Category: photography

I covered the details of my trip trip the US in my 2024 Recap [confusion.cc] post. So I won’t rehash that, but I wanted to post some of the photos I took in New York. I’ll get to Minnesota in another post.

I didn’t take a ton of photos, I was only in the city for a few days. I did take a walk from my hotel, south of Penn Station and Times Square, up through Central Park and spend a few hours at the Guggenheim Museum. And I made my way to MoMA for an afternoon.

At the Guggenheim there was an exhibit in the rotunda by Jenny Holzer titled “Light Lines”. It was interesting, the LED displays spiraling up the ramp showing various quotes was interesting to watch. And I enjoyed some of the political pieces – redacted documents related to the “war on terror” and Trump tweets make for interesting material for sculpture. You have to see it.

My favorite piece of Jenny Holzer work that was on display was a small, easy to miss, plaque near the very top of the spiral. A simple plaque you might see in any building with some label or name on it. But this one said “Laugh hard at the absurdity of evil”. Given the current state of the world, that just too close to home.

Meanwhile, over at MoMA there is a giant blob of rainbow colored stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling with smaller “moons” of stuffed animals, each moon a different color…

Also, van Gogh’s Starry Night [flickr.com], and Picasso’s Ladies of Avignon [flickr.com]. And much more, MoMA is big. I spent like 5 hours. It’s not Louvre big but it’s much bigger than the Guggenheim. But between the Guggenheim and MoMA I saw a lot of “modern” art in a few days.

Anyway, I only had a few days in NYC, so modern art was most of what I did. Other than that I caught up with A█████, aka F█████, as I mentioned in my 2024 Recap post. And, I enjoyed some proper New York pizza and bagels.

I also swung through NYC on the way out but was just there for one evening. I stayed in the TWA Hotel [twahotel.com] at JFK. There I met M███ in the most random fashion, as covered in the Recap post. But I also had time to explore the TWA Hotel itself and admire —and photograph— the 1960 architecture and decor. Including the “Rainbow Room” or “Hidden Alcove” where the Beatles hid before, or after, their famous press conference in 1964 when they first landed in America.

Anyway, that’s enough for this post. Just remember:

Laugh hard at the absurdity of evil

Jenny Holzer

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You can view the whole New Your City, New York, USA, May 2024 [flickr.com] photo set on Flickr.

And so, with a few hours to spare before I leave for this year’s winter holidays, we come to the end: Milan. The final post, the last photos from our 2023 Italian adventure.

We didn’t spend much time in Milan, a few days only. We flew into Milan when this trip started but we jumped on a train immediately and went to Venice, saving Milan for the final few days of our trip before flying off.

As we only stayed a few days we didn’t see everything in Milan, but we did go to the must see sites: the Duomo, La Scala and, of course, The Last Supper.

The Duomo, officially the Metropolitan Cathedral-Basilica of the Nativity of Saint Mary [wikipedia.org], but that’s more than a mouthful, so we will stick with “the Duomo”, is beautiful. I think I say this about almost every cathedral I visit, but it’s almost always true; they are beautiful buildings. A lot of the smaller cathedrals are very similar, but the Duomo in Milan is in the group of great cathedrals that set themselves apart visually. The roofline of the Duomo in Milan is unique as far as I know, covered, almost to excess with floral inspired carvings and statues. It looks like there is not an inch of the roof that is uncovered. But that’s an illusion, there are walkways on the roof. You can climb up to the top and walk among the spires and statues. It’s amazing.

Inside too the Duomo in Milan stands out. it isn’t stark like and bright like the inside of the Duomo in Florence [wikipedia.org], but dark but airy. I’ve seen photos of the newly renovated Notre Dame [wikipedia.org] in Paris and it’s too bright. I guess its true to the original, but like the idea of vividly painted ancient statues from Egypt, Greece and Rome, it just feels wrong, I prefer the raw marble without garish paint and I prefer cathedrals that soar into the dark high above. The Duomo in Milan feels right, the stone is dark, but the space is vast and it does not feel oppressive. I love the texture of the vaulted ceiling and the shape of the columns.

Near the Duomo we also visited the Galleria Vittorio Emanuel II [wikipeida.org]. I’m not much for the shopping but the building itself is worth a visit. It’s industrial revolution architecture at it’s best. I would say “Victorian Architecture” if it was in England or an colony of the British Empire from the time, but as it’s Italian I’ll stick with “Industrial Revolution Architecture”. It combines the steel work and ornate brick and stone work of the industrial revolution. The central dome is awesome soaring above you.

But, as I said, I’m not much for the shopping. But on the other side of the Galleria from the Duomo is La Scala [wikipedia.org], the famous opera house. It’s not as fancy and magnificent as the Palais Garnier [wikipeida.org] in Paris, but its probably the most important opera theater in the world.

Another very cool, if small, site near the Duomo that we went too was the chruch of San Bernardino alle Ossa [wikipedia.org]. Specifically it’s ossuary, where the walls are decorated with the skulls and other bones of thousands. This is nothing like the Catacombs of Paris [wikipedia.org], where the bones of millions are stacked up gathering dusk. Here the bones are not just stacked up, but used as materials for decorations. There area stacks of skulls, in the shape of crosses packed into walls of femurs (it think), but also little scull and crossbones and other decorative motifs made of bones. A very cool site.

The last sight we saw, on the last day before we flew back home, was The Last Supper [wikipedia.org]. I’ve seen it twice before, but it’s still amazing. It’s not my favorite painting but it’s history and the obvious technical mastery, even in it’s wounded state after so long, make it well worth the visit. I took a ton of photos, as this is the first time I visited it with a good camera (as it was for much of the things I visited for the second, third or forth time this trip, my first time in Italy I took few photos with a film camera as I was poor and my second time I lost my camera —stolen on a train). I any case I don’t expect I’ll go back to see The Last Supper, or many of the other sites in Italy, there is so much more to see in the world.

And so, that was the trip. Venice, Florence, Pisa and Siena, Rome and the Vatican, Pompeii and Milan. Retracing my honeymoon 16 years ago, with my wife and this time accompanied by our daughters.

Now I have a few hours to sleep before I head to Japan for this year’s holiday trip. I made it with a full 12 hours to spare! This year I will also be re-treading old ground, this time in Kyoto, as my older daughter was 18 months old when she visited and my younger daugther has not been there before. They both love Japan but this year will be death by temple and shine.

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You can see the full Milan, Italy, December 2023 [flickr.com] photoset on Flickr.

Continuing to document my 2023 family holiday in Italy. I’ve already covered Venice [confusion.cc], Florence [confusion.cc], Siena and Pisa [confusion.cc], and Rome [confusion.cc] and the Vatican City [confusion.cc]. Now for the penultimate entry: Pompeii [wikipeida.org], the ancient city buried in the ashes of Mount Vesuvius and rediscovered in the 16th century and still, to this day, being excavated.

We went to Pompeii as a day trip from Rome (as my wife and I did back in 2007). It’s a long day trip taking a few hours to get to Pompeii, via Naples and then a rickety old graffiti covered train around the mountain to the historic Pompeii. But it’s worth it. I would love to visit Herculaneum too and I could spend more time in Pompeii as there is too much to see on a short winters day, but we made a good go of it.

We started in the forum, where the temple of Jupiter, Apollo and various public building are. We walked all the way to the other side of the city, to see the amphitheater and we passed the theater on the way. But these are not what you visit Pompeii for, the real attraction is the real lived in city. The many houses and shops that are so well preserved.

There are so many houses and shops many with spectacularly preserved fresco and mosaics. The main Pompeii page on Wikipedia lists:

• House of the Centenary [wikipeida.org]
• House of the Faun [wikipeida.org]
• House of Julia Felix [wikipeida.org]
• House of the Greek Epigrams [wikipeida.org]
• House of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus [wikipeida.org]
• House of Loreius Tiburtinus [wikipeida.org]
• House of Menander [wikipeida.org]
• House of the Prince of Naples [wikipeida.org]
• House of Sallust [wikipeida.org]
• House of the Silver Wedding [wikipeida.org]
• House of the Small Fountain (Pompeii) [wikipeida.org]
• House of the Surgeon [wikipeida.org]
• House of the Tragic Poet [wikipeida.org]
• House of the Vettii [wikipeida.org]

And that’s just the houses, and just the one with dedicated Wikipedia pages in English. Check out the list of categories on WikiMedia for Ancient Roman frescos in Pompeii [commons.wikimedia.org], it lists 47 subcategories, almost all of which are individual houses with enough fresco to justify a list of photos and older painting and drawings of the fresco.

We visited several of the houses on the Wikipedia list, and a few shops and one of the public baths. But the highlight of our visit was the House of the Vettii [wikipeida.org]. We went out of our way to rush to this one because it has a lot of fresco but also because it has a particular one next to the main door on the street. Wikipedia declines to display a photo of it, but gives the following description: “The painting depicts Priapus weighing his phallic member on a set of scales” and it does not disappoint:

Anyway, as I said, I could spend a lot more time in Pompeii, to see each and every house and shop and public building that is open. One day I’ll have to make a tour of southern Italy and Sicily.

Enough for this entry, I need to start working on the Milan, our last stop so I can get them on Flickr and write a post about them ASAP. Less than 48 hours until this year’s holiday starts.

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You can view the full Pompeii, Italy, December 2023 [flickr.com] photoset on Flickr.

Still trying to get done before I leave of this year’s holiday. Only a few days left. I have our day trip to Pompeii, a couple days in Milan and today’s entry, Vatican City [wikipedia.org], to go. Tick tock.

Technically the Vatican City is another country, but really it’s part of Rome [confusion.cc]. It deserves it’s own entry however, not just because it is a separate country but because between Saint Peter’s Basilica [wikipedia.org] and the Vatican Museums [wikipedia.org] (and other things we didn’t visit) it is it’s own thing.

Saint Peter’s Square, and the Basilica, dominate the public view of the Vatican City. While the entrance to the Vatican Museums is a good walk around the outside of the city, everyone starts with Saint Peter’s square.

The church itself is massive, so massive you can’t even tell how big it is. all you can see from the square is the façade and the dome. It’s hard to tell how big it is. The total area of the church is 21,095 m² (227,070 square feet) according to Wikipedia, and 136.6 m or 448.1 feet to the top of the cross on the dome. It’s over 500 steps to the top of the dome (unfortunately, or fortunately if you are my knees, both times we wanted to go to the top the line was hours long so we decided to skip it. It’s funny, I’ve been to Vatican City three times and all three times I have failed to go to the top of the dome due to the wait. C’est la vie.

The inside of the church is also amazing, even having seen so many cathedrals across Europe. It’s overwhelmingly golden and while there are lights positioned to make sure you can see the ceiling and domes, filled with sculptures and paintings, if it’s sunny the interior is bathed in amazing crepuscular rays. There is also a lot of art, two I want to mention:

Pietà [wikipedia.org] by Michelangelo [wikipedia.org], which, along with David [wikipedia.org] is his best work. And St. Peter’s Baldachin [wikipedia.org] which is that four posted thing over the place the pope sits or stands when they are in the Basilica. It’s hard to get a good look at Pietà because it’s behind bullet proof glass. A deranged man tried to destroy it by hacking at it with a hammer back in 1972. It’s still beautiful but there are too many reflections.

The Baldachin is so massive, in photos it does not look that massive (maybe because Michelangelo’s design for the church includes extensive use of perspective, with statues and decorations on the upper levels increased in size which fools you eyes, makes it hard to truly appreciate the size, until you see the people dwarfed by everything, and especially the pope standing under the Baldachin, what you thought was maybe like a normal ceiling is actually 28.74 m tall (94.3 ft)!

Besides Saint Peter’s, the other must see in the Vatican is the Vatican Museums. One of the most extensive collections of classical, medieval, renaissance and even modern art in the world. Second only the Louvre in number of annual visitors in one recent list I saw.

There are seemingly endless halls of statues —Egyptian, Classical Greek and Roman, renaissance and more. The Egyptian collection also includes other traditional plundered things: mummies, stele, various things from tombs. Then there are halls and halls of medieval paintings and renaissance painting. And the buildings themselves are works of art. It can all be a little overwhelming, similar to the Louvre or Uffizi, it’s best to spend a few days if you can. But there are a few things worth mentioning:

• The Transfiguration [wikipedia.org] by Raphael, is a standout painting in the collection.
• I love The River Nile (no Wikipedia page) an larger than life sculpture of the personification of the river with various cherub like putti and animals (like crocodiles) crawling over and around the river.
• The School of Athens [wikipedia.org], another work by Raphael, this time a fresco. You know this picture, everyone does, showing Plato and Aristotle walking through a ‘school’ of philosophers, engineers and others.
• The Gallery of Maps, by far my favorite part of the Vatican Museums, is a long hallway of large painted maps of Italy from the late 1500’s. But the vaulted ceiling, covered in intricate painting (frescoes?) in what Wikipedia tells me is the in the Mannerism style, but really looks Baroque to me. The way it’s lit (modern florescent lights but still,) how the vault color contrasts with the natural lights on the walls is amazing.
• The Sistine Chapel [wikipedia.org]. The big one. The one everyone is making their way towards. You can’t take photos and you can only stay a few minutes as they constantly urge you to keep moving, but it is as amazing as everything you’ve heard. I can’t imagine the years Michelangelo spent on his back doing the frescoes. I don’t think his Last Judgment fresco on the wall is nearly as good as the ceiling. To see the Creation of Adam in person is amazing and totally worth it.

Ok. There are numerous other works of art and architecture in the Basilica and the Museums, but I need to get to work cleaning up the Pompeii and Milan photos so that’s it for this entry on Vatican City.

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You can see the full Vatican City, December 2023 [flickr.com] photoset on Flickr.