Seen from Mount Washington.
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The Many Colors of the Sweetgum
No tree celebrates fall more enthusiastically than Liquidambar styraciflua, the North American sweetgum. Pittsburgh is a little north of its native range, but it has been adopted everywhere as a favorite urban planting. In the fall, its leaves turn every color of which autumn leaves are capable, all on the same tree—from bright yellow to the deepest eggplant purple.
Camera: Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Z3.
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Autumn Leaves and the Graham Monument, Allegheny Cemetery
No one seems to know who the sculptor was, but this 1890 portrait of mourning and consolation is one of the best things in the cemetery. The leaves help, of course.
Camera: Kodak EasyShare Z1485 IS.
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Brush Creek Salems Church, Irwin
Now Brush Creek Salem United Church of Christ, this beautiful and stately building is nearly 200 years old: it was built somewhere around the years 1816-1820, serving the colonial-era community of Brush Creek outside Irwin. The adjacent Brush Creek Cemetery has marked burials going back to the 1700s, with some extraordinary works of folk art among the tombstones.
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Maiden Statues by Edmond Amateis in the Broderie
These three maidens by Edmond Amateis originally stood in the walled garden on the Mellon estate, now Mellon Park, where Mr. Amateis also designed the fountain. They left empty niches behind them, but they have been happy here in Phipps for years, where they are a charming feature of the Broderie.
Camera: Olympus E-20n.
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Fall Flower Show at Phipps
In honor (apparently) of its Japanese theme, the 2015 Fall Flower Show has visitors keeping to the left instead of to the right all the way around the conservatory (except in the Fern, Orchid, and Stove Rooms, because a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little conservatories). It makes old Pa Pitt wax nostalgic, because Phipps was a keep-to-the-left place for the first century or so of its existence, before finally converting to keep-to-the-right circulation at some time in the late twentieth century.
Cameras: Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Z3 and Olympus E020n.
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Golden Forest
In these pictures, once again, Father Pitt challenged himself to take pictures that could go directly from the camera to the public without any cropping or other adjustments.
Camera: Canon PowerShot S45.
