Greenish New England October Foliage

Kind of a disappointing  Autumn foliage this year. Too greenish, and too much tropical rain storms.

Very greenish.

I photographed these in a park at the border of Braintree & Weymouth, against my better judgement. Wasn't my idea. I KNEW is would be too green!

Early October Sunset in Boston by Mass Pike Towers

Very green this October. This was early this October.

Anna May Wong?

I have a number of persons whom inspire me as an artist, photographer, etc.

When I play around with my self portraits, there's 1 in particular that most people don;t understand. I often say "Anna May Wong" or "Ode to Anna May Wong".

So, What does that mean?

Yeah, I get that alot....

OK, so obviously, Anna May Wong was a person.

But, WHO is ANNA MAY WONG?

Well, back when movies, or motion pictures were invented, not only were they black & white, but they also didn't have any sound. NO audio! (In case you didn't know that... believe me, lots of people don't know that.)

 The motion picture industry in California were usually cast by Caucasian actors. But, they cast a woman whom wasn't to be the villains, or a victim. She was litter ally THE 1st ever Chinese movies star, and it's was in Hollywood.

Generally, she died in every film shot in Hollywood. But, she also was in films in Europe.

Silent film actors had to tell the stories through acting but without words, so it was very common that they wore dark eye make-up and used their eyes & body gestures to convey mood, intention, anticipation, character, and so on.

Since Anna was generally the villain character, there were often scenes of her eyes looking from side angle. Her promotional photos were often similar. She was very good at this.

I also like to use my hands in photos, which most people don't do.

But, generally when I say "Anna May Wong" I mean her facial poses with her side glaring eyes.

I started doing it off the top of my head, just to be funny and try something different, when I realized I actually liked the results in my portraits. So, sometimes I will still use it.

I can show you what I mean:

 So, that's pretty much what I mean...

The Thinker by Rodin on The Benfranklin Parkway Philadelphia

Probably 1 of the best known sculptures ever made: The Thinker

This is located in front of The Rodin Museum on The Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia on the outskirts of Center City in Fairmount Park, literally down the street from The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and not far from my old apartment, down the street.

Ben Franklin Parkways a very lovely! Let me show you!

Walking towards the Art Museum, away from Center City, on the right hand side of the parkway, after the Barnes Foundation, you will wander along the sidewalk path... like this:

This was in September, it was very hot, and I liked the angle of the sunlight at the time I shot this.

 It's a really lovely park. You keep forgetting it's a park, or even in a City sometimes, because it's so vast!

It's really nice! You will always see people jogging, pushing baby strollers, walking dogs, and sometimes even someone on horseback, usually a cop.

Then, off to the side here, if you take notice, you'll start to notice a building structure... with columns.

You probably won;t notice the statue, yet, but it's there...

So, as you continue walking, you will come across a path which leads to the buidling gates to the courtyard of the Rodin Museum...

But, before you would even be so bold as to enter, you will notice HIM: THE THINKER

As I stood there, trying to find great angles, many times other folks would seem to pop up out of no where and stand there for a looooong time just gazing at him.
This is typical of ART... I would know, I'm an artist...
So, I would wait for them to go, so I could continue shooting... but, also this was a popular cellphone photo shooting place! ben Franklin Parkways is LOADED with popular places where you will see tourusts or locals shooting pix on their smartphones!