This is Michelangelo's "Moses," and it is housed in one of the most unassuming places any great work art resides - the Church of St. Peter in Chains in Rome. Michelangelo was commissioned to do Pope Julius II's tomb and Moses was to be one of 50 sculptures to decorate the tomb. Humility? I don't think so.
The Pope ran out of money and the tomb was scaled back. But we got "Moses" out of the deal. Why the horns? Well, one account I've read says that the horns come from a mistranslation of the Old Testament. The Hebrew should have read "rays of light," not "horns."
Whenever I see a Michelangelo sculpture, I am struck first by how amazingly life-like the cold stone is. But I am also in awe of the physical feat it must have been for Michelangelo to wrest the figures from the stubborn Carerra marble.
This is an early morning shot of a back lit tree in the Borghese Gardens in Rome. There is something prehistoric-looking in these leaves. I don't know what kind of tree this is but it could be a relative of the locust, which grows in some places in South Dakota.
This is yet another photo from the Plitvice Lakes. I am standing on the shore shooting down. The clear, blue water is not fancy Photoshop work - it is the amazing work of Nature.
This is one of the many waterfalls at the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia. I had no tripod for the shots I took in this beautiful location so the water isn't quite as blurry as I'd like. The striking feature of the the Plitivice Lakes is the amazingly blue and clear water that flows through the park.
Here's another "reflections" photo. It's Deb again, striking a pose on a cruise boat sailing the eastern Aegean Sea. I think that's the same sun that sets in South Dakota, though.
Thanks to those of you who responded to my "The End Is Near" post. I'm persuaded that I need to keep posting. It's a good thing for me because it makes me go back and look at photos I'd forgotten about. It also motivates me to try to capture new things in new ways.
My wife doesn't really like it when I take her photo so instead I often take a photo of the reflections I see in her sunglasses. This is a palm tree in Mexico. But it's also a close-up Deb's head. She'll be thrilled.
I don't mean 2012. I mean the end of this blog.
There's not much art in the photograph - the art is in the amazing glass objects that were layered between Plexiglas panels in the ceiling of a walkway near 
This was taken in a Venetian glass factory on a recent student trip. If I didn't tell you that these were teardrop decorations dangling from a VERY expensive chandelier, I'm guessing you may not know what you were looking at.
Over the top of my computer, as I look out my window, I seen blustery winter weather bringing more light snow that is mostly horizontal. There is a "winter weather advisory" this morning - whatever that means.
There is an elevator to the top of the Arc de Triomphe but for the adventurous there are spiral stairs to the base. There is very little light in the stairwell and so I needed to use a high iso and slow shutter speed to get this photo.