“Dear Lord,
Give me a few friends
who will love me for what I am,
and keep ever burning
before my vagrant steps
the kindly light of hope…
And though I come not within sight
of the castle of my dreams,
teach me to be thankful for life,
and for time’s olden memories
that are good and sweet.
And may the evening’s twilight
find me gentle still.”
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
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(click above for more information)
Today’s Photo Friday entry is entitled: Amazing Architecture © Jan Marshall
As much as I love nature and all the beauty that is just because it IS, I love the beauty of the things that man creates just as much. Man (and by that I mean humankind) was created in the image of its maker, and part of being created in His image includes the ability to create as well. Out of God’s creation of rock, wood, metal, and sand, one of the things man creates is architecture. The interpretation of a floor, walls, and a ceiling is as varied as the birds of the air. Shacks and cathedrals, skyscrapers and lighthouses, cottages and castles, pyramids and soddies, forts and obelisks. No other creature in all of creation exhibits the ability to never have to build the same thing twice as they are driven to do so by instinct. Birds of a feather always build the same nest. People never do. Even the most mundane tract homes each have their own individuality. But man doesn’t only build homes. Man builds all kinds of structures because he CAN and because he WANTS to. And man can build things that last, some times for millenia. Since taking digital pictures is till fairly new to me, most of my favorite architectural pictures are still 35 mm prints or even worse, they are SLIDES! But I found a few pictures I thought would do nicely for this challenge.
This is the Gallarus Oratory in Dingle, Ireland. Believed to have been erected for use as a church, it was built in the 6th century and is mortarless! It is also very small. Even a short person must duck to enter the doorway. It is watertight and has amazingly remained unchanged, stone upon stone, for 1500 years.
In about 480 B.C. the Greeks erected a Doric temple in Syracuse, Sicily. Some of those pillars remained after the temple was destroyed and were incorporated into the wall of the Syracuse Cathedral at an unknown point in time. The cathedral was named the Cathedral of Syracuse (Sicily, Italy) in 680 A.D., so this building, too, has been around a LONG time! The first photo is of the front of the cathedral. The second is of the interior wall of the left nave which amazingly incorporated pillars from the original temple.
Finally, because I wanted to include a picture that I took specifically for this post, this past weekend while in Denver I took the opportunity to look around at the many varying architectural structures there. This building caught my eye as it was very ungainly and looked completely out of place in its surroundings. I cropped it down to focus on the lines and shadows, which I actually thought were quite amazing. The elements? Lovely. The overall concept and location? Ugly! (Incidentally, I have no idea what this building is used for).
As per the usual, I will add the links to the other participant’s work as they are posted.
Please come back to check those links out!
Anyone else still wants to play this week, do so! Friday lasts until midnight, wherever you live!
Next week’s challenge? “Photographic Art”.
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