Bachkovo Monastery was for sure one of the most stunning of the many sights I saw in my short time in Bulgaria! Despite all the visitors, the atmosphere was one of tranquillity. The buildings looked so photogenic both in the drizzly weather we arrived in and the sunshine when we departed; and there was so much to see that was both interesting and beautiful.
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Seville’s cathedral was built on the footprint of the city’s grand mosque, originally constructed in the 12th century. When the cathedral was finished in the early 16th century it was the largest in the world. Although that may no longer be the case, it is still an awe-inspiring space.
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Once upon a time, when Seville was the capital of Al-Andalus, the ruling Almohade caliphate built a palace in the city which they named ‘Al Mubarak’ or 'The Blessed'. It was the hub of both the city's government and its artistic and literary life. Little of that palace remains today, apart from some foundations. On these, in the thirteenth century, the conquering Castilians built their own palace to serve as both seat of government and royal residence, a function the Alcazar performs to this day.
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In the Plaza de la Encarnación of Seville a strange structure reaches skywards. This is the Metropol Parasol, often referred to by locals as the Mushrooms, Las Setas de la Encarnación. The dramatic forms arch overhead, framing views of the surrounding streets and buildings.
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The capital of the DPRK, Pyongyang, has been developed as a showpiece for the country, demonstrating to both outsiders and the North Korean people the strength and power of the regime, and making a strong statement about the country’s ambitions to be self-reliant in the face of often hostile challenges from elsewhere – those challenges being of course both political and at times physical.
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Sometimes (often?) photography is more about serendipity than anything else. A purposeful photo outing is enjoyable of course, and often reaps great rewards; but arguably we derive the most pleasure from finding an unexpected subject for our lens just by chance? I visited a London gallery that I hadn’t been to before. The exhibition was not especially inspiring, but I fell in love with the gallery's spiral staircase. Or perhaps more accurately, I fell in love with the photographic possibilities it presented.
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I wonder which way you usually point your camera? I’m guessing that most of the time, like me, you point it forwards. Maybe you tilt up for a tall building or tree, or downwards to capture a plant or small animal. But what if we were to point it directly upwards or downwards? What would we see?
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Art Nouveau, or Jugendstil as it is also known, was an art and architecture movement of the late 19th to early 20th centuries, at its height 1890–1910. As an artistic philosophy it proposed that art should be a way of life, and that everyday items could be beautiful too. It was inspired by nature – flowers, animals, natural forms. In the old buildings of Riga it is at times at its most flamboyant and exuberant.
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Some of the most beautiful architecture I have seen has been in the Islamic world. Islamic art shuns the depiction of living figures, whether human or animal, partly to avoid any suggestion of idolatry and partly because it is believed that the creation of living forms is Allah’s prerogative. Instead the emphasis is on geometric forms as well as calligraphy and abstract floral motifs.
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When I first saw Stokesay Castle I thought that a house had been built on to an older stone castle, but in fact it is an exceptional example of a crenelated manor house from the late 13th century. This is how the better-off lived in the later Middle Ages.
