HISTORIC BUILDINGS
18 galleries
I like to find new ways of photographing major historic and heritage buildings that have already been "done" by everyone with a camera who has visited them, amateur and professional. Here are my views of the Alhambra, Angkor temples, the Acropolis of Athens, the village of Ayvalik, Dalmatian historic towns, Fountains Abbey, Historic Christ Church in Weems, VA., Lavenham, Suffolk, Paestum temples, Giza pyramids, the Taj Mahal, and the contemporary Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh. All copyrighted images are available for you to download. Special discounted prices for educator and educational institutions.
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23 imagesThe day I visited the Alhambra, it was simply heaving with crowds of tourists. I think it something of a miracle that I managed to get some photos that show the resplendence of the place unmarred by visitors. We'll just pretend we are there alone, like Washington Irving. It was originally constructed as a small fortress in 889 and then largely ignored until its ruins were renovated and rebuilt in the mid-11th century by the Moorish king Mohammed ben Al-Ahmar of the Kingdom of Granada, who built its current palace and walls. It was converted into a royal palace in 1333 by Yusuf I, Sultan of Granada. (Wikipedia)
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62 imagesExperiencing Angkor takes time. I spent nearly two weeks at it, which was not really enough to see and do everything within a day's excursion from Siem Reap. I got around conveniently and pleasantly by tuktuk. The Angkor Archaeological Park, managed by the APSARA Authority of Cambodia, is an enormous range (up to 1000 km square) of forest and field in which 1,000 temples, moats, and earthworks are found, dating from the 9th to 14th centuries AD. The core monuments are the ancient Khmer city of Angkor Thom, abandoned during the 15th century, and the enormous temple of Angkor Wat built by Suryavarman II in the 12th century. While European kings and bishops were building Romanesque and Gothic abbeys and cathedrals filled with images of saints, Khmer kings piled up huge boulders on top of one another to replicate the sacred Mount Meru of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology and filled them with images of Apsaras and Devatas. In trying to comprehend the vastness, I concentrated on the details.
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24 imagesI happened to be visiting in Athens in 1978, just as the Acropolis restoration program was beginning. The wounds in the beautiful buildings saddened me, and the busy concentration of the workmen charmed me.
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19 imagesAyvalik was a center of the Greek-Turkish population exchange of 1923, and still shows the scars. Many old Greek homes still stand as derelicts, while others have been refurbished as holiday homes by Turkish citizens. They illustrate traditions of domestic architecture . Nearby is a ruined Greek Orthodox church, its fresco icons defaced, the eyes dug out. Still, its beautiful location opposite Lesbos and near Assos and Pergamum make it an attractive holiday place.
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79 imagesThese images show the ancient, medieval, and Renaissance era villages, buildings, and sculptures, along the Dalmatian coast and islands, made during a sailing trip in 2006 sponsored by Elderhostel (now Road Scholar). Our vessel was a schooner of Dutch registry with 12 passengers so it could get into places the big cruise ships could not.
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13 imagesThe remains of the 12th century Cistercian Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, embody for me the "bare ruined choirs" of Shakespeare's sonnet #73. Carefully preserved by the British National Trust, the ruins retain a sense of spirituality.
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11 imagesThis perfectly symmetrical central-plan Georgian church was funded by Robert "King" Carter of Virginia, and built in part of his plantation, now in the town of Weems, in 1735. His tomb and those of some of his wives are on the church property. Still used for worship, the structure is lovingly restored and maintained by a nonprofit volunteer society.
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8 imagesThe town of Lavenham in Suffolk, England, contains a number of medieval and renaissance era structures still in use and carefully maintained. An airfield nearby was operational during the Second World War, as USAAF Station 137, manned by the US Army Air Force 487th Bombardment Group. I stayed in the Swan Inn, where souvenir photos in the pub show that American airmen had reunions there after the war.
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14 imagesThe Western Greek city and temples at Paestum are a study in determined Doric architecture and its variants. According to the UNESCO World Heritage list, "the Cilento is an outstanding cultural landscape. The dramatic groups of sanctuaries and settlements along its three east–west mountain ridges vividly portray the area's historical evolution: it was a major route not only for trade, but also for cultural and political interaction during the prehistoric and medieval periods. The Cilento was also the boundary between the Greek colonies of Magna Graecia and the indigenous Etruscan and Lucanian peoples. The remains of two major cities from classical times, Paestum and Velia, are found there."
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22 imagesGiza and the pyramids were a fantastic playground for expatriates living in Cairo during the 1970s, who enjoyed horseback riding. You'd gather up your kids and some of their friends, drive out to Giza, and rent Arabian steeds from one of two stables at the desert's edge. I usually rode a chestnut mare called "Princess," an amiable and well-behaved creature. One popular excursion took us from Giza to Saqqara and return. The black and white images were made on TriX film, bulk loaded and developed in the pantry of the villa where we lived. The grain is heavy and distracting so I have manipulated these images with some painting tools. The color images are scanned Kodachromes
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110 imagesI stayed in a Trastevere apartment in January 2009, seeking unique views of ancient Roman, medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque architectural monuments, sculpture, street life, and cityscapes, within the Aurelian walls of the city. One month was not enough!
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14 imagesThe Scottish Parliament, designed by the Spanish firm of the architect Enric Miralies was built at Holyrood, at the bottom of the Royal Mile inEdinburgh, from 1998 to 2004. Though the building has won multiple awards internationally, people seem to love to hate it, perhaps because it cost so much.
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30 imagesThe magical Taj Mahal must be seen both at sunrise and at sunset to appreciate fully its quiet beauty.