04-17-13 The Getty Center, Los Angeles

01-28-13 Orientation

I couldn't resist posting one more High Art Museum (Atlanta) interior. Like the other one, I think that this photo shows one of the reasons I like most art museums: there is great light and warm wooden floors (that often creak when you walk on them.)

12-10-12 The Little Angel

I wandered into one of our community's cemeteries today in search of photo opportunities and I ended up visiting the little angel that graces a 1911 grave site. I have photographed her before but I couldn't resist taking a few more pictures.She seems obvlious to the cold and snow that embrace her. . .

09-04-12 I Like Frank

This is certainly not the first time I've posted a photo of Frank, by Chuck Close. One of the more interested illicit uses of one of my photos from this blog involved Frank (click here to read a tale of theft and Creative Commons copyright misdeeds).Finally, this is not the first art gallery photo. In fact art galleries are one of my favorite places to take pictures. Why not take a few minutes to look at a few of my gallery interiors? Just click here.And, as long as I've gone overboard with links in this post, here's the one art gallery post in this blog that I like the most.

04-06-12 A Pretty Big Dog

This big dog greets visitors to the Target wing of the Minneapolis Institute of art.

Must I Repeat Myself?

This isn't the first time I have posed a group at this window in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. And it's probably not the last. Sometimes photographers find good places and they photograph them over and over.

03-24-12 He's Watching Us

I've returned to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. And I've taken another photo of Frank, by Chuck Close.

Moses Takes A Break

I don't think that Moses ever made it to southern California but if he had, I'm sure he would have enjoyed the palms and the pure morning sun as I did the morning I took this photo.My son, Brian, has astutely observed that this version of Moses doesn't have the horns that Michelangelo gave the original version of this statue. It would be interesting to know why this editorial decision was made by the copyist.To see the "real" sculpture, check out this post from a few years ago.

Portrait of Kendra

This isn't a Photoshop manipulation and I'm guessing there's only a small chance you are under the influence of psychotropic drugs or absinthe. Kendra is a real person and this scene is exactly what the camera saw.The unreality is due to the fact that I am photographing Kendra's distorted reflection in a chrome sculpture in the sculpture garden next the the New Orleans Museum of Art. Needless to say, Kendra doesn't look like this.See yesterday's post for a different look at the same sculpture.

A Little Prayer

For the first time in two years, I have updated my blog's look. I've been contemplating a change for a while but fear of the unknown kept me at bay. When you change themes in blogs, all of the photos have to be resized, hopefully by an automated process. And who knows what you'll get?But it looks like things are working, though if you aren't using a 21st century web browser, you may have problems. Let me know if you do.Here are a few of the changes:

• A more user friendly interface with links to older and similar posts
• An ability to purchase prints through a pro lab
• An interface that works great on iPads, iPods and iPhones (no javascript!!)
• And a nice slide show at the top of the page

Those who have been reading my blog for years will probably hate what I've done. But I'm not going back. . . . 

The Quiet Gallery

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"]