Grasses in the Sun

I was coming back from recycling when I turned the corner heading west, and I saw these grasses backlit by the sun!  I was blown away!  They were stunning to see.  I parked the car, grabbed my camera and started shooting.  The wind was blowing the grasses around so I took a lot of pictures, because the grasses only looked best when the wind was just right.  I tried several compositions, and ended up with three.  These are the best two and I will let you tell me which you like the best.

Broken Noses

These are all stone sculptures of heads that were carved and polished nearly four thousand years ago!  They are absolutely stunning when seen in person.  As I went through the exhibit I was taken by the fact that almost all of the sculptures of heads had smashed noses!  I began to think there was some kind of reason for this, but there was nothing written about this in any of the descriptions.  I stopped to look at another sculpture on the way out of the museum, and it was a fragment of a face.  Another visitor was looking at it as well, and we remarked at how moved we both were about the piece.  He seemed so knowledgeable, so I decided to ask him about the missing noses.  He said that that the damage was done intentionally by newer rulers, to sculptures of older rulers.  He said that disfiguring the faces took the "magic" away from them, and made them less powerful.  Amazing story, isn't it?

The Temple of Dendur

As I was leaving the Egyptian Middle Kingdom exhibit, I passed through the Sackler Wing on the way out of the museum.  And this is the centerpiece of that wing - the Temple of Dendur.  The Egyptians built the Aswan High Dam between 1960 and 1970.  As the dam filled, it affected 22 archaeological sites.  Many of them were moved up to higher ground, like the huge Abu Simbel Temples.  Some smaller monuments were moved as well, but some others were donated to countries that helped with the work.  The Temple of Dendur was given to the United States.  There were several suggestions for which cities this could be installed in, but it is made of sandstone and needs to be out of the weather, so it ended up indoors at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I got this shot at the perfect time of day, with the blue, late afternoon light of dusk in contrast to the indoor light on the temple.

It All Looks Like Hieroglyphics to Me.

I have always loved the expression "It All Looks Like Hieroglyphics to Me." What is astounding to me is to see actual hieroglyphics.  They are so detailed and so delicate.  One of the exhibits I saw at the Met yesterday was called "Ancient Egypt Transformed: The Middle Kingdom."  It is an amazing exhibit, with hundreds of objects, from large stone sculptures, to delicate pieces of jewelry.  These photographs are details from a "Stele" made of limestone, with the figures carefully carved into the stone, and then polished.  Each of the rows of hieroglyphics in the top photographs is about one and one-half inches tall.  These carvings are absolutely stunning.  More pictures in another blog post.

Trying to See Differently

I am always trying to come up with new ways of seeing.  I never get very far along with this most times.  Today I was standing on the railroad station platform waiting for a train in the rain.  The circular pattern in the top of this picture is an umbrella that Kathy had, and which I had taken for the day.  So I was standing there with the umbrella over my head, and suddenly I saw the strange juxtapositon of the umbrella and the scene of the railroad station.  So I played with the composition for a bit and this is the result.  I love that the picture is kind of puzzling at first.

One of the Grand Houses

Kathy was making a presentation to a group of therapists who work with "The Soldier's Project" helping veterans.  The meeting was held on what was once one of the great estates on Long Island and is now a church.  The main house is all stone and is beautiful.  After helping with the setup of the computer Kathy used for her Powerpoint presentation, I wandered around just a bit, and saw this view from the porch on the back of the house.  They sure don't make houses like this any more.

The Painted Room!

So this is the back room, now that it is finished!  It is really exciting for us, after all this time, to have a finished room!  So we need to find a couch, and a rug.  We put a couple of chairs from the old back room into the new room, just to see what it looks like.  What's crazy is that we are still waiting for the bathroom fixtures - the pedestal sink, the toilet, and the "trims" - trims are the chrome levers for the valves, and the fittings and shower head.  The sink has been on order for several months now - the stand came in but not the bowl!  Yikes, this is taking forever.  But we LOVE the look of the finished room!