Mark Tisdale - Geek With A Camera
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Showing posts tagged history
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Pretty random, but the store in this photo is actually in tiny Three Notch, Alabama (the photographer listed it as Midway, but that’s a few miles away). Three Notch is where my grandmother (and her father) grew up. Only distant kin lived there by the time I came along but I heard stories about growing up in Three Notch.
Several years ago, a small contingent of the family went to meet up there and see where family in Three Notch and Midway were buried. While there, we stopped in this store. The owner, Mr. Perry Cole, was a family friend and he and my great aunt had a good time catching up and talking about their childhoods (they were both in their late 80s then). His mind was a steel trap, hers not so much. He said he ran the store mainly for something to do, as it’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere now. You could blink and miss Three Notch (I know I did the first time I drove through). I looked it up, and he passed away in 2008. Probably explains why it’s abandoned now. Time moves on…
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I love this quote:
“When we talk about the ancient world, we tend to think of rare and exotic artifacts or the monumental remains of epic architecture, but these are just the empty shells that got left behind when the tide of history turned. The living creatures, the civiliziations that once inhabited these shells were rarely if ever static or stately. They were dynamic, chaotic and always threatening to spin out of control because civilization is based on an improbable idea that strangers can live together in dense urban settings, forging new allegiances that replace the ties of family, clan, or tribe. It’s an idea we’re still coming to terms with today. But one of the best ways to understand the challenges is to look at how our ancestors tackled them the first time around.”
Dr Richard Miles
From The Introduction to Ancient Worlds
Is this an empty shell?
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Arc de Triomphe
Day 130/365
Napoleon’s Famous Triumphal Arch with textures and perspective correction. I still regret not having gotten back here at night for one of the infamous long exposure photos of the arch. In the daytime, unless you were lucky enough to be there when the streets were closed, you’re unlikely to get a shot with no cars…
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Disc of the Dead
Day 169/365
As near as I could translate the Spanish beside it, this was found in the excavations ot the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. I think this is supposed to represent the God of the Dead, which I find confusing because I thought the God of the moon was associated with death and the Sun with life, but I may have confused something somewhere. At any rate, a great artifact!
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Monte Albán Plaza (by Marks da 1)
A little plaza between some of the smaller temple remains. These ones are all actually reconstructed. Our guide pointed out to us that the steps were unnaturally high because of the reconstruction. He really didn’t provide an explanation of why but showed us a pyramid temple that hadn’t been resurrected and sure enough, the steps were more human… go figure…
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Monte Albán Panorama (by Marks da 1)
Day 190/365
Panoramic shot from the dias in the midst of Monte Albán, one of the oldest Mesoamerican cities. Seven shots assembled for this one. There’s noticeable bending of the earth, but you really get a feel for being on top of it all. This is the place from which the leader would have made speeches to the gathered people below. And you can see a sliver of the valley below around the edges. This was the administrative center, but the regular folks likely lived in homes where the modern citizens of Oaxaca live today.
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Surveying Monte Albán (by Marks da 1)
Day 191/365
Members of my group and our local guide on top of the last temple we climbed at Monte Albán. The light would come and go because of the clouds but as you can tell this was a moment of brilliant sun!
One of the last photos from 2010 as this was New Year’s Eve!
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Monte Albán Panoramic (by Marks da 1)
Another panoramic view of Monte Alban - not quite so many photos as the previous one so less distortion in this one. This is actually from the opposite end of a large open plaza. The raised dias I took the other pano from is beyond the building in the middle.
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Observatory - Palenque (by Marks da 1)
Day 206/365
The observatory was what I heard this referred to as but I suspect it was just a tower. Anyway, I don’t feel like I have a ton to show for my time at Palenque. I didn’t feel well there. It was very specific to Palenque (the city not just the site). I sweated buckets and left before most of the group. It shows in the small number of keepers from here.
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The One That Got Away (by Marks da 1)
I was taking a pic with my iPhone so that I could send it to friends when I got done. Just as I took it, this kid wandered into the shot. It was perfect and only a few Megapixels… so sad! I whipped up the big camera but he had left the cute back to the camera gazing on the pyramid pose already. This one is not bad, but it’s not the same either. Alas!
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