Pinhole Image: Former D&H Building

Pinhole Image:

Former D&H Building, now the SUNY System Administration Building
Albany New York

This pinhole image was made using a homemade camera — lanything light-tight can become a camera. The photo captures spring foliage rising around the building’s Gothic tower, a soft impression of a structure with a long and layered history.

History of the Building:

The D&H Building was completed in 1914 for the Delaware and Hudson Railroad Company and designed by Albany architect Marcus T. Reynolds. Its French Gothic Revival design — with turrets, stone carvings, and cathedral-like windows — gave the railroad a headquarters that looked more like a castle than an office.

It later became home to the Albany Evening Journal, tying it to the city’s media history as well. In the 1970s, the State University of New York acquired the building, converting it into the SUNY System Administration headquarters.

Hidden Details in the Sculptures:

Every detail carved into the stone tells a story. This isn’t just decoration — it’s a record of the people, industries, and institutions that once moved through these halls.

Look closely, and you’ll see figures worked into the stone: newsboys, railroad workers, and office clerks — everyday faces that reflect the building’s original tenants. Gargoyles and grotesques appear around corners and beneath ledges, some in traditional medieval forms, others with a more local character, almost cartoonish in expression.

There are sculpted trains and sections of track woven into the architectural flourishes, subtle nods to the Delaware & Hudson Railroad that commissioned the building in 1914. Faces carved into keystones may represent company executives, construction workers, or even the architect himself, Marcus T. Reynolds.

When the Albany Evening Journal also occupied the building, additional symbols found their way into the design — quills, typebars, and printing press motifs, still visible today if you know where to look.

Together, these carvings form a kind of visual archive. They anchor the building to Albany’s industrial and journalistic past — a physical record of the railroad men, newspaper staff, and city leaders who once passed through its doors.

Episode one of the Restoration Obscura Field Guide podcast is a primer on how to read the city like a history book. You can listen now on Spotify or any major streaming platform. A new episode drops Monday, May 5.

You can listen at: www.restorationobscura.com.

© 2025 John Bulmer Photography, John Bulmer Media, and Nor'easter Films
www.bulmerphotography.com
www.johnbulmermedia.com
www.noreasterfilms.com
All Rights Reserved

42 Howard Street | 05.04.2022

42 Howard Street | 05.04.2022
Albany, New York 

Note: 42 Howard Street (1903) by architect Charles Ogden, the original home of The American Home Telephone Company.

© 2022 John Bulmer Photography + Nor'easter Films

www.bulmerphotography.com

www.noreasterfilms.com

All Rights Reserved

West Hall Red : 07.19.2013

[Avove] Image of West Hall on the RPI campus in Troy, New York. West Hall served as the Troy Hospital from 1871 to 1913. Judging from its imposing architecture and elevated stance, one can see where the legend of Nurse Betsy originated:

From Wikipedia
"Some believe the building is haunted, and ghost hunters visited the building in 2006. According to legend, Nurse Betsy cared for the patients in the psychiatric ward of the old Troy Hospital. She was very musically talented and often played the piano to calm the screams and whining of her patients. She was very well known in the hospital, serving as a nurse until her tragic and unfortunate death. As legend goes, there was a fire in the psychiatric ward when Betsy was working. In her heroism, she attempted to save the lives of her patients. Unfortunately, she and many of her patients were not able to escape the flames and died entrapped in the psychiatric ward where legend has it they remain to this day. Many times late at night you can hear the sounds of Nurse Betsy’s footsteps as she walks from room to room checking in on her patients. Some have even heard her patients screaming or whining, doors flying shut, loud thumping noises and if you listen closely…the faint sound of piano coming from the psychiatric ward in the basement of the old Troy Hospital."

Wikipedia Reference

Purchase at: www.shopbulmerphoto.com
Flickr Photostream at: www.flickr.com/photos/johnbulmer
© 2013 John Bulmer Photography : www.bulmerphotography.com
All Rights Reserved
 

Dome :: NYDEC

[Above] Dome, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Albany, New York

Photography Portfolio: www.johnbulmerimages.com
Revolution 7 Creative: www.revolution7.com
Design Newswire: www.r7newswire.com
John Bulmer Design: www.johnbulmerdesign.com

Flick Photostream at: www.flickr.com/photos/johnbulmer

The Old Troy Hospital & Empac Sunset

[Above] The Old Troy Hospital
a.k.a West Hall
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York

[Below] The Old Troy Hospital circa 1897


[Below] Empac Building Sunset: Spring 2009
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York


Visit Bulmer Photography for more details.
Visit Bulmer Photo's New Image Feed.
© Bulmer Photography. All Rights Reserved

Oakwood Archway

[Above] Oakwood Archway
Troy, New York

Visit Bulmer Photography for more details.
Visit Bulmer Photo's New Image Feed.
© Bulmer Photography. All Rights Reserved

The Conformity of Leisure

[Above] Condos, Hilton Head Island
South Carolina

Off Season. Four million dollar homes sit abandoned on the fingernail of beach that surrounds Hilton Head Island. Perfectly manicured lawns and 9 foot plate glass windows wait for butterfly crosswinds somewhere in western Africa to push a wave out into the Atlantic. That wave, Neptune's rage, will erase millions of dollars of real estate only to have insurance dollars come to the rescue.

And the outside world will watch while CNN provides both the theme music and live satellite shots from hotel balconies. Eventually, the weather from Cape Fear to 31 North will boil. It is only a matter of time. But this is the off season, and the only drama here is based around the air temperature reaching 70 degrees in the morning. It is a constant source of contention among the snowbirds from Long Island and Westchester.

Visit Bulmer Photography for more details.
Visit Bulmer Photo's New Image Feed.
© Bulmer Photography. All Rights Reserved

Hoover Dam Landscape

[Above] Hoover Dam Landscape
Black Canyon, Nevada

Visit Bulmer Photography for more details.
Visit Bulmer Photo's New Image Feed.
© Bulmer Photography. All Rights Reserved

Coolidge Theater

[Left] Coolidge Theater
Coolidge Corner
Boston, Massachusetts

Visit Bulmer Photography for more details.
Visit Bulmer Photo's New Image Feed.
© Bulmer Photography. All Rights Reserved

River Street Gothic

This broken line of rooftops greeted me every morning in another life. Not literally another life, just another time. The mood and sky in remind me perfectly of my large, cold apartment by the river. Sounds of the neighbors echoing off of hardwood floors. Sub woofer bleeding through the ceiling as the online gamer freak upstairs saves the universe from alien attack just in time for sunrise. That is, when the sun did rise. It always rains over Gotham, and the city is always the color of November. The lady who used practice ballroom dancing in the window of the apartment across the street was the only color in an outdated television landscape. I don't miss the city. Not one bit.

I captured this image with a 1950's vintage Argus C3 35MM on Ilford HP5 pushed a stop. Camera choice seemed to fit the subject.

I miss chlorophyll already and it's not even mid-October.

Visit Bulmer Photography for more details. © Bulmer Photography. All Rights Reserved.

Herring Cove Lifeguard Station

Tonight, I am in the process of reviewing images from the summer. It's the time of year when I make the determination what will be available as stock images on other sites, what I will keep for myself, and what I will file away in R7's vault for future design projects. The last decade has eroded the profession of graphic design. Today, it seems like everywhere I go I meet a fellow designer, or aspiring designer. [And I live in a small market] It also seems like there are a million shell companies on the web that amount to nothing more than a person with a computer and some spare time. I created R7 [Called Seven Ink back then] in 1993 and I pride myself on being able to offer original photography as well as progressive design. In many ways, photography has taken over R7's primary focus. Photography has yet to be eroded in the way design has. Anyone can buy a design application and use a template and produce something passable, but not everyone can go out and take a really successful photo. Until the technical barriers of photography are simplified and sold, I will take refuge with my cameras from the cliches of the design world.

Herring Cove Lifeguard Station is another favorite from summer 2007. We were on the Cape for a week in August when I shot this sunrise photo. I must have driven by scene thousands of times since I was a child, yet, I never considered exploring Herring Cove's possible images because of the proximity of Race Point and its 2 antique guard stations and secluded lighthouse without road access. I managed a few really good shots from that trip and this is one of them. This was our first real trip with our newborn, so, sleep came at a premium. Not realizing that my focus would be more directed at our newborn daughter than photography, I packed enough camera gear for a Himalayan expedition. I should have just brought a DSLR and a film SLR, lenses and a tripod, but I packed for every contingency. I always do. I even had intentions of shooting star trails surrounding Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown. Next time I will be more realistic.

Shooting this image is a great memory. The morning was warm and the roads were deserted. The world was inhabited by a few surf casters, neoprene surfers, shore birds and me. Looking at the image now, the architecture seems slightly old-world Cuban or maybe Caribbean. I especially love how the building seems nestled in the dune grass. This print is available up to 30 inches on metallic paper with custom reclaimed wood framing options.

Visit Bulmer Photography for more details. © Bulmer Photography. All Rights Reserved.