This isn't the only shot of this tree that I've posted in this blog. But when I was looking through my collection, this one jumped out at me. The brilliance of the back-lit red leaves of this Japanese maple gets your attention. But what I like about this tree is the snake-like curves of the tree branches.
Not the devil. At least not at the JJ HIll house on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Here we are looking at a nearly abstract close-up of the carved ballustrades in the central stair case. You can use a lathe to turn the main part of these wooden supports but the twists at the bottom were hand carved.
Canon 5D 1/60s f/1.4 ISO1250 50mm
This is the inside view of one of the most famous domes in the world. It was designed by Brunelleschi and the exterior dominates the skyline of Florence. The exterior is what every visitor to Florence sees but many don't take the time to step inside the famous Duomo. The interior is difficult to photograph because it is fairly dark. But it is certainly worth the visit.
I call this "The Impossible Dome" because the church was built on such a scale that no one had the engineering skills and technique to cap the transept. Finally, Brunelleschi invented the process and the dome was built.
To get an idea of the scale of this dome, look closely for the people standing on the walkway around what is called the "lantern." I've never been to the top of this dome but it's on my list.
I read somewhere that for every day we spend fishing we should add a day to our lives and for every day we spend golfing we should take a day away. I guess it has something to do with the relative stress and frustration of the two activities.
It would be hard not to enjoy fishing in this place - even if the fish weren't biting. I use the term "fishing hole" tongue in cheek in this post since the man is actually fishing in Starrigavan Bay, which is a few miles north of Sitka, Alaska. The snowy mountain in the distance is Mt. Edgecombe, a potentially active volcano.
This photo was taken just across from the famous Pike Street Market and just down from the famous "Original Starbucks Store." The sound of the guitar caught my ear but the three young listeners caught my eye. I was on the move so I didn't have much time but I did take three or four photos of this group. But this ended up being the best, even though you can't see the faces of the children. But that's probably OK since showing candid photos of children can get a photographer into trouble sometimes.
Though I have converted this photo to black and white, everything else about it is "real." Really! The twisted windows are reflections in one of the windows of the Art Institute of Chicago. In fact, I think it is this building, which was featured in another post on this blog.
This is a shot that I took through our rental car window as Deb and I drove through a small village on the island of Corfu. Europeans drive much smaller cars than many Americans, in part because fuel is more expensive but also in part because less space is devoted to autos - such as this road which, to me, looks more like a alley.
I have been "dusting off" some old photos and this is one I took a few years ago at the Butterfly House in Sioux Falls, SD. I'm not sure you can see it here, but there is blue speckling this butterfly's wings which is anything but random. Part of the disguise? Part of the reproductive game? I don't know much about butterflies but the more I look, the more I marvel.
Here's another one from the same day.
Incidentally, did you know that if you click on the picture displayed when you first go to a page in my blog, you get a bigger view of the same photo? In fact, most of these photos are uploaded at a resolution of 1680x1050, which is pretty big. I hope you have a good connection?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
My mother-in-law is one of the most amazing women I know. When we travel, she can outpace the best of us. She is smart, witty and curious. I'm saying all of this not because she sees this blog (I doubt she'd like this photo), but because it is true.
Here she is pondering puzzle pieces. She, my wife, my son and his wife Katie worked off and on all weekend assembling it. I would say that it is about 75% complete. I have not helped because puzzles seem kind of pointless to me.
I would have to say that in my opinion St. Peter's in Rome takes the prize as "Most Photogenic Interior." I have been looking at my photo collection, and I have a disproportionate number of the inside of this awe inspiring structure. There is so much to look at, I wonder if paying attention to the Mass would be secondary? I do know that one of the Calvinist reactions against Catholicism concerned adornment. Compare this sparse interior in a Calvinist church in England.
I like this view of the interior of the dome because you can clearly see the Latin Bible verse which came to be known as "The Petrine Doctrine." Peter became the first Pope in a 2000 year succession of Popes.
"Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam mean et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum" ("You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church, to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Mt 16:18)
Jesus may have been making a little joke when he said this to Peter because "Peter" was derived from the Greek word for "rock." Was Jesus smiling when he said this? I ask this because in the Middle Ages there was actually a theological debate about whether Jesus ever laughed, since there is no specific documentation of this in the New Testatament.
For the traveler who has been to western European capitals such as London, Paris, Berlin and Madrid, Athens can be more than a little jarring. It is a little less polished, and a lot more congested than those other capitals. There are 11 million Greeks and 4 million of them live in Athens. Many of them seem to have cars!
But I love Athens, partly because it is so different from other European capitals and partly because if you grow weary of the modern city, all you have to do is step to a location where you can see the Acropolis and the Parthenon. Then you are reminded of the fact that in so many ways - our politics, our aesthetics, our view of human possibilities - Percy Shelly was right: "We are all Greeks."
This photo is a bit misleading in that there are green spaces in Athens. But the uniform color of the city visible here is accurate, though the brightly colored awnings of the many apartments is hard to miss. Another view of Athens and the suburbs A view of the Acropolis and the Parthenon from our hotel
