Book: The Look of Architecture by Witold Rybczynski

It’s a little bit untrue to title this small volume solely a book. It caught my eye while I was perusing the stacks last week at the New York Society Library. I love small books – they are a small … Continue reading

(Music Plays) Lydia, The Tattoed Lady – An eighteenth century woman’s tattoo

The New Yorker Photo Booth blog highlighted tattoed women and a book about them Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo by Margot Mifflin (1997). The photograph of Maud Wagner caught my eye, my first perception of a Gibson … Continue reading

Things That Make Me Happy: Historypin

Combine Google “Places I’ve Visited” with history geeks and what do you get? Historypin. A user attaches historic photos to the globe according to where the content took place. On a brief search this morning, I viewed photos from a … Continue reading

Transportation Tuesday: A Moment on the Baltimore and Ohio

I was inspired by this salted paper print from the 1850s of people posing for a photograph on a Baltimore and Ohio engine. I thought about the women in their stays and hoops, and wondered if they were boosted up … Continue reading

Wanderlust Wednesday: Dusseldorf

Last week found me in Germany and Luxembourg. Dusseldorf, like many cities affected by World War II, is a new city, with glimpses of old fabric in surprising places. As in other European cities, the pedestrian mall of the 1950s … Continue reading

Wanderlust Wednesday: San Francisco

San Francisco is the city where I started to learn to look, compose, and photograph. I feel the town’s scruffiness when I’m there – I still think that the mother lode gold discovery is still expected any day. I suppose the … Continue reading