12-18-12 This Is Old; I'm Not

The Pantheon, my favorite building in all of Rome, is 1,886 years old. Today, I turn 59. In Europe, the Pantheon is considered an antique. In America, I am. Ponder that on this 18th day of December, 2012 (AD).

The Pantheon Redux

Yes, this is a repeat - and I'm not even on vacation. Why the repeat? Because I've been learning some new things about photo editing. In fact, I've made a video:

Saving His Skin

I took this photo several years ago when I led a Watertown High School student trip to Rome. We had a free afternoon and one of my students and I made the trip to the church of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome. This church is remarkable in many ways but I was captured by this statue of St. Bartholomew, carved in 1712 by Pierre Legros.In brief, Bartholomew was martyred by being skinned alive. But during the Second Coming, he is resurrected with a new skin. The artistic version of this story that I am most familiar with is in the Sistine Chapel in Michelangelo's brilliant Last Judgement of Christ. In that version, too, he is holding both his old skin and the knife that was used to flay him. In Michelangelo's version, some art historians say that the face on the old skin is the face of the artist.I don't know whose face is on the sculpted version I am showing here[smugbuy gallery="http://scottshephardphoto.smugmug.com/Fine-Art-Photography/Fine-Art/21122937_fHW9Lh"]

01-29-11 Efficiency

Sometimes this blog attempts to be an artist enterprise but I'll have to admit that after over 700 posts, I'm running low on art. So today I am using this blog to document evidence of a lifestyle very different from our big-pickup-4-wheel-drive-our family-of-4-has-5-cars mentality.What you are looking at is a cute, yellow car parked neatly along a backstreet in Rome, Italy. If you saw the price of fuel and the size of back streets in Rome, you'd know what this car would be a smart choice.Notice that it has three wheels and that it's plugged in. How's that for efficiency?

Room For All the Gods

This is the Pantheon in Rome and was built about 2000 years ago. The name means "to all the gods" and the structure was built by people who worshipped a multitude of gods and spirits. Much later in its history, the Pantheon became a Christian church but today it is a tourist attraction and a burial place.* And, if you ask me, it is an architectural marvel - even after 2000 years.If it looks amazing today, imagine walking into this space when it was decorated with statues of Roman deities and with the coffered dome covered in brilliant gold leaf. There is no doubt that this is my favorite ancient building. And, in case you are wanting to see more, I have a previous post in this blog extolling the Pantheon. Finally, if you like to make comparisons, check out this spectacular Chicago structure and discuss.*Italian Kings Vittorio Emanuele II and Umberto I; the Great Renaissance artist Raphael (also a Ninja Turtle)

Toilet Twitter

Today's social tools, like facebook and Twitter, help keep people in touch with each other in ways that are sometimes astounding. But people of our time might be equally astounded to learn how ancients kept in touch. Of course they chatted along the streets, in the bars and in the public meeting places, just as we do.But they also chatted in the public rest rooms. Talk about the weather and politics would have gone hand in hand with performing basic body functions. Men and women, rich and poor and old and young would have sat cheek to cheek (sorry, but I had to use that expression) in bathrooms much like this.Where are we in this photo? This is the well-preserved Roman city of Ephesus, where the apostle Paul lived and worked. Ephesus is in modern day Turkey and was a stop on our 10 day cruise of the Greek islands. My students are good natured about posing on the ancient toilets. But they were a bit embarrassed. I hope that making this moment public doesn't further embarass them.Incidentally, this blog post goes out to my first block world history class, whom I am teaching about blogging and RSS feeds. The first person in that class to post a response to this blog gets to take the iPad home for a day or two!

02-23-10 "Upon This Rock. . . "

I would have to say that in my opinion St. Peter's in Rome takes the prize as "Most Photogenic Interior." I have been looking at my photo collection, and I have a disproportionate number of the inside of this awe inspiring structure. There is so much to look at, I wonder if paying attention to the Mass would be secondary? I do know that one of the Calvinist reactions against Catholicism concerned adornment. Compare this sparse interior in a Calvinist church in England.

I like this view of the interior of the dome because you can clearly see the Latin Bible verse which came to be known as "The Petrine Doctrine." Peter became the first Pope in a 2000 year succession of Popes.

"Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam mean et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum" ("You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church, to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven." Mt 16:18)

Jesus may have been making a little joke when he said this to Peter because "Peter" was derived from the Greek word for "rock." Was Jesus smiling when he said this? I ask this because in the Middle Ages there was actually a theological debate about whether Jesus ever laughed, since there is no specific documentation of this in the New Testatament.

02-03-10 A Roman Park

This is an early morning shot of a back lit tree in the Borghese Gardens in Rome. There is something prehistoric-looking in these leaves. I don't know what kind of tree this is but it could be a relative of the locust, which grows in some places in South Dakota.

01-22-10 Peaceful Moment

I was waiting for my tour group to gather after a tour of the Roman Colosseum. As always, the ancient building was crowded, noisy and swelteringly hot. I turned away from our group and found these two tourists sitting in the flood of light entering the colonnade, no doubt plotting their strategy for their visit to Rome. This photo makes the Colosseum look quiet, cool and relaxing. Maybe that's the magic of photography. Or may it's the deception.

There are many things I like about this photo: I like the repeating lines of the columns and the repeating bright and dark made by the Roman sunlight. I also like the pock marks that show the age of this place. Finally, I like that by accident the three primary colors are present in this photo, though in very muted shades. Can you see them?

08-10-09 Stranger On A Train

By Scott Shephard

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I was waiting for the next metro at the Cavour metro stop in Rome. Having some time to kill, I took a few photos, including this one. The Roman metro stations are fairly dark so I used a slow shutter speed and in this shot I panned as the train came into the station. The graffiti ends up being blurred but the rather bored looking woman visible through the window isn't.

Canon 5D 1/8s f/4.0 ISO1000 24mm