Robert Burns Fans: Here’s Your Wallpaper

Andrew Carnegie and a number of other wealthy poetry-lovers gave us this statue of Robert Burns, which stands in Schenley Park on the grounds of Phipps Conservatory, just at the end of the Panther Hollow Bridge. So I’ve made it into a perfect computer wallpaper for Burns fans everywhere. The wallpaper comes in three different proportions; click on each image for the full-scale version.

The 1600 x 1200 version can be rescaled to fit 1280 x 960, 1024 x 768, 800 x 600, 640 x 480, or any other 4-to-3 display.

The 1680 x 1060 version can be scaled to fit widescreen displays.

The 1280 x 1024 version fits most last-generation CRT monitors at their highest resolution.

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.

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.

Spring at Phipps

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

Imposingly Ionic

The columns of the Mellon Institute building in Oakland are supposedly the largest monolithic columns in the world. Anyone who spends time in Pittsburgh will notice a kind of local obsession with having the largest this or that in the world.

Christmas in the Broderie

The Broderie at Phipps Conservatory decorated for Christmas.

Ducks in the Sunken Garden

The Sunken Garden at Phipps Conservatory during the Spring Flower Show.

Romanesque in Phipps

A Romanesque capital in Phipps Conservatory, at the back of the palm house.

More Glass at Phipps

More of Dale Chihuly’s glass whimsies at Phipps Conservatory. In the Tropical Forest, a few of the sculptures are filled with neon or argon and lit up like some sort of crazy radioactive dodder.

Architecture in Miniature

A Thai “spirit house” in the Thai Tropical Forest, Phipps Conservatory. The spirits live better than the people in some parts of Thailand, but fortunately they can fit into very small spaces.