MARINE CORPS MEMORIAL

During our trip to Washington DC last week we visited the Marine Corps Memorial located adjacent to the Arlington National Cemetery.  Located about a mile's walk from our hotel, the memorial, also known as the Iwo Jima Memorial, was dedicated in 1954. The bronze sculpture, which is modeled after what was perhaps the most iconic photograph from the Pacific Theater of WWII, sits in the middle of nicely maintained parklike grounds.  The sculpture is huge and carries a lot of emotional content.

Here is the first shot I took, in this case facing the sun.

The photo was a bit dark against the bright sky, so I turned it into a black & white.

I also took a shot from the front to incorporate the flag that flies above the sculpture.

The determination evident in the faces of the soldiers was impressive.

The rest of the shots were taken from the sunlit side of the sculpture.

The most interesting component of the sculpture was the hands grasping the flagpole.

John

MANSION ON O STREET

On our recent trip to the Washington DC area to see our daughter, we visited an unusual attraction, The Mansion on O Street, located near DuPont Circle.  The facility serves, inter alia, as boutique hotel, eating place, museum, and high-end flea market.  It consists of a number of contiguous multi-story brownstones that have been furnished (way over-furnished, really) with a conglomeration of stuff, ranging from the antique to the kitsch. Most of the items are for sale and many of the suites are for rent.  The brownstones have been connected by a series of "secret" passages that are part of the fun of exploring the place.

As stated, the spaces are very much over-furnished, but that just provides more opportunities for taking photos.  Here are a couple of wider-angle shots to give a feel for that feature.

As a photographer, I had fun just sorting through the various photo opportunities that the thousands of items presented.  The following item appears on the right side in the first photo above.

The shot below is of a portion of a glass engraving.

One suite was dedicated to John Lennon memorabilia, including this large (maybe four feet across) glass piece of John and Yoko.

Most of the items were for sale, and frankly the prices didn't seem exorbitant.

Among the items not for sale were a large number of guitars that had been signed personally by various artists.  Here are a couple of examples.

This latter guitar was signed by, among others, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Buddy Guy, and Neil Young.

Among the kitschy items, Betty Boop . . .

Johnny Depp (poster, that is) . . .

And a pink flamingo.

Here is a shot of a very unusual brass chess set.  I really could not do justice to the set as a whole, so I decided to convert it into an opportunity in abstraction.  The pieces ranged from perhaps 6 inches to over a foot high.

The collection included also a large number of ladies' hats that were posed on manikin heads.

Most of the time, we are admonished to focus on the subject's eyes.  But here I thought the distinguishing features were the lips.

Many of the bathrooms were decorated just as eccentrically as the other rooms.  For example . . .

Finally, here is a door that featured a cut-glass panel that I liked.

This was a fun experience, especially as our trip coincided with the government shutdown, requiring us to rethink the venues we might want to visit during our stay.

John

OLDENBURG FARM

I live in Mequon, Wisconsin. which is the third largest city in Wisconsin by geographical area but has a population of less than 25,000.  While the eastern half of the city is basically a bedroom community for the Milwaukee metropolitan area, the western half is largely farmland.  The other day I took my camera looking for some shots at an apple orchard on the west side of the city.  The day was clear but was marked by patches of fog that the morning sun was burning off.  On my way to the orchard, I passed the Oldenburg Farm, a gorgeous horse farm.

There weren't any horses about, but there was plenty of pasture land enclosed by well maintained fences.  Here are a few of the shots that I took.

Each of these shots was taken looking east.  By this time the sun was a little to the southeast, but was still nicely illuminating the fading fog.  These shots are a bit redundant, but I was experimenting with the interplay among fences, pastureland, outbuildings, fog, and sun.  One thing that I think I have learned about taking panoramic landscape shots is that the composition usually benefits from significant points of interest in the foreground, such as the portion of fence running at an angle in the foreground of the last shot above.

In the following shot I wanted to show the parallel between the foreground and background fences.

I liked the prominence of the foreground fence and the tree foliage above, but I'm concerned that the background fence may be a bit lost.

I was also trying to be mindful of the shadows being cast by the fences, as in the following shot.

I also liked the converging lines of fence, shadows, trees, and rock wall, but the shot would have benefited from the presence of fog.

The shot below also illustrates converging lines but with the advantage of fog.

I did  eventually make it to the apple orchard, which was largely a bust, so I'm glad I stopped to get the shots that I did of the Oldenburg Farm.  There is no substitute for good light, and a little fog can also help.

John

SOLVAY COKE PLANT ONE LAST TIME

On September 29 I paid what may be my final visit to the abandoned Solvay Coke Plant in Milwaukee's Walker's Point area.  I have visited the site a number of times this past summer and have posted photos from those previous visits.  However, I had driven past the site a week back and had noticed that there was a great deal of activity going on at the site, including the use of heavy construction equipment.  I realized that it would have been impossible to take my camera there while construction activity was going on, so I chose to return on a Sunday morning.  That worked, as the location was quiet except for one other photographer also trying to get in some final shots before the buildings were razed.  It's possible that the construction will spare the buildings, but it seems doubtful at this point.  I am just happy that I was able to get the shots that I have before the site becomes permanently unavailable.

I had not been to the site for several weeks and I was interested to see what developments may have occurred.  The answer was some but not a lot.  For the most part,  I decided to limit my photography to what was new, though I couldn't resist taking one more wider-angled shot of the general scene in the main building.

There was a fair amount of new graffiti, some of it quite well done.  Here is a sampling of that.

I liked how the artist of the above work used a dripping paint technique.  I'm sure it was intentional.

It was a sunny morning, and the following graffiti was on the exterior back (south) wall of the main building, so light, often an issue in interior spaces, was not a problem.

The following graffito is a recent reworking of a previous piece, something that seems to happen often with graffiti.

I particularly liked this latest iteration of the graffito for its combination of colors.  Here is a close-up of part of the piece.

Finally, following are a couple of detail shots.  This first is of a hinge to one of the interior doors in the main building.  This hinge was fairly massive; I am guessing that the image covers an area of perhaps 10x15 inches.

I had been concerned with the amount of light available for this interior shot and had upped the ISO to 640.  I was pleased with the resolution that I got on the shot, taken at f/6.3 for 1/5 second.  In truth, I liked the hinge better than either the wall on the left or the door on the right and decided simply to center the hinge in the shot.

And here is a shot of a handle on another door.

What had caught my eye was the knotted rope hanging from the handle.  The exterior light coming from the right also helped to create some depth.  But when I took a close-up of the handle and rope, I realized that the bright blue paint against the dark wooden door wasn't simply something to try to minimize but rather something that could add to the overall composition.  In the end I felt that the handle and the graffito complemented one another in a weird, contrasting way to make a photo that was more interesting than either the graffito or handle alone would have provided.

John

DOORS OPEN MKE 2013: ST. PAUL'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, located on Milwaukee's near east side and dedicated in 1884, was another venue in the Doors Open Milwaukee 2013 event.  St. Paul's is all about stained glass windows.  They are numerous and beautiful and include several Tiffanys, including the largest window ever created by Tiffany, shown in the photo below.

This window probably measured 10x15 feet, was gorgeous, and was in great condition, considering it is nearly 130 years old.  Not a great shot, but I did want to show the window's full scope.

Here are individual shots of the three main sections of the window.

A docent at the church was very helpful in pointing out some of the features of the windows, including the fact that the white robe of the Christ figure in this last shot had significant three-dimensional components.  Indeed, many of the Tiffany windows featured three-dimensional elements, and the docent had me touch several of the windows to demonstrate this fact.

Following are some other stained glass windows on the other side of the church that I believe were also created by Tiffany.

The colors in these windows appeared to be brilliant and subtle at the same time and were simply glowing.

The church also featured a number of round windows.  Here are a couple.

I know that the first was a Tiffany, but I'm not sure about the second, which was situated above the organ in the choir loft.  Some of the organ's horizontal pipes are visible in the lower portion of the image.

Finally, here are a couple of close-up shots that show off the beautiful detail in the windows.

I could tell that the docent was proud of her church's windows and rightfully so.

John