Rolf's Third Life: Art

One of the nice things about London is that many things are free. For example, we visited the British Museum and the Tate Modern without having to pay. Some special exhibits require a fee, but there is so much to see without paying, that we didn't have enough time event for that.
Another nice thing is that that some of these places let you take photographs. It would be even nicer if you were allowed to bring a tripod, but I was happy to take photos at all. I put my pictures for the British Museum and the Tate Modern up on Picasa.

Museum curators select pieces that are interesting and worthwhile to look at and display them for us to admire. Usually when taking pictures, you have to think what would make a good picture. At a museum that's already taken care of: Everything in there is worthwhile photographing! Then the question becomes what not to photograph. While it is tempting, there is no point in creating another museum catalog.

A replica of the Rosetta stone. They have the original too, but you are not allowed to touch that one.

Taking pictures reduces to finding objects that are not constantly mobbed by people in your line of sight, things that have enough light on them to not turn out blurry, and items that make interesting subjects (more than all the others) for some reason. Time is also a factor, since our feet hurt after these marathon museum sessions: These places are big.

Now I had to narrow down my selection even further to show you here and on Picasa what I think are worthwhile pictures. For some that got cut out, even for some I included, I wish I could go back and retake from a different angle, or a slightly different camera setting. Although modern image processing software makes the latter almost unnecessary. At least in a controled environment like a museum. Outside is a different story. There might always be better sunlight or cloud formations to go back to a place and improve on the pictures taken last time.

The British Museum with a Utah sky.

I don't usually care too much for modern art, but I thought it would be interesting anyway to go see the Tate Modern. Most of the things in there are junk, but some things are neat and the museum itself offers plenty of opportunity to take pictures.

I know everybody has a different opinion of what art is, and mine is not particularly relevant. I like thinks that are pretty, somehow clever, difficult to make, inventive, cause an emotion (other then blah), or somehow strike me as worthwhile. A piece of art for me is something that has more than one of these qualities.