Milwaukee Art Museum

I had my camera with me today at lunch and did some shots of and around the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Milwaukee at Dawn

This is a lousy quality image from a cell phone camera, but it's still kind of dramatic. It's a view of the art museum on the lake shortly after dawn this morning.

Rome Photos: Miscellaneous

In two previous posts (here and here) I have shown some photos of my vacation in Rome from 1997. This will be the third and final installment. The complete album can be viewed here.

	A view of the city of Rome, from the roof of St. Peters. I remember taking this photo very vividly. I was in Rome in August, the hottest, most humid time of the year. The Vatican, being a functioning Catholic Church, among everything else, required all visitors to wear appropriate clothing, i.e. no shorts or T-shirts. So, you have to wait in line, in the heat, in long pants. Once inside you find there are no elevators, so you have to walk all the way up the stairs, something like 500 steps as I recall. And these steps are in a cramped staircase without air conditioning or even a fan to move the air around. Once you're in the dome, the cramped staircase gets more cramped as the walls start to curve over on you, because you are acually climbing up the walls. It was quite a relief to finally get out on the roof.
	A view over the Tiber of the dome of St. Peters, through some trees.
	The Palazzo Venezia. It is just down the road from the Forum, as I recall. From a balcony on the side of this building, Mussolini gave some of his biggest speeches while dictator of Italy.
	Rome is a city of fountains. Nearly every square has one.
	Another fountain in another square in the city.

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Rome Pictures: Coliseum

Some more Rome pictures, primarily focused on the Coliseum.

	Some interesting looking older houses near the Vatican.
	Exterior view of the Coliseum. I am sure this was shot through a polarizing filter, hence the deep blue of the sky.
	Interior view of the Coliseum. You can easily see the similarity with today's outdoor stadia. It took me forever to understand all the structure in the middle of the arena. This was actually where animals were stored, combatants prepared (as in Gladiator), etc. On top of this area was the wooden floor of the arena itself, which was in turn covered with sawdust to absorb the blood.
	Another interior view of the Coliseum. It's a bit hard to see in the picture because it's so busy, but the emperor's box is in the middle. It was here the emperor would sit and take in the festivities, and would give the thumb up or thumb down after a gladiator match, indicating whether or not the loser would be killed. One of the main entertainments in the 2nd century Coliseum was the torture of Christians. In the Coliseum, they were fed to the lions, or crucified, or simply burned alive, to the roaring approval of the crowds and the emperor. In the emperor's box today, as seen in the picture, is a Christian cross. The emperors and their empire have long since died, but the Church they tried to destroy stands.
	A view through an arch in the Coliseum. As I noted in earlier photo posts, I liked the use of natural framing.

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More Paris Photos

A couple more photos from Paris.

	This is a shot of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
	This is a night shot of the Louvre, with the IM Pei monstrosity on the left. (I guess some people like it. It doesn't really seem to fit, though.)

Rome Pictures

I just posted some Paris pictures, and mentioned my Roman Holiday. So why not post some of those, too. I traveled to Rome in August, 1997. Living in the heart of Europe (Germany), getting around the continent was quite easy, as the German army showed once or twice as I used to joke. The European rail system is fantastic. So I took a week off of work, hopped on a train, and got off in the center of Rome. As a history buff, this was obviously a key place to visit. I shot about 13 rolls of slide film on this trip, all of which has been lost unfortunately. So all I have are some prints I made for friends. At least they are the best of the lot, though there was plenty that didn't get printed.

Again, not everything has been scanned, but here are a few. Other pictures can be viewed in the online photo album I'm building up.

	This is a shot of the Villa D'Este (I believe; it has been a long time) at Tivoli. I was on a guided tour to Hadrian's palace and we stopped here. This place is known for its fountains. Note the rainbow near the base of one of the fountains.
	This is another fountain at Villa D'Este.
	This is a view up the Spanish Steps in Rome.
	This is the interior of the Pantheon. What's interesting to me about this building is that there's a hole in the roof that allows the sunlight in. That's the effect I was trying to capture here, with the fairly dark interior pierced by the bright sunlight coming through the roof.
	The heart of imperial Rome was the Forum Romana. This is where most of the great Roman buildings were located. This is a view of the forum.
	As I also tried in Paris the year before, I attempted nighttime photography in Rome. This is a fountain in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican.

That's a few decent pictures from my trip. I hope to get more scanned over time and will load to the album.

Paris Pictures

A couple of weeks ago, I linked to a blogger who is showing his Paris pictures. I have a couple of good ones too. These were taken in 1996 so they are scanned from prints rather than being digital pictures. I attended a conference at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Manchester, England and took a few days vacation in London and Paris. My most vivid memory is the train trip to London from Manchester. There was, maybe, a quarter inch of snow and the whole country just seemed to shut down. What should have been a fairly short train ride ending up taking most of the afternoon. That night, even the Tube was running very late.

The photo results of the trip were disappointing, though the trip itself was great. I haven't ever gotten all the decent ones scanned, so this post will just have a couple. Someday I'll get the others scanned and will post. I'll also post my photos from a trip to Rome sometime.

	The first one is my favorite, the Eiffel Tower at night, shot from the Trocadero. I remember carrying my equipment up there to take the picture, and while I'm setting up a woman trying to hawk postcards of the Tower. I thought it was funny and told her I was making my own. In both London and Paris, I was trying my hand at night photography, and this was one of the best results. Unfortunately, the original slide is long lost and all I have is one print.
	This is the Tower in the day. The light isn't great, but I like the perspective.
	This is a more artistic picture taken through an arch at the Louvre. This has always been one of my favorite pictures. I was into using objects like arches or trees to frame my images.

Like I said, just a couple of pictures, but ones I'm proud of. I would love to be a travel blogger. Travel the world with a laptop and a digital camera, take pictures, and write about the experiences. Ah well.