BH Neely's Photography

Opera House, Budapest, Hungary

I'm sure you've heard, as I have, people extolling the virtues of digital v. film. Many allege that film is dead. That digital is technically superior to film in every way. To them, I present this as evidence. Shot with a 20-year-old Pentax 67 that I picked up with a lens for under $400, on Ilford HP5 film, you simply could not ask for a better photo. It is as sharp a photo as you could hope for. The tonal gradations are smooooooooth and rich. I think I need a moment alone.

It's one of the sphinx women flanking the State Opera House in Budapest.

Many thanks to Panda Lab (www.pandalab.com), whom I used to use when I was just starting to shoot b&w in the mid 90's. They were the friendliest lab in Seattle, and they only did b&w. When I bought the 67 and needed to get the film developed, I looked them up, hardly daring to hope they'd weathered the storm that took down so many good labs. Not only had they weathered it, they appear to be prospering. They do everything, develop color as well as b&w, scan film, make contact sheets and work from digital files.

The Blue Mosque, Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan

If you're into religious history, the Blue Mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif is one of a few reputed burial sites for Ali, Mohammed's cousin and son-in-law (there's a lot of that). If the history's important to you, the Wikipedia page for it is probably accurate enough.

I like it for the gorgeous, reconstructed tiles in several shades of blue (and other colors). From a distance, all you see is the blue. Up close, you see a) all the colors and b) the intricacy of the tile work. Should you happen to be traveling through Central Asia, and have a chance to visit, it's well worth it.

Jantar Mantar, Delhi, India

Had I known at the time that I was in a park of astronomical instruments, I would have been even more excited about the crazy shapes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jantar_Mantar_%28Delhi%29

Parliament, Budapest, Hungary

Hungary's Parliament Building is one of about a dozen beautiful, dramatic buildings in Budapest. It has the advantage of being set apart, though smack downtown Pest, and on the bank of the Danube. The photo needs a little more work, but I'm satisfied with this start.

Hurricane Glass and Teapot, Leesburg, FL, USA

We recently helped clean out my wife's grandmother's house. Nana passed a few months ago, leaving a full house several states away from where her children and grandchildren live.

The hardest part was trying to find those things that spoke to us, while respectfully leaving for the auctioneer the detritus of a life well-lived. Naturally, I was moved to document, while those more deeply affected sorted through things.

If you're interested in an album of this, visit my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/bhneely, and while you're there, click on the Like button.

Sgt. Hulka, Almaty, Kazakhstan

Right outside the War College in Almaty, Kazakhstan, you'll find Panfilov Park. It commemorates Kazakhstani dead in the great wars of the Soviet Union - the Revolution and the Great Patriotic War (WWII to the West). During the Great Patriotic War a rag-tag bunch of Kazakhstani shepherds defeated a German Panzer division in defense of Volgograd or Stalingrad. The tanks were melted down to make a set of sculptures that are some of the darkest, most frightening war memorials I've ever seen. Sergeant Hulka is one of them.

I don't know how much of the above story is true. I do know this, though, the first time I saw this statue, I immediately thought of Sgt. Hulka from Stripes, and that is how I will always remember this:

"When I tell you move, you'll move fast. When I tell you to jump, you're gonna say, "How high?" And make no mistake. I don't care where you come from, I don't care what color you are, I don't care how smart you are, I don't care how dumb you are, 'cause I'm gonna teach every last one of you how to eat, sleep, walk, talk, shoot, shit like a United States soldier. Understand?"

Yes, Sergeant!

Utopian Sunset, Plaka, Milos, Greece

In prepping some landscapes for a group exhibition I'm participating in, I came across this sunset that I hadn't previously posted. We took a cruise-by-ferry last summer of the Cyclades, including Milos, Paros & Mykonos.

Milos was made famous by a farmer in the 19th C who went into a cave that nobody had entered for more than 2000 years and found a gorgeous statue of Aphrodite. The French renamed her Venus (because apparently they liked the Roman names for the gods more than the Greek) and acknowledged the place she was found, thus we have Venus de Milo, the Greek statue with a Roman/French name. She lost her arms on the ship between Milos and Paris.

But clearly, this isn't a photo of a cave. The cave was very unassuming. No, this is the sunset from the Utopia Cafe in Plaka. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen. I hope to see it again someday.

Gate of Agamemnon's Palace, Mycenae, Greece

From “Agamemnon,” one part of the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus

 

O gods, free me from this awful task! For one full year I’ve been stuck up on this tower of the Atreidae, crouched on my haunches like a dog. I have come to know every single star in the night sky, the whole twinkling mob that arcs over my head with the seasons. And still I wait, hoping to spot another light, an earthly one – the signal fire from Troy, heralding its fall. Those are my orders from the queen, her woman’s heart steeled by a man’s resolve.

Notes: Atreidae, or Atreides (if you're a reader of Dune) refers to the descendants of Atreus, Agamemnon's father.

This palace was built sometime in the 18th or 17th C, BCE, before the Trojan War.

Crane, Acropolis, Athens, Greece

You're lifting huge blocks of marble onto the top of the Parthenon, and you don't have 10,000 slaves to do the work for you. So you use a crane. And to keep the crane from falling over, you counterbalance it with huge marble blocks. There's a beautiful symmetry to that.

Scaffolding, Acropolis, Athens, Greece

I live in Athens in historic times. (Actually, we always live in historic times, but this is something fairly special.) They're fixing up the Acropolis, which means I get to watch work progress and scaffolding go up (and hopefully down a little) while I'm here. I get to watch people do the complicated, intricate work of blending marble that's been in place for 3000 years with new marble.

Reunite the Parthenon Marbles

Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin, liberated some statues from the Parthenon 200 years ago. They were subsequently purchased by the British Gov't. They are still in a museum in London. The legality of their removal is still under debate (well, the Brits are the primary debaters, as most scholars seem to agree that the pieces belong to the Parthenon, which isn't exactly in London). Wikipedia has a pretty good article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon_marbles . The owner of Easy Boat makes his feelings on the subject known.

Zeno, the dog

2300 years ago, there was a philosopher, Zeno, who liked to hang out by one of the big stoas in the agora, or market. A stoa is an open building, basically three rows of columns supporting a roof. When your climate is such that you never need to be inside, except to be in the shade, walls are extraneous, and can even make the building too hot. So for the agora, the stoa was the perfect building. And for a philosopher, the great thing about the market is that there are always people wandering about, and if you can engage some of them in conversation, you just might find some work.
Zeno believed that human virtue was to meld one's will with that of nature. In other words, what's happening is happening, and you should just deal with it. This would allow you to be a clear, unbiased thinker, leading you to universal wisdom. Because he did his work at the stoa, he became known as Zeno the Stoic and his philosophy is stoicism. How about that.
This is where the main stoa was in the agora. It was found fairly recently, after a few buildings were torn down specifically to see how much of the agora was under them. A bunch of adespota dogs hang out with the archaeological crew working the dig. I don't know that this one's name is Zeno, but it made a nice lead-in for my story.

Is it 1978?

Doesn't this look like a scene from the Soviet period? Prague, like Seattle, is beautiful in the rain.

Living room? Store front?

There's a meadow that goes around 120° or so of the Acropolis. It's almost completely filled with ruins like this, except where the Agora has been studied, reconstructed or cleaned up. Imagine seeing your house, or favorite store after a couple thousand years. This is what you'd see. The other 240° are paved over or built up.

Socrates' Prison

As the chill sensation got to his waist, Socrates uncovered his head (he had put something over it) and said his last words: 'Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Do pay it. Don't forget.' - Plato, The Phaedo

The plaque says that historical evidence suggests that this is probably the site of Socrates' prison, but nobody knows for certain.

Here lie the ashes of heroes

This mound, which reminded me of Native American burial mounds and Scythian burial mounds in Kazakhstan, is where the ashes and personal effects of the 192 Athenians and Plataeans who died in the battle against Darius I's Persian force in 490 BCE.