On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
On The Road and In Your Backyard is a weekday feature spotlighting reader submissions. From the exotic to the familiar, please share your part of the world, whether you’re traveling or just in your locality. Share some pictures and a narrative, let us see through your pictures and words.
Submissions are welcome at tools.balloon-juice.com
Have a wonderful day, and enjoy these pictures that were outstanding contributions from the previous form. I have a few more days of such content lined up so we need lots of new submissions folks!
On a personal note, it’s good to have this feature back – I’ve missed it as much as you, missed the sharing and the dialogue as well as the pictures. It is a welcome relief from the daily horror and soul-sucking that is this timeline and a reminder of this amazing world in which we are blessed to live.
Troubleshooting – We have an improved setup and plans for further development. I hope the new setup works as well for you as it has in testing, but should you have issues, please email [email protected] This new submission tool is one of many more we’ve got planned, so do give feedback so we can craft them to your needs.
Today, pictures from valued commenter J R in WV.
After a long week in Baja watching and petting whales, we decided not to fly straight home, but to spend a few days in LA. It rained the whole time, so was cool and damp, and I caught a cold after a couple of days (darn) so we did two museums. First the LA County Museum of Natural History on Tuesday, where dinosaurs and minerals were the most interesting photo subjects, and then the Getty Museum on Wednesday, before I laid up with my cold.
The Getty Museum is a white Travertine temple o art and culture on a mountaintop in the wooded hills on the edge of Los Angeles.
The two exhibits we viewed were Early Photography and Rembrandt Miniatures after the Mogol Empire. The early photos were pale, low contrast, and difficult to take pictures of. I did anyway, and my pictures were mostly not usable. The Rembrandt miniatures were really tiny, like 2 inches on a side. So also difficult to photograph.
I did take some pretty good (for a cloudy rainy day) photos of the actual museum itself, so that’s mostly what we have here. By the way, the food in the cafe was fabulous!! No pics, tho!
The Front Steps of the Getty
Taken on 2018-03-14
Getty Museum, LA
After you arrive at the parking facility, you take a tram up the hill to the actual Getty Museum, and this is how you arrive at the actual facility, which is mostly White Roman Travertine.
The bronze is the best of the sculpture we saw, very Greco-Roman in style. The steps and the buildings are awesome when you arrive!
f/3.4 for 1/800 sec at 52mm
The Interior Atrium of the Getty Museum
Taken on 2018-03-14
Getty Museum, in LA
This is interior of the roundest, swoopiest building in LA. Unless BillInG. knows of something we don’t! The main gift shop, the information desk, presentations, mobile equipment, lots in here.
f/2.8 for 1/640th at 25mm.
Exhibit Room – Early Photography
Taken on 2018-03-14
Getty Museum, in LA
A beautiful room full of the earliest American photography. Many photos were covered by a black opaque cloth that you had to lift away to see, in order to protect the fragile and dim photo from light which tends to fade some early technology used for photography pretty quickly compared to today’s dyes
Pre-Emancipation Children – trigger warning!!
Taken on 2018-03-14
Getty Museum, LA
This was one of the more successful attempts at photographing these early photos, so I decided to include it, after much repair work on the original picture I took.
These cute children were (according the the legend beside the frame) slaves, probably from New Orleans.
They were obviously prepared for being photographed, and we can have little knowledge of the circumstances or reasons for these photographs being taken. Perhaps advertising? Who knows.
I decided to put a lot of time and energy into learning how to repair my photo, and then into working on the photo, because it is so relevant to today’s most important political issue… how our current administration decided to treat refugee families.
When this photo was taken, slavery was the law of the land in the Deep South, and owners were permitted to do whatever they pleased to their slaves. These children look pretty light skinned to me, but they had the rule of “One Drop” of African blood, made you African, and potentially a slave. They could be bought and sold for any purpose. These children were not going to be field workers, and they may well have had a much worse fate in store.
Owners and overseers of slaves could do and did do anything to their property. This is why each generation of slaves included some who had lighter complexions than their parent. There were no laws about sexual abuse regarding slaves, nor murder, although that would be costly… no, I’m not kidding, that was the equation in the Deep South.
Today DHS Secretary Kirstjen Neilsen set in motion the separation of children from their families with less paperwork than the confiscation of a criminal’s wallet.
We know today that DHS, as ordered by Secretary Neilsen, made no provision for reuniting these illegally arrested children with their families whatsoever. They were taken away and imprisoned in a system that assumes 3 year old children can represent themselves in a kangaroo immigration court. They made no records of these children’s names, of their parent’s names, of their home town, NOTHING.
Slaves were transferred with better record keeping in most cases, as it was a transaction with lots of money changing hands. I personally believe Secretary Neilsen and everyone else in that chain of command down to the capo who took the child from his family should be in jail awaiting trial for kidnapping and human trafficking, because we made slaves illegal 150 years ago, even in the Deep South.
I believe Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions should be in jail for failure to control illegal behavior, child abuse, in the DHS. He knows what is happening, and takes no action to prevent the kidnapping and illegal trafficking in child refugees, the most vulnerable persons in our land.
I’m sorry to introduce a painful issue into the Photo journal, but the more I went through these photos, the more this one cried out to me. We can do nothing for these children in this photo, over a century and a half old. But by God we can do something for the illegally kidnapped and trafficked children today.
f/2.8 for 1/125 sec, at 25mm
Main Plaza of the Getty Museum
Taken on 2018-03-14
Getty museum, LA
IIRC, the building in the background is the dining facilities, where the food is from 12 different ethnicities, and they are all delicious. On the left is another of the 6 buildings that make up the museum complex.
In the background you can see that there are green hills, except for the burnt ones, all around the hill of the museum. It isn’t raining hard, but it is very wet and foggy.
f/2.8 for 1/1600 sec at 25mm
Getty Offices
Taken on 2018-03-14
This is on the right of the front steps as you arrive. The building is covered with the same Off-white Travertine the floors of the plaza are paved with.
f/3.6 for 1/1000 sec at 66 mm
Rail Head on Mountain Top
Taken on 2018-03-14
Getty Museum, LA
You can see that by closing time the fog had cleared somewhat, and that the hills around the museum have their own grand architecture.
On the left is the road that deliveries are made on, and on the right is the tram station that visitors arrive in. And the same pretty Travertine from Rome.
f/3.2 for 1/1300 sec at 42mm
Thank you so much J R in WV, do send us more when you can.
Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.
Submissions should be sent via the all-new form at https://tools.balloon-juice.com
Final note: I’m not currently manning the email address previously used as an alternate submission tool. Submissions I find there will be published over the next few months as I see fit; the form submissions are the primary content driver for now.
Amir Khalid
A hearty welcome back to the On The Road … feature. We’ve all missed it! And yes, tho photos of enslaved children are indeed disturbingly topical in 2018.
Now, is there any chance of us welcoming back the also dearly-missed edit function?
NotMax
Mentioned this once a long, long time ago. It would be kind of nice to have a birthday calendar as an adjunct feature to click on in Quick Links, for those so inclined to submit their individual dates (month and date, year entirely optional of course).
Not that I give a second’s credence to it as anything other than entertainment but would be interesting to see how BJers shake out astrologically.
Mary G
Yes, such a pleasant surprise, Alain! The main building at the Getty is indeed swoopy, J.R.
Alain the site fixer
@Amir Khalid: I hope to get it back today
?BillinGlendaleCA
The last pic is a good shot of Mt. Saint Mary’s college whose downtown LA campus we’ve seen before on OTR as the Doheny mansion.
Alain the site fixer
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I can’t wait for more of your fantastic submissions! I still plan Wed for your work, if that’s still good.
OzarkHillbilly
Nice to have OtR back.
Schlemazel
Welcome back!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Alain the site fixer: That should be fine, I’ve got some good stuff.
laura
Needs moar Poco.
Also, yes to everything JR in WV said.
Amir Khalid
@Alain the site fixer:
Everyone’s looking forward to that.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: The new OTR form needs an edit function too.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@?BillinGlendaleCA: As my comment indicates, I sent in a set of pics from my trip up to SacTown.
MomSense
Thank you JR and Alain for kicking off this reboot. My kid is heading out to LA in a few weeks for some music gigs. I’ll mention these museums to him.
waratah
I really missed this every morning. The first place I go to. I am sending this to my daughter who is meeting a friend from Australia in Los Angeles in two weeks, to add this to her list.
TomatoQueen
Welcome back, On the Road!
So nice to see the swoopy Getty up close.
Elizabelle
Good to see OTR back. And edit function next. Woo hoo!
@ JRWV: like the photos very much. Would love to see those emancipation photos some day.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Somebody yesterday (frenchy?) was asking about non-gambling stuff to do in Las Vegas. In no particular order:
Red Rock Canyon conservation area is a nice excursion, if you’re not super heat-sensitive. Daily highs are falling into the 90s and will get lower as October arrives. The weather is great in Las Vegas from October to about mid-May.
If frenchy’s friend is stuck down on the Strip, the Bellagio has a conservatory and botanical garden. I have not been to that, but it is supposed to be nice. Also, the choreographed fountains in front of the Bellagio are definitely worth a look.
Stratosphere Tower. Great panoramic views of the city, and if you want to go all badass Subaru Diane you can even do a “skyjump” off it.
Shows: Always a lot to choose from. Cirque du Soleil has several, and I think Penn & Teller are in town. And Lady Gaga will be “in residence” toward the end of the year.
Grand Canal at the Venetian. This is one of those “unique to Vegas” things that ought to be experienced. It’s an indoor shopping area that looks like Venice. It has a sort of diorama sky ceiling that changes during the day to mimic the outdoor light. Pretty cool even if you’re not shopping.
Lots of other day trips and spas available. TripAdvisor has pretty good listings with links.
Actually, this “Three Days in Vegas” guide is pretty good (not too cheesy).
Good restaurants are too numerous to mention. Google your cuisine, and the Google/Yelp stars are a fairly good guide. (I like to see at least a 4.0 rating.)
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack (tablet): The Neon Museum!
Fremont Street, with its neon at night. “Old” Las Vegas area.
Driving out to the Hoover Dam. Incredible.
I like Las Vegas, and don’t even gamble. Its artificiality appeals, for a relatively short visit. And the desert and mountains are beautiful.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense: Well, there’s also LACMA in the Fairfax district, the Getty Villa in the Palisades., the Broad in DTLA, MOCA in DTLA, the Geffin in J-Town, MONA in Glendale, the Hammer by UCLA, the Simon in Pasadena, and the Huntington in San Marino. That’s just some of the art museums.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Elizabelle:
I mentioned the Neon Museum yesterday. It’s on my list for this visit.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
don’t you start
Cheryl from Maryland
Thanks, JR. FYI on the images of the children — part of the reason they looked posed was that the exposure time was so long that people had to be posed to stand still (Louis Daguerre reportedly had 15 minutes of exposure time). The other interesting thing is that the clothes for most of them are adult (the girl to her left looks to be in age-appropriate clothes for elite white children with skirts above her ankles and her hair down). That the girls, in particular, have adult clothes leads me to agree with JR that their subsequent lives would be problematic (even if they were free people of color they would be contracted as mistresses to white men). New Orleans had so-called Blue Ribbon balls where free people of color would send their daughters to be seen and contracted. There’s a fascinating fiction series by Barbara Hambly about the line between slave and free people of color in New Orleans.
Elizabelle
@Cheryl from Maryland: Ooh, thank you. Want to learn more about that, and fiction is often the way to do it, when the authors researched their setting.
PS: Uncle Cosmo has put in for a Baltimore meetup, whenever we get it on the calendar. (After the midterms.) Would that appeal to you? Or stick with DC area for you??
Elizabelle
@Steeplejack (tablet): Yea! Still haven’t seen it. You and your cross country trips through the air. Lucky bug.
(And snag more of those cookbooks and recipes, you hear?)
J R in WV
Alain,
Thanks for getting my Getty photos up. I do not see any photos, and Balloon-Juice is unformmatted on both Firefox and Chromium browswers on my Linux Ubuntu 14.04 paotop.
Sister Golden Bear
Sadly, no photos either. Chrome on Mac.
laura
@Steeplejack (tablet): get your reservation in advance -and see it at night. Its swell.
J R in WV
@Cheryl from Maryland:
Yes, I’m aware of the time exposure back when, and long periods of immobility, but that isn’t what I’m talking about in that set of photos.
Unfortunately I’m talking about the sales purpose posing of the photos — I imagine they are intended to raise the monetary value of the children in the photos to the racist slave-owner pedophiles who would pay the most for the children.
These were not nice people we are talking about. They were monsters, and still walk among us today…
Jay Noble
No Photos here either – Latest OSX and next to latest Safari
zhena gogolia
I can’t see the pictures.
zhena gogolia
Nothing on Safari, Firefox, or Chrome on a Mac.
zhena gogolia
Autoplay ad working great, though!
Origuy
I saw pictures when the post first went up; I was up late. I don’t see them now either. Using Chrome in both cases.
I’m hoping Alain will find a day to post the pictures I took a few years ago in Sergeiev Posad, the Russian Orthodox monastery town.
Joey Maloney
I’m so happy to see this feature return – however, I don’t see any of the pictures. The image addresses point to https://g7a7f2f5.stackpathcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/somethingsomething.jpg but nothing loads.
Just FYI.
J R in WV
sonethingsomething.jpg might not be the correct address…
They’re there now for me!! Hurray! They look OK too.
Albatrossity
I can see the pics here, but the submission form does not work for me. I go through the data entry and the captcha rigamarole, and then click the proceed button, and I get “Internal server error
Sorry, there seems to be an error. Please try again soon”
This seems to be browser independent, as I get the same thing with three different browsers.
Please advise!
SoupCatcher
Is it safe to assume, if one submitted pictures through the form a few weeks before things went belly up, that they didn’t make it?