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When we were at Point Lobos, I found this carcass of an alien tentacle monster mass of kelp washed up on the beach. It was kind of fascinatingly weird-looking, all sprawled out like that.
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Had I been a little more organized, you would have gotten Dramatic Chopin Is Dramatic on his birthday (which Wikipedia tells me was either February 22nd or March 1st). I didn’t think of that until we were halfway through the year, though, so he’s showing up in June. I just loved the lighting on this one, and the shadow he’s casting on the wall.
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Because it was formerly a royal palace, the Louvre an incredibly splendid building, quite apart from all the artwork displayed in it. This is the ceiling of the “Apollo Gallery,” painted and gilded and carved to within an inch of its life, with representations of the zodiac signs along its edges.
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One room at the British Museum is still maintained in the museum’s original style. In that room there stands a replica of the Rosetta Stone, this one not behind glass or mobbed by a hundred visitors. Which allowed me to get up close and personal to obtain a much more artistic photo than would ever be possible with the actual stone . . . .
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This fellow was working at the ruins of Ephesus in Turkey. He’s the only re-enactor I remember seeing there, but I wish there had been more; he fit in so well, and I honestly think having people around helps bring historical sites to life (rather literally).
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Ordinarily you should frame a photo like this such that the face is looking toward the center of the image, rather than off to the side. In this case I couldn’t: the sculpture was hanging on a wall in a room I wasn’t allowed to enter, and immediately to the left was a window that would have blown out the light levels and made for a bad composition anyway. So I went with what I could get, which is the face looking out of the frame — and I actually kind of like the unsettling effect it produces.
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It’s very easy to take a good photo of a flower: they’re pretty, so pictures of them are pretty. Getting a great photo of a flower is much more difficult. I don’t claim to have succeeded here, but at least this one is not interchangeable with every other flower photo I’ve ever taken, which is more than you can say for some of the others in my library.
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I mentioned before that Indian temples of the Hoysala period are carved within an inch of their lives. The ceilings are not exempted from this attention.
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The rest of the building this used to be attached to is gone now, but the old Town Hall Tower still stands in the central square of Kraków. The patchwork effect of the repairs on its sides is inadvertent, I think, but it lends the place a certain aged charm.
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Point Lobos in Monterey has a tendency to look autumnal regardless of time of year, because of a rust-colored lichen that grows over many things along the coast. The golden stone also looks particularly good in the late afternoon, when the angles of the rock are thrown into high relief.
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I can’t remember the details for certain, but the Royal Armouries exhibit in the Tower of London has a small collection of weapons that I think were designated “proof” pieces: official examples of standard armaments produced by various craftsmen. This is the grip of a proof pistol, with the red seals marking it as such.
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This is the lower level of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris — the church that’s still (or rather, re-)painted in the style of the medieval period. The effect is really just stunning: the same gothic architecture you see all over western Europe, but picked out in blue and gold and red. As much as I like the plain stone, the original look is really phenomenal to see.
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One of my rare photos in which not only am I okay with having people in it, that’s the reason I took the shot. 🙂 During my research trip for A Star Shall Fall I went up to Cambridge, and (of course) went punting while I was there. This fellow was sacked out in his punt taking a break, and something about the composition of the long boat and the tall brick wall and the pole and his slouched posture just really pleased me.
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The famous Half Dome Rock in Yosemite. It’s one of those natural features that is just so bloody photogenic, you have to work really hard to not have it come out looking awesome.
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I stood for bloody ever at the railing above this sunken area, waiting for a gap in which to photograph this pair without somebody else in the picture. (In fact, I didn’t quite succeed; fortunately, the person who started walking into frame as I took the photo could easily be cropped out.) I loved the foreground/background juxtaposition — even if horse-head sculptures always do make me think of the Mafia . . . .
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The fact that you can see anything in this photo is a testament to the power of Lightroom. The lighting inside St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome is rather on the dim side, and you aren’t allowed to use flash; as a result, the structure in the foreground is still basically invisible. But that’s okay, because the real attraction here, at least for me, is the gorgeous dome and the gold background on the inscriptions.
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Like much of Poland, Malbork got the snot bombed out of it during World War II. Restorations are ongoing, but in the meanwhile, bits and pieces get stuck . . . wherever. These decorative fragments are hanging off a wall near where you purchase your ticket and audio tour, and the late afternoon sun lit them very pleasingly.
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This is the exterior of the Hagia Sophia, as seen from across the park outside. The building has a fascinating history, having started out as a Greek Orthodox basilica before the Ottomans revamped it as a mosque (hence the addition of minarets). It is not in the best of shape, but it is still an excellent place to visit.
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I have taken a lot of photos of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. (When I went there for research, the hostel I stayed in was literally one block away from it.) After a while I figured I had taken all the shots I needed of the cathedral as a whole, so I started focusing on details — like this shot of the western portico.
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This is an ancient and famous cypress tree at Point Lobos in Monterey, California. Known as “Old Veteran,” I believe it is more than a thousand years old, and still clinging precariously to the rocks.
