The Artful Engineer

A tidy row of columns lends itself to compositions that rely on symmetry. This week’s post is full of columns, but this is the only image that exploits it. It uses the converging parallels that come from looking upwards, too. I wish I had had my 14-24 zoom with me, because I think a little wider view would have been even better.

The sun was strong in this next image, casting deep shadows. There was also a lot of clutter closer to ground level. In the end I cropped the bottom away and opted for this graphic composition of deep blue and light gray and near black.

One reason I put the image metadata below the image is the hope that I will be sufficiently embarrassed by having used absurdly high ISOs for no good reason. Here I was working in the deeper shadowed areas and neglected to lower the ISO when I took this shot of the sunlit columns. ISO 1600 will cause no great harm these days, but it was undeniably sloppy. Looking beyond the non-optimality of the camera settings, I like the way the three lit pillars are echoed by the three (much bluer) ones shadowed in the foreground.

This is my favorite image this week: I love the way the color cast varies from the near columns to the far ones. I wish, however, that the windows in the background were not there, or at least that I could have blocked them completely. It would not be difficult to get rid of them now. I am tempted.

Here we have another image that exploits a warm-cool color contrast, this time at the Vittoriano instead of the Vatican:

On this, my second visit to Rome, I did not go inside the Pantheon. But I did photograph it from the neighboring Piazza della Rotonda in the quiet morning hours. I find it an awe-inspiring structure, and I cannot imagine seeing it daily out my bedroom window. This image juxtaposes these two very different buildings.

Finally, when you haul your fisheye lens all the way to Rome, you have to use it. I enjoy the challenge of using a fisheye. In natural scenes I can often hide the distortion, but with architecture you have to embrace it.

Thank you for visiting and I hope you enjoyed these pictures of Rome. Next week I will have pictures from inside St. Peter’s Basilica and another church in Rome.