David Howell Travel Photography and Map Blog

What if he hadn’t done his math homework?

What if playing a video game like Grand Theft Auto had been more important?

Ieoh Ming Pei certainly did his homework. He completed architecture degrees at MIT and Harvard. Then he designed and completed buildings around the world. Architecture is an interesting mix of art, science, and math using both sides of the brain….

You can’t ride a camel to these pyramids. These are timeless pyramids, but not old.

This is a true oasis. An oasis from the pettiness and routine of daily life.

It would be easy to wander through the passageways and hidden alcoves for days. There are royal treasures and icons of ancient religions….

You have probably seen many images of Cristo Redentor. It is a central part of the image of Rio de Janeiro. It sits atop one of the many peaks that surround the city. The mountain is called Corcovado.

Corcovado is a massive granite monolith overlooking Rio de Janeiro. You can drive to the summit, or take a taxi van as we did….

It is easy to get lost, or at least disoriented, in large art museums.

At one end of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris there are five stories. When we were last there, the impressionist paintings were on the fifth floor. But they had been moved since we visited previously….

No strolling beach vendors, no high-rise hotels, and no traffic. Just the beach. And agates!

The edge of a continent without the commercialism. The Pacific washing soft sedimentary deposits. The slow immense pressure of the subducting Gorda tectonic plate pushing under the North American plate lifting up more material for the beach. Deep under this beach the Gorda plate is pushing from left to right.

This is Agate Beach in Patrick’s Point State Park near Trinidad, California, USA….

It’s just a white wall.

And a black handrail.

In fact the handrail at the bottom of this photo is the only surface in this photograph that is not painted white. But there is very little of the photograph that looks white. And it is a color photograph….

A practice field in the heart of football country.

Copacabana is a 4 km (2.5 mile) long beach. In the early morning it is used for excercise before work and school. During the day and until well past dark it is used for football and volleyball as well as relaxation and sunbathing….

The Carioca of Rio de Janeiro love to be on their beaches. The photo above is from the west end of Copacabana looking east. Everywhere you look as you walk the beach there are soccer balls and volleyballs flying….

Shallow tide pool or abstract art?

I know a local painter who loves to paint rocks. She paints rocks in various settings, many of them under or near water. I thought of Julia Bednar when I was scrambling over this intricately jointed pink granite at low tide on the north shore of Brittany.

This is the Côte de Granit Rose, the Pink Granite Coast, near the village of Le Diben, France. The shore is very gently sloped so when the tide goes out, it exposes huge fields of tide pools….

Thatched roof houses are somewhat rare in Brittany. These natural materials are dull and gray. But brightly painted shutters and flowers brighten them.

We saw this old house near a small village called Marzan along the Vilaine River….

Over many centuries, on September mornings, a narrow band of sunlight has shown through stained glass windows onto this small sculpted stone face; unless it is cloudy.

On partly cloudy days the sunlight entering this ancient cathedral is intermittent. As the Earth turns and the clouds float overhead….