A Quiet Morning On the Canal

Here's another one from Bruges, Belgium.

NSFW!!!

I don't know what you see when you look at this photo, but I see Belgian chocolate. Titillating Belgian chocolate. And the big question I had was, "Do I want white chocolate or do I want dark chocolate?" I have read that dark chocolate is good for the heart, the brain and the joints so I guess that's my choice.And if you didn't know it, "NSFW" means "Not Safe For Work." I hope you didn't open this at work. It might just make your co-workers crave chocolate!(In case you are curious, this is a window display. I didn't cut and paste body parts in Photoshop. That would be a little creepy, don't you think?)

Wooden Boat

Keep Out!

OK, so the actual translation is "Private," which is more polite than "Keep Out!" And if the message weren't already friendly enough, how about surrounding it with a berry and twig filled metal thing?This was on the door of the rectory adjacent to the Bruges Cathedral in Bruges, Belgium.

In Bruges

Bruges (aka Brugge) is a beautiful small town in Belgium and Deb and I visited it a few years ago. In my quest to find a photo to post today, this one called me. I had abandoned it because it was overexposed in the brightest spots and way too dark in the darkest spot. But with the amazing power of Aperture (photo processing software) and the inherent wide dynamic range in a raw file, I was able to resurrect it - more or less.I harp on focal points and making sure that our photos draw the viewers' eyes in my teaching and I'm really not sure that this photo does a good job of engaging the viewer. But here is it anyway. . .

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.

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