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In Afghanistan, my friend had her hands painted with henna. Weeks later, her hands still show it and because of it her life lines are showing more clearly than they ever do.
Pet rats are so energetic! This is a "Dumbo rat".
I love Reading Terminal. Mainly because of the Pennsylvania Dutch enterprises and the Fair Food Farmstand. This chocolate place though, does a lot with molds including these ears.
As a disability advocate, I was amused by this street art.
Most of the touristy things/areas in Philadelphia are related to its colonial-era history. This "shop" window with its old fashioned apothecary jars is part of this. I generally restrict b&w to my vintage cameras but this was one shot where I didn't want the sunset.
well, what I really wanted was a picture that showed the sun's outline of the arches...instead I ended up doing my monthly self-portrait, as a shadow lined up with the shadow of the point of the arch.
The paint is peeling off this empty storefront but the carousel horse still commands attention.
New Brunswick looms large in my life and I've been passing this church in cars for ages. However, when I found myself at its base (with time to spare) this winter, the cold weak twilight/sunlight turned the brown stone into blue...
Salisbury Cathedral has a slight problem. The crossing tower (the tallest in the UK) was too heavy for the structure underneath it. There were three attempts to counteract this problem with buttresses, arches, and finally iron ties. So there is a slight tilt visible from the outside and the columns underneath are impressively bent. I did not know anything about this before visiting, my first inkling of the issues were the interior bracing arches above the bending columns...
Now here's a photo that lost something in the scanning. As my mother's boss kept the punt steady, I grabbed my camera to capture the sun just beginning to glitter against the panes of the Chapel's windows before we went too far down the river. Though this may be one of the more standard University of Cambridge pictures (ever), it will always remind me of that enjoyable, non-relaxing punt ride. Punts are flat bottomed boats moved/navigated with one really long oar (longer than I am tall). My punting skills are firmly underdeveloped...
I have to confess an absolute fascination with icicles. The notion of movement exposed through an atomic rearrangement of matter is magical. One of the things that surprised me the most in Utah was the way it glittered. The strong direct sunlight caught on the Rockies and every bit of snow.
Zaragoza has 3 churches/cathedrals/basilicas less than a minute from one another. It is an easy city to get into, difficult to escape.
walking through this public transit tunnel is a bit unsettling given that the outwards force of the barrel vault seems unsupported by the strangely angled walls. we trust in cinder blocks?
My college is known for its spectacular dorm rooms. As a senior with a good lottery number, I got one of the best w/ its window seated bay window and generous proportions (fits 3 bookcases in a row with room to spare! yes!)...and yes, this is as organized looking as it gets. It's a pity then, that I rarely really spend time in it.
Unfortunately, this picture's only caption is "Ireland" which I would've guessed by the sheep. I do appreciate that even if my photographic skills have not improved that much over the years, at least my organization has! I'd wager that this was expired film, the lack of contrast at the corners is a giveaway. But what I've always enjoyed about expired film is how it accentuates the effects of light entering the lens...
In the Rias of Galiza, you can always count on there being wind; the electricity is not as reliable but you can bet, winter or summer, there will be some wind. So a recent addition to the natural landscapes of the mountains are rows of windmills only accessible by unpaved windy one-lane 2-way roads. The windmills get the best views of the countryside. Every time I see windmills in other countries (Ireland, Greece) my mind always jumps back to the Galician mountains.
After the darkness of the spring source, the Great Bath practically invites a dipBath sticks in my head in many ways, despite that I only spent perhaps 4 hours there. I remember most clearly 3 things from my visit to Bath. The unbroken crescent aligned buildings of High St., the Roman baths with their orange, green, blue water and brick floor supports (to allow steam heating), and the legions (it seemed) of graduates from the University of Bath, all excitement and promise.
the first time I ever went to Ireland, it was to take a summer course in archaeology. Appropriately we went on multiple field trips a week. We took many pit stops during which my class would burst out of the little coach and run in many directions in order to see the most in the little time. Upon returning to Dublin from our trip to the Hill of Tara, we took a pitstop in Tara...which found me standing in the middle of a cow field, taking a picture of my roommate sitting on the wall protecting the church's foundations.
First Gaudí, then Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. My father was relieved to hear that Gehry is an American architect. (well, he's Canadian by birth...) Spain has ample competition for loco artists/architects. Well, anyway, being the only tourist destination I got to see in Bilbao, I spent more time walking around it than actually in it.
I could find no time stone for this building (or, for that matter, any of the buildings associated with St. Cecilia's...but then again, it was cold) but the addition is built with interesting late deco capitals and the interior of the church suggests 1880-1890s (I got to spend lots of time contemplating this during mass.). The interior of this building has a grand turn of century foyer with lovely victorian lights but staircases with that industrial tile i know and hate from my own (1950s) high school. long story short (too late!) turn of century?...But that portal! How could I pass up such a portal?
Catedral de Barcelona's tower (from the roof)
Ramblas at your back, early medieval (very dark inside) church aheadI want to go back to Barcelona...its (relatively) consistent economic strength means that it contains a wealth of different styles in one city, not that common in Spanish cities where often many decades are skipped.
I suppose this is the time to admit that most of what I wanted to see in Barcelona was Gaudí's work? My father, always rational/practical in his approach to buildings, referred him as "el loco" as in "¿vamos a ver más del loco?" whenever I wanted to check out another building.
The very first time I went to England, I stayed at Cambridge; at Cambridge you have to have status to walk on the grass, use certain paths...etc. Thus, I spent most of the trip very cautious of trespassing...I suspect this was the Cathedral of Ely's rectory. I was too cautious to walk down the path to find out!
by Santiago Calatrava. I only got like 5 hours of daylight in Bilbao so I couldn't take the time to run across it...
Gaudí's model of La Sagrada Familia. I've always been fascinated by architectural models but this one is in a very, very dark room, so I had to play with the photo...
the Western facade of the Cathedral de Santiago de Compostela is easily the most photographed part of the cathedral. Part of me has always suspected that half of that notoriety is due to the handy square in front it (el Praza do Obradoiro) that allows photographers enough of a clear line of sight to get the whole thing in their viewfinder even if they use vintage cameras like I do...heh. Well, anyway, this cathedral is easily the cathedral that is most familiar to me so I enjoy taking photos of more random points of view. This one shows the Western facade's towers but from the cloisters.
I have to admit that I spent most of my days plastered to the sides of the ship. If you asked the color of the rug in our compartment I cannot answer but the chairs on the balcony were blue...I couldn't get over the sheer natural beauty that was revealed at a slow pace. This is a landscape untamed...or rather, far from as tamed as the farmland (or former) of europe.
Ketchikan's main mode of survival is tourism. plain and simple. Creek St has the typical Alaskan narrative of unruly past and sordid, lawless activities except that it's all suspended over the creek. part of its charm is perhaps, the dichtomy between the facade and what is beneath.
Freshwater glacier
pieces washed up on the shorea couple of summers ago, I took a cruise to Alaska. as horrified as I still am when contemplating the consumerist/environmental absurdity of huge cruise ships and the accompanying "shore excursions", I was enthralled with Alaska itself. since it was not the height of tourist season, even going to small places was pleasant.
This glacier holds the distinction of being the only freshwater glacier I've ever seen. You can imagine the glee with which I picked up a freezing cold chunk of glittery glacial rock, right? You see, we would be told, over and over again, about the special crystallization pattern of glacial ice since it is condensed snow, but to actually pick a piece from the ground and give myself afterimages from the sun glinting off the circular pits was something else.
