Father Pitt

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A Kodak Pony and a Perfect Day

The Kodak Pony is a delightful camera. It’s cheap and rugged, but it takes very good pictures with its sharp Ektanar lens, and it leaves the photographer completely in control of the picture. It’s hard for today’s photographers to imagine how little automation you can get away with. Here’s what you do to take a picture with a Pony: Set the aperture (there’s no light meter, of course); set the shutter speed; set the focus (no rangefinder, so you have to estimate the distance); cock the shutter; push the shutter release; release the film lock; and wind for the next picture.

So part of the reason I love the Pony is because I get to do everything myself. For the remainder of my argument, i offer these two pictures, taken yesterday on the grounds of Phipps Conservatory, and both showing the Cathedral of Learning in the distance.

July 25, 2008
Before We Get That Subway…

An editorial cartoon by Jamieson of the Dispatch from 1906, when the need for a subway in Pittsburgh was already obvious and urgent. The subway downtown opened in 1985, seventy-nine years later.

June 23, 2008
Aspiration

A smokestack reaches for the sky from the Carnegie Institute heating plant. The picture is teeming with metaphorical possibilities, none of which will be elaborated here.

June 19, 2008
Dolphin Fountain

A classical dolphin in a long-dry fountain at the entrance to Grandview Park, on the edge of the cliff at Mount Washington.

June 14, 2008
An Intersection in Four Mile Run

In neighborhoods like Four Mile Run, nestled in a steep ravine, some of the streets necessarily turn into stairways.

June 11, 2008
Selling Brookline

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

Brookline today is a pleasant city neighborhood whose central avenue, Brookline Boulevard, is the broadest commercial street in Pittsburgh–a fact that will greatly surprise visitors from other cities, where residential streets may well be broader than Brookline Boulevard. In 1905, it was mostly vacant lots, but this advertisement promises a glowing future that–for the most part–actually came to pass. The neighborhood will enjoy even greater advantages when it is taken into the city of Pittsburgh: “the vote has been taken, the matter is officially settled.” The acrimonious annexation of Allegheny was still very much up in the air at that point, and the public would need assurance that Brookline would not present similar difficulties.

June 9, 2008
Floral Wallpaper

Rosa multiflora (it has no common name except “multiflora rose” and some nicknames too impolite to repeat here) is a noxious and invasive weed that can take over whole hillsides with its thick, rambling, thorny shoots. In June, it’s also one of our most beautiful flowers, covering itself with clusters of white roses and filling the air with rose perfume.

Here are two versions of a Rosa multiflora picture that will make a splendid desktop wallpaper for your computer. Nothing is more restful, or more conducive to productive work, than a view of green leaves and white flowers. Click to enlarge; right-click to download the full-size version.

The wide-screen version is for typical wide-screen screen resolutions of 1680 by 1050 or smaller.

The standard version is for screen resolutions of 1280 by 1024 or smaller.

June 6, 2008
Back End of the Mexican War Streets

The Mexican War Streets are mostly flat, but at the back end they start to creep up the hill toward Perry Hilltop. This beautiful block of rowhouses is just about perfect: the street paved with Belgian block, the houses well taken care of but not ostentatiously overrestored, and filled with friendly neighbors.

Brick sidewalks have their own charm, and they become more charming as they age and grow more difficult to walk on.

May 7, 2008
Spring Wildflowers of the Stream Valleys

Stream valleys with precipitous slopes—too precipitous even for Pittsburghers to build on—cut through the city and suburbs everywhere. In the spring, wild woodland flowers take advantage of the last few days before the leaves come out and the shade closes in. These flowers all grew within a few yards of each other in the Squaw Run valley.

Trillium grandiflorum, Large-Flowered Trillium

Mertensia virginica, Virginia Bluebells

Claytonia virginica, Spring Beauty

Phlox divaricata, Blue Phlox

Trillium erectum, Wake-Robin (white form)
[In an earlier version of this article, this was misidentified as Trillium cernuum.]

Tiarellia cordifolia, Foamflower

Viola pallens, Northern White Violet

Viola pennsylvanica, Smooth Yellow Violet

May 5, 2008
Spring at Phipps

The Spring Flower Show at Phipps Conservatory had a whimsically classical theme: Praxiteles by way of Salvador Dali.

April 26, 2008