Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged art, classical, girl, history, Italy, marble, monochrome, museum, photography, Roman, Rome, sculpture, statue, still life, woman on March 12, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
Ladies of Rome : photographed August 2012
An assortment of wonderful stone females I found hanging around the Italian capital.
I love taking pictures of statues. More so than of real people, because you can take your time to concentrate on the lighting and framing which you might not be able to do with pesky fidgety living subjects…
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged "Henry VIII", "King's College", architecture, art, cambridge, ceiling, chapel, church, design, England, history, interior, university on November 7, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
King’s College Chapel, Cambridge : 16th August 2012
Finished during the reign of Henry VIII in the early sixteenth century, this really is a stunning piece of architecture. I can only regret that I wasn’t bright enough to be able to attend such a prestigious university as Cambridge. Who could not be inspired by such surroundings?
(Don’t forget that clicking on the photos will take you to larger and more spectacular versions of these pictures…)
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged archeology, architecture, building, history, Italy, Rome, ruin, sky, temple on March 7, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
“Tarnished Temple” : Rome, 31st August 2010
My favourite part of Rome is not one that is frequented by most tourists. I get it, you’re on a tour or you don’t have much time, so you just traipse around the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. Nothing wrong with that, but the city really does warrant getting lost in, wandering round without a map and discovering all manner of amazing things.
I love the area around the Theatre of Marcellus. Clustered here, in the Jewish Quarter, are a host of interesting sights guaranteed just a percentage of the visitors to the other places, leaving you free to gaze upon the like of the Portico of Octavia, whose time-ravaged exterior stills retains dignity and splendour, especially when set against the deep blue of a summer sky…
Click here to see a larger version of this picture.
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged banner, Catholicism, history, letters, Salamanca, Spain, text on February 28, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
“The History of Spain” : Salamanca, 12th September 2009
I’ve published only one photo of Spain before on this blog, which is because when I went there I only had the lowly Nikon D50, my first digital SLR camera, and, more importantly, I had no idea how to use it. So although I was totally lacking in technical skills back then, and never did any kind of post-processing, I still knew how to frame a good picture. But I’m slightly ashamed to post works that can only pale in comparison with my more recent efforts…
Still, this banner caught my eye in Salamanca’s wonderful cloistered church of San Esteban, part of a very frank exhibition coming to terms with some of the less than pleasant aspects of the Catholic faith during the Inquisition and the conquest of the New World.
Salamanca, incidentally, makes for a great visit but is probably way off most tourist’s itineraries, lying as it does right in the centre of the Iberian peninsular, landlocked, and not that far from Portugal. This genteel old-fashioned town is the Oxford and Cambridge of Spain, steeped in history and architectural splendour, but still lively due to the student population.
See a larger version of this photograph here.
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged castle, fortress, Headdress, history, monochrome, Moors, Portugal, Sintra, steps on January 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
“Moorish Steps” : Sintra, Portugal, 6th September 2012
Another shot from the massive and imposing Castelo dos Mouros, although it is hard to do justice to its size and scope in any one image.
I was gingerly making my way down the steep steps when I happened to notice the woman in front of me had draped her colourful shirt over her head to combat the powerful summer sun, and this, for a fleeting second, made me think of the Arabian or Berber styles of headdress which might have been worn all those centuries ago by the people who built this place, transporting me back into the ninth century.
You can find a larger version of this photo here.
