2 x Frank Lloyd Wright + a non-architectural bonus
You may recall that on our 2018 trip we visited Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Fallingwater in western Pennsylvania. On this year’s return to the Northeast we toured his Martin House complex in Buffalo, New York, on the morning of July 26th. Later we got on the last tour for the day at Graycliff, the summer home that Wright designed for the Martin Family on the shore of Lake Erie in Derby, New York. By the time we finished, the sun was getting pretty low, so I hung around to see if we’d get a great Great Lake sunset. We did.
In looking at this picture now I’m reminded of the sunset we saw over Lake Michigan in 2016.
© 2019 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
Splendid. Glad you hung around.
Gallivanta
September 7, 2019 at 5:45 AM
Definitely worth staying around for. I did variations on my theme for the 13 minutes it took for the sun to move from right above the cloud bank to barely still visible behind the lake.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2019 at 6:43 AM
What an intense red you captured, and what interesting clouds. I especially like the patterns in the clouds bisecting the sun. They not only show the effects of earthly wind, they’re reminiscent of the photos I’ve seen of storms on the surface of the sun.
shoreacres
September 7, 2019 at 7:34 AM
Your comment sent me looking back at my archive to compare the quality of the reds in the dozens of pictures I took. In particular, I compared a couple that I took two-and-a-half minutes apart. Then it occurred to me that we say “two-and-a-half minutes” but we don’t say “a-couple-and-a-half minutes.” If we did say it it would be ambiguous because the “half” could mean half of an individual or half of a couple.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2019 at 8:05 AM
Or it could turn into a story about what could happen to a couple in only half a minute…
shoreacres
September 7, 2019 at 8:12 AM
Which may or may not be equivalent to what could happen to an individual in only a quarter of a minute.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2019 at 8:18 AM
If an artist portrayed that, would it be an example of being drawn and quartered?
shoreacres
September 7, 2019 at 8:43 AM
Being drawn and quartered could mean getting paid 25¢ to let an artist sketch you.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2019 at 12:38 PM
I hear they’ll do that in the French Quarter, but some of the artists are a little sketchy.
shoreacres
September 7, 2019 at 5:30 PM
Well said!
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2019 at 5:32 PM
Great experiences invariably trigger precious memories. This memorable sunset photo at Lake Michigan must be one of them, Steve.
Peter Klopp
September 7, 2019 at 8:06 AM
Yes, I’m quite pleased with the sunsets I managed to record at Lake Michigan and three years later at Lake Erie. The next evening I went for a sunset over Lake Ontario, as a future post will report.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2019 at 8:21 AM
The sun is such a glorious showstopper. Fabulous shot. Stunning!
Jessica
September 7, 2019 at 9:41 AM
I like your enthusiasm. Thanks.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2019 at 12:42 PM
That’s kind, thank you.
Jessica
September 7, 2019 at 6:25 PM
You’re welcome.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2019 at 6:27 PM
What a delightful surprise! The triangular symmetry is something Ma Nature doesn’t serve up very often.
Michael Scandling
September 7, 2019 at 10:18 AM
Although I’ve been thinking about triangular things lately in posts published and still scheduled as well as in a photograph I took this morning, somehow I didn’t pick up on triangularity here. I’m glad you pointed it out.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2019 at 12:42 PM
Wow, your visits to an icon’s works created glorious memories as well as your capture sealed the moment of this splendid sunset.
lensandpensbysally
September 7, 2019 at 10:21 AM
Understandably but unfortunately, visitors to the Frank Lloyd Wright houses aren’t allowed to take interior photographs. I’d say this sunset from Graycliff’s back lawn goes a long way in making up for what I couldn’t do inside the house.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2019 at 12:46 PM
It’s an interesting study of geometry: sphere, triangle, lines, though that focus doesn’t take away from the power and depth of the color. Remarkable photo!
Tina
September 7, 2019 at 10:50 AM
You can see why this dramatic picture and other similar ones in the set got me excited. Like you, Michael Scandling pointed out the triangularity of the red area, which I somehow hadn’t consciously noticed. You could say I was obtuse, like the triangle’s angle just below the sun. And speaking of the sun, there was no way I’d have been so obtuse as to miss the circle of the sun.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2019 at 12:53 PM
Good things come to those who wait!
tanjabrittonwriter
September 7, 2019 at 7:51 PM
“Tout vient à point à qui sait attendre” is how I learned it a long time ago.
Steve Schwartzman
September 7, 2019 at 7:53 PM
Je n’ai jamais appris cette expression en français, mais ça me plaît beaucoup.
tanjabrittonwriter
September 7, 2019 at 9:39 PM
Maybe you were unconsciously waiting for it all this time and it finally came to you.
Steve Schwartzman
September 8, 2019 at 6:08 AM
Thanks to you, Steve!
tanjabrittonwriter
September 8, 2019 at 5:26 PM
Merci, mon amie.
Steve Schwartzman
September 8, 2019 at 6:44 PM
It’s always worth waiting around to see what the setting sun, or more often in my case the rising sun, will do. You were rewarded for your patience with a glowing image of a glowing sky.
Steve Gingold
September 10, 2019 at 5:18 AM
Last week I tried your end of the day twice in a row. Alas, the sky didn’t present me with anything close to the drama shown in your morning pictures. What I’d experienced at Lake Erie made up for it in advance.
Steve Schwartzman
September 10, 2019 at 6:12 AM
I understand the sunsets at Lake Erie to be quite phenomenal according to a cousin who lives in Erie, PA. She has invited me to see them but I have yet to go.
Steve Gingold
September 10, 2019 at 7:22 PM
If what I saw is common, you’d do well to take your cousin up on her offer to see them.
Steve Schwartzman
September 10, 2019 at 9:38 PM
[…] Fern vegan restaurant in Rochester, New York. Near the end of the meal I told our waitress about the dramatic sunset we’d seen over Lake Erie the night before and asked her if she knew a place where we might catch a good sunset over Lake […]
Going for sunset over a third Great Lake | Portraits of Wildflowers
September 15, 2019 at 4:36 AM
Oh my …wish I had taken this! What a super shot .. 👏
Julie@frogpondfarm
September 15, 2019 at 2:02 PM
You should’ve come with us.
Steve Schwartzman
September 15, 2019 at 4:05 PM
What a great idea! 😄
Julie@frogpondfarm
September 15, 2019 at 4:46 PM
Get in your time machine and join us back then.
Steve Schwartzman
September 15, 2019 at 4:58 PM
Oh that made me laugh! 😄
Julie@frogpondfarm
September 15, 2019 at 10:02 PM
Glad to hear it. Shakespeare wrote that “Present mirth hath present laughter,” and with a time machine you can add past laughter as a present to your present mirth.
Steve Schwartzman
September 15, 2019 at 10:17 PM