A quick photo today coming into the Park showing the way to the Sun Gate at Macchu Picchu.
It is terrible and wonderful thing to be in the Annex, the place that sustained Anne Frank, her family…several families. The boards creek beneath you feet in a way that you feel, viscerally the fear of movement, of discovery. It is sobering to see through slivers of window to the outside and dream of the normal world before the Nazi’s occupied Amsterdam.
Most everything from the Annex has been removed…was removed right after the families arrest. Otto Frank, the only Frank survivor of the concentration camps wanted the rooms left open, but small accents still exist. Walls, and sinks and wood hold memories long after the people are gone.
I was fascinated by the sink in the kitchen. I stayed there, losing time, just feeling the world of it’s texture. I LONGED to climb the stair to the attic because I knew this was one of the places Anne was able in the early morning to see the world through the high window.
The whole place is suffused with this boredom, isolation and fear, but at the same time it is so terribly wonderful to feel a small bit of this. The atrocities of the past, must never be allowed back into our world. They must be remembered as must the people who’s beauty was taken all to soon from this world.
I have been to Meiji Jingū every time I have visited Tokyo. There is a peacefulness to the place that I love taking in, its also suffused with Japanese spiritual practice. Shinto is fascinating to me, and I love to watch all the comings and goings…especially the marriage ceremonies. This is one of the outer torii gates on the east side of the expansive park the Shrine is built on.
This is an odd photo for me. Truth be told, I tend to show photos of the exceptional. The things people create, the MOST beautiful things in the world. I love these achievements because they are perhaps the most wonderful expressions of our shared humanity. I will also admit, these are often not my favorite things about the places I visit. To me, the variation if every day is invigorating. From the heart filling songs of birds I have yet to ignore. From the smell of spice I have never once tasted. From the flourish of a language I cannot comprehend. The feel of breathing in new pollen, yet rejected by my body. All of these are more are foreign to me, but yet SO familiar. This view of rooftops in Florence made me think of all of this. How familiar, this everyday scene, and yet how beautifully…new.
This scene caught my eye walking back “home” (hotel) while in Amsterdam from Anne Frank Huis. The yellow bicycle against the mostly monochrome row homes really stood out in my mind in this way. It was only later that I noticed how fun the most prominent home number is here. I also saw my first Banksy in the wild nearby. Amsterdam is a wonderful city for cycling and walking, you can’t get away from the general humanness of the place…which I just adore.
I visited Amsterdam earlier this year and found a new member on my short list of favorite cities. It’s an amazing city in many respects with a rich and interesting past. I was taken by this scene…I’ll let you guess WHERE the red room is located and WHAT its propose is, but it oddly made me thing of death; and a little person speaking backwards in riddles (thanks David Lynch). It turned out not the greatest of photos, but I like it all the same. How do you feel about the red room?
Rounding off the month of BIG PLACES, how about a place with “big” in the name…the Colosseum in Rome! I was standing outside after my visit. I was truth be told gawking at all the people in line and smiling ever thankfully that I got up early for my visit. The sun was behind part of the facade and I snapped this quick shot of the massive structure!
Continuing my theme of BIG PLACES, I give you the temples of Cambodia! This one I believe is Ta Prohm, but given the maze-like winding I did at somewhat breakneck speed, I am doing good to recall where I was at all! There are throngs of tourists, but you still can’t help but sometimes seeing the place through the lens of western video games.
St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City is HUGE! Continuing my series of places too big to capture in a single frame…I just love the light in these churches, the broken rays shining down on visitors to the Basilica is a great experience! It also happened that I visited when I was able to enter through the holy door, a timing that I think makes my Catholic friends a bit green.
I have a pretty wide-angle lens on the camera I generally travel with. 16mm on a full frame sensor can take in a huge landscape! Sometimes, however, because of the distance, or sheer number of tourists in a location I cant take everything in I would like. This month I am sharing photos of places too big to be contained in a single frame. Santa Maria del Fiore is a magnificent structure and one that American audiences know from the books of Dan Brown. Giotto’s bell tower is a great climb and near impossible to get in a single shot. Throw in the church…forget about it!
