By Scott Shephard
Deb and I have been in Indianapolis for a couple days and while her mission was professional, mine was mostly touristic. Yes, I played the tourist with the camera even though, as a few people pointed out to me yesterday, it was a "nice camera."
And it occurs to me, as I look for a photo to post today, that abstraction and ambiguity play almost no role in my photography. Instead, I am drawn to lines, shapes and angles. So what does that say about me? I'm not sure.
But who can look at the details of the Birch Bayh Federal building in Indianapolis, and not be impressed? It took talented and dedicated stone masons to carve and craft such details. As they say, "They don't make 'em like this any more."
The exterior of this building, incidentally, is made from Indiana limestone, which is fitting. Their capitol building is made from it, too. But so is ours (South Dakota). And so is the Codington County courthouse. And so are hundreds of other buildings in the US. Thank you, Indiana! The great cathedrals of western Europe were made from limestone, though it didn't come from Indiana.
On a side note, the interior of this building is amazing, too. But when I tried to take my camera in with me, I was told that I would need to get special permission from the US Marshall's office. And so I went to Marshall's office where I was ultimately told by two US Marshalls dressed in suits that no photography is allowed. Period. They were polite, apologetic and unsmiling. I said, "At least I tried." Without smiling, they showed me the door.
Canon 5DIII 1/90s f/5.6 ISO320 60mm
Note: For those stumped on the one line tease for this post ("can you find the eggs"), the answer is look for the repeating oval at the top of carved details. In architecture, it's called "egg and dart" and is a fairly common decorative motif. Today's challenge: go find some of your own egg and dart and report back to me.
