As usual, I accompanied my wife to work at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania, this morning. As usual I found some intriguing things to photograph. I hope they intrigue you, too.
I like the little reflecting pool in the Italianate garden, but its position and shape make it hard to use. My iPhone is able to get its lens riiiight down to the water and exploit the reflecting surface to the maximum. My Nikon, not so much (figure 1, cf. the iPhone pics in I am no Julius Shulman!).
And if you want a laugh at my expense, see the original photograph before embalming (figure 1a):
On the way out of campus I saw what looks like an old beech protected by a retaining wall in flagstone. The trunk was in shadow, but its texture of deeply lived experience called out, and I liked the juxtaposition of the texture of the wall and that of the lower, dying portion of the tree. [Addendum: this photograph was posted on 14 August 2020, a Friday. This morning, Monday the 17th, they cut the tree down. I guess it was too sick to save.]
I spent some time in the Rotunda, and came away with a few shots of the marble appointments of the building. The coloristic effects are exquisitely done (figure 3), right out of baroque Rome. Someone has been dutifully waxing the marble, I think.
But best of all are the bookmatched marble revetments I saw on the second floor (figure 4):
That panel is not only cut to form a mirror image, but both panels, left and right, are curved to match the interior wall of the rotunda. That building got first-rate construction and materials! Thanks to the poor light—no artificial lighting was on in the rotunda—and possibly to my photography, the image is grainy and generally fuzzy, with an iso of 12,800.
The hallway in which the statue of Joseph in figure 5 stands is indifferently lit and has indifferent colors. So I flattened the image in figure 5 down to black and white. But as a lark I zapped a closeup of the statue with oversaturated colors, and I liked the bluish result (figure 5a). That is the real color, just emphasized to extremes.
