This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
This was in the amber display at Malbork Castle, though I’m pretty sure it’s an actual shell carved into a spiral, rather than a piece of amber carved to look like a shell carved into a spiral. Either way, though, it’s lovely.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
I’m saving most of my Highgate Cemetery pictures for October, but here’s one that isn’t so much of a grave as a piece of a grave that fell off and landed in the ivy. (This is not difficult to achieve at Highgate. Missing the ivy when it fell would have been a remarkable achievement.)
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
When I say that Wieliczka is decorated with rock salt, I mean everything. Like this chandelier: it is, in fact, made of salt. (Except for the wiring and the bulbs, of course.)
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
One of the neat things we did in India was go to Brindavan Gardens for the nighttime show, involving the fountains being synchronized to music. Here they’re just flowing as usual, of course, but I very much liked the lighting.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
When I took my husband to see the Monument to the Great Fire, the sun was at precisely the right angle for the light to reflect weirdly off some nearby windows and onto this sculpture that decorates one side of the Monument’s base — in the process making it much more visually interesting to me than it had ever been before.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The mountain of Fushimi Inari is famous for its long corridors of torii arches, but it’s also covered with small shrines of various kinds. I have no idea what the purpose is of these stones, but as I’m a pushover for good moss, I had to photograph them.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Our last evening in Paris, we went to visit a friend who lives outside the city center, and ended up strolling with him down toward the Place de la Bastille (former site of the Bastille fortress). The castle’s long gone, but there’s a column commemorating the “July Monarchy,” and the clouds made the early sunset light absolutely glorious.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
This obelisk is Egyptian (as you can presumably tell from the hieroglyphics), but it stands in the Hippodrome of Istanbul. I had very little time for photos there, unfortunately, because our tour included a couple of women who had apparently missed the part where it said there would be walking, and moved at a snail’s pace while complaining the whole time. But I got what I could, and this is one of the results.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The old-style house/museum we visited in Zakopane was decorated with a variety of rustic but well-crafted things, including these carved chairs and the violin that was, for some random reason, hanging off a strap in the corner.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Last fall my husband and I went down to the Queen Mary II for a three-night live-action roleplaying game. During the day, I wandered around and photographed the ship. It isn’t a sailing ship, so it isn’t quite my favorite type — but I got a few good shots out of it anyway.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Gargoyles are such a weird artistic tradition. They’re grotesque and comical at the same time; I love the expression on this guy’s face. (He’s sticking off the side of La Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.)
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The V&A is one of those museums that’s big enough to have entire galleries for rather random types of things. This is in the gallery of decorative ironwork, and I liked the way the color was simple but the pattern was complex.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The fireworks display at Lake Biwa in Kyoto during Obon was astounding. It utterly dwarfed any such display I’ve personally seen in the U.S. For the most part it did not photograph very well — I would have needed to set my camera on a tripod and have it take lots of rapid-sequence shots to have much hope of catching things at the right moment — but this one came out pretty well. (The shadow impinging on the left is a tree; the spot of light lower down is someone’s cell phone. I don’t know how many thousands of people were there, but judging by the crush in the train on the way out, it felt like the entire population of Kyoto.)
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
You have to understand: I am a dyed-in-the-wool Latin geek. Not the most knowledgeable one, not by a long stretch, but I did NJCL competitions in high school, up to the national level in Certamen. The origins of my Latin geekery lie even further back, courtesy of an Odyssey of the Mind project in fifth grade where the problem we chose was “Pompeii.” So for me, going to Italy was like a pilgrimage, and the Roman Forum was my shrine. To actually walk on the Via Sacra and see the remnants of all those old monuments . . . it was a dream come true.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
I shouldn’t actually have this photograph. It’s from one of the museum-y bits at Westminster Abbey, and I didn’t realize until after I’d taken the shot that photography wasn’t permitted in there. I’m glad I have it, though, because the under-lighting on the figures is so wonderfully sinister.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
My fondness for the implements of war is showing through. 🙂 These were on display in the Artus Court of Gdańsk, and something about the simplicity of it just appealed to me. I think it’s partly that you tend to see this kind of stuff formally laid out in a display case, whereas this looks more casual.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The Chinese Lantern Festival in Dallas also featured this lovely dragon, which (as you can see) is not made as a lantern, but rather consists of plates, spoons, and other such items wired together. It was a nightmare to photograph, because the head was swinging from side to side, and at low light levels the exposure time was not short. But as the copy-edited manuscript for Voyage of the Basilisk has just gone back to my editor, it seemed an appropriate time to post this image!
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
This is one of my favorite detail shots from the “Line of Kings” exhibit in the White Tower. I don’t remember which Henry this armor belonged to; I only know it was a Henry because of the HR decoration on the border. Taking a photo of the whole shebang, full suit of armor atop a similarly armored horse, turned out utterly terrible — too many lights, too much glare from the intervening glass, too many people wandering through — but one of the things photography has taught me is, sometimes it’s the little bits that make the best shots.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
This is one of the better preserved/restored ruins on Delos, the island where (according to myth) Apollo and Artemis were born. I like the simplicity of the color in it: white stone, black tile, blue sky.
This work by https://www.swantower.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Okay, okay, it isn’t actually Aslan. It’s some kind of Christian image. But given the whole allegorical nature of Narnia, I think I’m justified in calling this the Aslan Window. 🙂 It’s in the Église Saint-Jean-de-Montmartre, whose doorway has been featured here before.
