers put on a tremendous show for us. Everywhere we walked there were planters, gardens, even flowers floating with such grace and beauty in fountains.

I was with beloved family who I only see once or perhaps twice a year, and didn’t want me and my camera interrupting the flow. (Once my big camera is in my hands, this mysterious force takes over and I see photo ops constantly – not such a good plan with a group of four, including one pregnant daughter!) So I continued to “play” with photography while I was visiting family on Long Island. And yes, the cell phone camera can be a distraction, too! But not quite as bad, I’m told.

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Blue Hydrangea © 2014 Bo Mackison

“A flower blossoms for its own joy.” ~ Oscar Wilde

Hydrangea must be THE flower of eastern Long Island. They’re everywhere! They’re everywhere!

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Green-Eyed Susans © 2014 Bo Mackison

“Without darkness, nothing comes to birth, As without light, nothing flowers.” ~ May Sarton

Never underestimate the power of a flower! I stopped to admire two planters of green-eyed Susans flanking the door of a jewelry shop I had no intention of visiting. Then a too fancy opal ring in the front window caught my eye. I had lost my wedding ring several months ago, and I’d been casually looking at opal rings (I’d decided to go with an opal my birthstone, not another diamond).

On the spur of the moment, we entered this very formal jewelry store. Not even my kind of store, I thought. But my daughter – shopper extraordinaire – found a black opal way in a back case, on sale, end of season, etc., etc. and the pieces fell into place.

So I thank this charming bunch of bright flowers, for I now have a replacement ring. Deeply grateful!

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Red, White, and Green © 2014 Bo Mackison

“Nobody sees a flower – really – it is so small it takes time – we haven’t time – and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”  ~ Georgia O’Keeffe

More Hydrangea, with a different color treatment…an unusual combination inspired from a shake of my camera and the serendipity of the Hipstamatic app…

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Hydrangea © 2014 Bo Mackison

“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in–what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.” ~ Victor Hugo

And Hydrangea in blue. Don’t they have just the most luscious colors – that pale blue with lavender and yellow highlight?

Tomorrow, this atypical tour of my New York visit takes us to the vineyards of Long Island – what a feast for the senses, there…

No Trespassing

Beach Scene

Sand Grasses © 2013 Bo Mackison

Sand dunes.
Protected.
No trespassing.

A ragged, twisted, never-ending fence
lines the sandy beach. Trapped
between the Atlantic’s cold waves
and brittle fencing. This is shadow land
cross-hatched, undulating zigzags
etch the sun-baked sand.

Waves in cadence, rush and roar,
past the beyond, murmur in melancholy.

Driftwood weathers silver-gray, a rotting
crab snags in the jagged fork. A purple jellyfish
upside down, adheres to a protruding stone–
will it rehydrate in high tide or disintegrate
in the blistery sun?

Two women walk near the waves,
an elder protected by a red straw boater,
carnival striped blouse, her daughter’s arm.
She steps with deliberation, settling into each step.
Her eyes seek the horizon,
she knows the strength of the tide
swelling near her canvas shoes. The sea holds her gaze
until the daughter grips her elbow, guides her inland.

The waves tumble in, the winds rush through beach grasses
and trees, tangle our hair, blow sand in our eyes.
We swallow grit. Our arms protect
our faces as we hasten along the path in search of the car.

The distant air is effervescent,
like a gauzy veil, one cannot peer through.
It is future, always hidden.

————–

Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC.  She strolled the beaches of Long Island and recalled the lyrics of a favorite song . . . “the ocean is a desert with its life underground.”