HEARD MUSEUM

The Heard Museum has to be one of the premier museums of native American art and artifacts.  I covered this museum last year also, so this year I decided to focus just on some of the shots that I thought worked well this time around.

As I have discovered, I enjoy more and am better at photographing three-dimensional objects than two-dimensional ones.  Fortunately, the Heard museum focuses on three-dimensional art.  Here are some shots of what are essentially sculptures.

Was this guy in ecstasy or what?

These latter two are essentially masks that were used as chocolate molds.

The museum includes a couple of courtyards that serve as sculpture gardens.

I liked this shot for the fact that it includes only three basic colors.

In the following shot I thought the shadows behind the sculpture would provide an interesting backdrop.

However, they may have served simply to create a little confusion.

I like the composition in the above shot, although I wish there had been a bit less separation between the statue and the tree.  As it is, it looks a little like the statue had been pasted into the image.

There were some interior pieces that caught my eye also.

I thought I should include at least one of the traditional pieces of pottery.

Loved the cow.

I particularly liked this last piece, the top of an item of pottery, for its monochromatic simplicity.

The building itself, which has served as the home of the museum since its creation in 1929, also deserves notice.

I thought the above shot worked well as a black & white.  This was taken at an aperture of f/10.  Because of how close I was to the balustrade, this meant that the more distant balusters were increasingly out of focus, but I thought that just added a sense of depth.

The building includes a number of arched corridors that invited photos.

I especially liked this last shot.  I was hoping to get a "clean" shot without any people in it, but then I realized that the person was nicely silhouetted by the light at the end of the corridor.  His shadow extending back on the polished floor was an added bonus.