Before the Start

In the minutes before the start of a sailboat race, things can look a little chaotic. The challenge is to cross the start line (not visible in this photo) after the starting gun goes off, not before. Before the race, then, you might have boats that are going in opposite or seemingly random directions.All of this happened in slow motion on the nearly calm day Deb and I were in Gig Harbor, Washington, a few years ago.The dull, cloudy day is made to look a little brighter due to some Photoshop magic. A tutorial is in the works for those who might be interested in knowing the technique.

Slowly Going Nowhere

Somebody once said that a good definition of sailing was "slowly going nowhere at great expense." These boats were photographed leaving Gig Harbor in Washington state on a nearly windless day and they were certainly moving at a deliberate pace.Though it was a generally gray (a typical western Washington) day, the boats in this Saturday regatta were still photogenic.

Juxtaposition

How about something from the 20th century, the 18th century and the 1st century in the same photo? If you travel to places like Segovia, Spain, that's not hard to come by.The Roman aqueduct that dominates that photo is the oldest structure seen here, though it is in amazingly good shape - especially since only gravity holds this structure up. That's right, there's no cement!So the question is: If the aqueduct is made of carefully carved and aligned stacked stone, how do the build the arches? In other words, since the last stone in the arch to go in is the one at the stop (the keystone) how do they keep the other stones in place before placing it?

Return To La Sagrada Familia

The other day I was changing the desktop on my Mac and I came across this photo, which was featured in a post from almost exactly two years ago. I won't go into the details on this famous Barcelona landmark since the earlier post does that already.The one thing that is striking about the architecture of cathedral is its diversity, which I think was a Gaudi trademark. The square, block-like design of these figures is remarkably different from the kind of detail you see in the earlier post.I would love to go back to Barcelona to see what progress has been made since I was there is 2004. In fact, I'd love to go back to Barcelona for any reason, as it was one of my favorite places in Europe.

Arches Gone Wild!

Today's post features a detail photo of some of the stone work in the Cathedral in Seville, Spain. Why "Wild" in the title? As you will see in Monday's post, the Roman arch was round and utilitarian. A thousand years later someone in western Europe decided to enhance the look a little. And the so-called "Gothic" arch was invented. It's main feature is that it is somewhat pointed at the top. The other feature is that medieval stone masons, without the benefit of sophisticated math and computer modeling, were able to make whole ceilings out of arched stone. And while they were at it, the dressed up the stone with elaborate carvings.The carvings add nothing structural to the arch. But they do look nice!

Loyalty

By Scott Shephard

On August 6, 2011, 30 US troops, including 22 Navy Seals, died in action when the helicopter they were riding in was shot down in Afghanistan. One of these soldiers was John Tomlinson and on the day of his funeral, his dog Hawkeye was allowed to attend.

As a precedent for today's post, you need to click here to see where Hawkeye chose to lie during the funeral. You might even want to read the article that accompanies the photo. I had seen the story about Tomlinson and his beautiful dog a couple weeks ago and today, when I was looking for something to post, I encountered a photo I had taken of the Monument to William of Orange in the New Church in Delft, Netherlands.

William was murdered by assassins' bullets, but his loyal dog, clearly oblivious to political machinations and violence, seems to wait patiently for his master to rise to action. Hawkeye, oblivious to precedents and analogies, was said to have sighed as he lay by Jon Tomlinson's coffin on the day his master was laid to rest.

Alte Pinakothek

Sheepish

As a Shephard, I couldn't resist these cute wool sheep. They were being sold at a street fair in a small Slovenian town. We didn't buy the whole flock but we did take one home with us.

Not From Around Here

Here's a thought: this bird is related to the common sparrows that are plentiful in South Dakota. The evolutionary difference between this colorful bird and a sparrow is the environment their ancestors developed in. In the case of the sparrow, there is plenty of brown.In the case of this Mexican bird, though, the tropics have much more color, such as Hawaiian shirts and colorful bikinis. It's all about blending in . . .

One of Thousands

Deb in I had a little extra time in a small town in Slovenia called Lesce Bled before our train was scheduled to leave for Vienna. We had coffee at a small cafe and then went exploring. This beautiful church was our best discovery.There were many things that struck me about this place. The first was that, though the church was unattended, it was also unlocked so that anyone had free access. But the most striking thing to me is that this church is only one of thousands that are scattered throughout many small towns of Europe. This church would have been this town's pride and joy when it was built. And I think it still is.

Sparglji

AKA Asparagus. As photographed at a street market in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Before Sunrise

We spent one night of our recent trip to Slovenia near a pristine mountain lake called Bohinj (pronounced Bo-heen). I got up early to capture a sunrise and blue morning sky over what I hoped to be a mirror smooth lake. I got a smooth lake but fog instead of sunrise. I also found the lake (which doesn't allow motorized vehicles) generally devoid of activity.I did find one person out rowing one of the traditional, locally made wooden boats. Whether he was fishing, getting his morning exercise or going somewhere I'll never know. But his presence does help this photo.