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These are my favorites among the thousands of photos I took last year in Colorado, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. To make the cut, the subject of the photo had to be significant for me, and the photo had to be nicely composed and lit. All photos are copyright © 2022 Dianne L. Durante.

For favorite photos from previous years, click here. This post is available as a video at https://youtu.be/Of09qEOvrFQ.

New York

New York just after sunset, from the Chart House restaurant in Weehawken, NJ. About a quarter of the way from the left are the double towers of the Time Warner Center. To the right of those are the relatively new “pencil buildings” around 57th Street. The Empire State building has a crown of blue near the center, and the massive Hudson Yards complex is at the right.

Just north of NYC are the Untermyer Gardens – particularly beautiful in the spring and summer. More of my photos of the Gardens are here and here. One of my favorite sculptures outdoors in NYC, the Untermyer Fountain in Central Park’s Conservatory Garden, was originally on Untermyer’s estate; more here.

Colorado

Moving into the cold zone: Breckenridge, Colorado. Take the chairlift to the top, pause to say “Oh, what a beautiful mountain!”, and tackle the downhill.

Every time I look at the photo below, I hear the hiss of schussing (“to make a fast straight downhill run on skis or a snowboard”).

Mountains make sunsets better.

Pennsylvania

I don’t remember ever having visited Valley Forge before last summer, which is odd since I grew up barely 2 hours away. Or perhaps I visited when very young, and the site didn’t have the profound effect it did this time … Walking in the footsteps of Washington, Hamilton, and the other leaders of the American Revolution struck me with awe. Washington and most of his staff were quartered in this small farmhouse during the brutal winter of 1777-1778.

In this room, for many months, much of the day-to-day business of the war was conducted.

Florida: Cedar Lake Woods & Gardens, Williston

A beautiful multi-level botanical garden painstakingly created from an old limestone quarry. More here.

Florida: Hudson Grotto, Hudson

Creatures from the green lagoon. Someone has found a good use for Florida sinkholes.

Florida: Tampa Bay Downs

I’m always pleased when I get a clear shot of horses moving this quickly.

Florida: University of Tampa

Yes, the Victorians sometimes overdid things … but this Gilded Age hotel makes me smile. To attract the widely traveled Victorians to Tampa, railroad magnate Henry B. Plant built a 511-room hotel in the Moorish Revival style. It’s now the main building of the University of Tampa, with a small museum on the ground floor. (More on this in an upcoming post on favorite architecture recommendations from 2022.)

Florida: Miami

Miami people are too much like New York City leftists for me to love being there, but the city has some spectacular sights.

Below: same building as above, at night.

Florida: James Museum, St. Petersburg

A few favorite works from the James Museum. More bronzes and paintings appear in the posts listed here. More on Joe Beeler’s work here.

One of my favorites at the James: more on it in this post, more on the artist here.

One of my favorite paintings in the James. More on the painting in this post; more of Swanson’s works here.

Florida: Imagine Museum, St. Petersburg

The Imagine Museum is dedicated to pieces created by modern masters of glassworking. More on Rob Stern’s Windstars series here.

I love the one below for the color, and because I keep “reading” it as a landscape with birds. The artist’s website is here.

Connecticut: Sistine Chapel in Hartford

An exhibition is on tour that shows full-size photos of all the paintings on Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling (painted 1508-1512). Not only do you not have to fly to Italy to see them – you don’t have to crane your neck, because they’re displayed at ground level. The exhibition is travelling in the United States and Canada at least until mid-2023.

Closing with the ridiculous rather than the sublime …

Florida: Dade City

Because worlds-collide images make me laugh.

More

• For other posts on favorite photos and favorite recommendations, see the Favorite Recommendations and Photos tag.
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