Baltimore

I started my morning with a walk around the Baltimore Inner Harbor . My hotel is situated just across the street, so that made it easy. It was a lovely misty cloudy morning, great for photographs.

Earlier in the trip I had met some folks from Baltimore that had advised me that the Inner Harbor was not a worthwhile destination. I beg to disagree. I think, perhaps, over COVID, it might have stagnated, but it was quite lively, even early on a Saturday morning. After spending some time playing with rigging lines and reflections, I noticed a bunch of women taking an outdoor dancercise type class. The woman leading it was impressive, and both she and the students made good subjects.

I then saw what looked like a fair, with lots of people milling around. It turned out to be a send-off for a walk to benefit NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) . It seems this was their first in-person benefit since COVID, so everyone was quite excited. In addition be being a great cause, It was also a good opportunity for images.

While continuing to walk around the harbor, I saw a large oil slick in once corner. This is one of those things that is both tragic and beautiful. It makes for some really interesting abstracts, but of course, the boats should not be leaking oil at all.

I then proceeded to cross out of the Inner Harbor area to visit the American Visionary Art Museum . This turned out to be an unexpected gem. I was expecting a typical community art space. This was anything but. Apparently it is the national museum for untrained artists., that is, those who have not formally studied art in one way or another and are basically self taught. The art was varied and incredible. If you are in the Baltimore area, this is an experience not to be missed.

One of the exhibits was entitled “Esther and the Dream of One Loving Human Family. ” It centered around large needlepoint depictions of her family’s journey through the Holocaust. Even the captions were in needlepoint. It was truly phenomenal, I have never seen anything like it.

Another exhibit really struck home, as it depicted finding order in chaos, specifically faces in driftwood. We do this type of exercise often in Art Wolfe photography workshops, but I had no idea it had a name, pareidolia . The artist, Pat Bernstein , apparently began to be hyper-aware of this phenomenon following removal of a benign brain tumor.

I then walked over to Olivia nail salon as my last services were in New Orleans, about two months ago. Olivia’s was listed as one of the three top nail salons in Baltimore, and it was worth the mile plus walk to get there. First, it was an interesting walk as it took me through several different ethnic neighborhoods. Second, it was a lovely friendly place and the services did not disappoint. My technician was Andrea, originally from Ecuador (as was the owner and the other technicians). I was able to tell her that I had been to Ecuador twice (mostly for the Galapagos, but I had also traveled into the mountains for a few days).

By the time I walked home, it was time to start downloading and processing my plethora of images from the morning.

I have a couple of options for tomorrow, stay tuned to see how it turns out.

Many more images are found in the Gallery.