Three Hours in Newport, R.I. (Day 76, Part 2)
It took me a while to figure out where the mansions were. On my way to that discovery, I found the yacht club, yacht museum, and some fort that you had to take a tour to get into and that I therefore stayed outside of. Here’s a picture commemorating the yacht experience:
A lighthouse protects ships from hitting the right-side stanchion.
And because I don’t think either of them are that great, here’s another photo. I imagine if you take the decent aspects of both of these photos, they might add up to one all-right picture.
I like how everything other than the truck on the bridge is leading the viewer’s eye *away* from the frame.
Then I found the mansions. It was about 4:30 and they close up at 5, so I just stopped at the first one I came to on Bellevue Avenue, which turned out to be the Marble House and to look like this:
You’re not allowed to take photos inside.
It was designed and lived in by an ex-wife of some Vanderbilt. She was into women’s suffrage (that was the story they told about her inside the mansion) as well as inflicting suffering on women (she was apparently pretty awful to her daughter). She was also very, very tacky about her decorating decisions — basically like Hearst, but without *quite* the means. Versailles is so over-done. IMHO.
I imagine the other mansions are sort of similar. If they’re not, nobody tell me, otherwise I’ll feel like I have to go back some time. (Thx.)
bkd
You may likethe effect, but it draws the viewer’s eyes automatically off the picture and onto the right-hand column. Useful in a left-hand column of a newspaper, but meaningless composition on a website. It is painful to even try to look at that picture.
Let’s see what you can do with Lady Liberty (per your 6-hour-old tweet– she’s from France, you know.
I don’t like the effect as such, I like how considerate the photo is for recognizing itself as deficient and therefore having the politeness to try and get the viewer’s eyes off itself. If only more people were as considerate as this photo!
OK. Liking the picture. I imagined myself sailing on the ship, off the page.