Letters from the Past, in Upstate New York

By Jann Alexander

Letters from Genesee’s Past: It’s not often you score three times in one photograph. But one evening spent in Genesee, in New York’s Finger Lakes region, offered me more to shoot in faded brick, perfect neon and a gleaming diner facade than did any of its magnificent lakes.

Of course lakes are spectacular visions of sparkly sunshine glancing off shimmery liquid blues, with happy waves chopping about in a breeze, but my designer’s eye craves the complexities and juxtapositions of patterns, colors, shadows, light and textures, found at golden time, in what humans make.

Aim a strong setting sun at an beautifully intact neon sign, up against a much older, fading ghost sign, with the bonus of a shiny, clean green-and-silver deco diner in-between them, and I’ll grab my camera faster than I can launch a Hobie on that lake. ♣

Read about my more blends of Art + Travel here, and see a collection of photographs from my Time Travels here.

Do you prefer shooting nature, places or something else entirely?