Man’s Best Friend When I visited Brent and Josh at their home several weeks ago I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the new addition to their family: the wonderful (önderful?) Önder! She was wide-eyed and brimming with that puppy love that turns every dog lover into a gibberish-speaking, coochie-cooing fool who speaks twelve octaves higher than usual when in the presence of such a gorgeous, innocent being. I grew up with dogs and every one I meet [...]

  Lisa Wood’s Curiosities Lisa Wood is the friend of a friend: my compadré Fernando Aguayo-Garcia who lives and works in San Francisco. While she and I have never met, our shared love of the imaginative diorama unites us. As a child, dioramas were a favourite pastime for me. Scenes that involved my plastic dinosaur collection were especially treasured. I had no hesitation bringing some outdoor elements into the scenes either: moss, leaves, pinecones and maybe a caterpillar or two! [...]

  Advanced Style At some pint in our lives, we all decide how we’re going to age. Are we the ‘nip-tuck’ variety or the ‘au-naturel’ type? Do we prize the experience that comes with age while maintaining good health, good relationships and a positive outlook, or do we feel betrayed by every wrinkle, every ache and every rotation of the clock’s tireless hands as youth slips through our fingers? The subject of aging has been very much on my mind [...]

    Amy Friend Like all photographers, Amy Friend requires the benefits of light to create her art. Photography cannot exist without it. Her series “Dare all Luce” (an Italian phrase used to describe the moment of birth) examines the very literal – but also transcendental – effect of light in photography. By manipulating old photographs with pin holes and then reshooting them in front of a bright light source, Amy reinvents them, giving them new energy and a new [...]

  Decorating Details at The Beekman I spent this last weekend in beautiful Sharon Springs with some friends of mine and had a chance to catch up with Brent and Josh at their home. On this occasion, I made it a point to really look at some of the details they have used in their decor – and to photograph them for posterity. Ever the busy farmers, Brent and Josh let me explore the house while they tended to their [...]

    A Mother’s Stories Made Real When Kirsty Mitchell’s mother died of brain cancer in 2008, the 34 year-old designer and photographer found comfort in the memory of her mother’s elaborate childhood fairytales. The English teacher and writer had dreamed up fantastical tales of forest-dwelling princesses and enchanted nymphs, which she would often recite to young Kirsty before bedtime. To help channel her grief over the loss of her mother, Kirsty turned to her photography and vowed to bring [...]

  A YEAR OF FIVES This edition of the column marks its one year anniversary: volume 52 of “The Five Most Beautiful Things In The World This Week.” For the last 52 weeks I’ve tried to bring you content that you will find inspiring, entertaining and (occasionally) useful. It has been so much fun for me to search for images and themes that I find visually alluring and interesting and to share them with the Beekman 1802 community. The column [...]

Street Stone French photographer Leo Caillard recently collaborated with digital wizzard Alexis Persani to create an intriguing new series of photographs called Street Stone that drapes shades of modernity over timeless form. The pair took photographs of classical sculptures at the Louvre in Paris and models dressed in the latest street fashions and then blended them together, using Persani’s special photo-manipulation techniques. The sartorial (and satirical) contrast is quite effective, turning the appeal of classical sculpture and street fashion on [...]

  Umbrellas For my 30th birthday, my friend Louise gave me a very special gift: a clear, plastic umbrella. It was special because she had remembered that I had one as a child and that one of my favorite things to do was to stand under it in the rain, looking straight up at the sky to watch the raindrops smash into it and turn into little rivulets that would scatter all over its surface. My adult version is much [...]

    What’s in a Name? “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” In this case, I think Shakespeare got it wrong. Would we revere this flower’s iconic scent if it was really named hideous maximus horriblous or pink excrement on a thorny stick?  I think not. Names are terribly important to our perception of the objects, animals and people we encounter, although we may not always realize it. The subject of names is on my mind [...]