These first pictures are of Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Over Christmas break, I took a wonderful family vacation to London and we took the train to Paris for a day. Although it was a hectic day seeing as twelve hours isn’t nearly enough time to run all over Paris to every monument, it was a great day. I think with these photos I really encompassed how small I felt standing in front of this stone monstrosity. I’ve always seen pictures of it in French class, but nothing compares to walking around and under it. I struggled a little bit with getting a picture that included the entire thing in it, but overall I’m happy with the outcome of my photos.
These photos are of the Palace of Westminster in London. I took these photos when walking around London with my step-mom and step-brother. I struggled a little bit with these pictures and the one’s of Big Ben because the sun was so bright and these structures are so massive they cast huge shadows. The building was also at a strange angle from where I was standing and many people/streets/gates got in my way a little bit. I was also a little disappointed that even though I got a beautifully sunny day to snap these photos, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. In these pictures, I think the delicate details of the building really stand out which I’m happy with.
These are pictures of Sacré-Coeur, a church on a hill in a Parisian town called Montmartre. After a long day of running around Paris trying to see everything we could see, I was irritated and whiny when I saw what a hill we had to climb to see the artists village and this church, but the climb was worth the view. From up at this church you could see the entirety of Paris and we watched the sun set behind the Eiffel Tower. The interior of this church was even more stunning than the outside, being covered in elaborate mosaics and candles. It was amazing to me that this was still a working church and I had to include it in my architecture project.
These pictures are also of the Palace of Westminster, but they look vastly different from the first set of this same architectural marvel. This was my second to last day in London and I suddenly realized I needed to go get some photos. This spur of the moment photographing trip brought me from our hotel all the way to the London Eye, then to Big Ben, then to Buckingham Palace, and finally back to our hotel. This was a sunny and warm day which was just perfect to go out and shoot for class. I had a little bit of trouble editing this picture into a blueprint as it is darker than most of the other pictures, but I greatly enjoy the angle of these pictures.
These last photos are of Big Ben. Going to London, Big Ben was one of the two only monuments I knew of in London(the other being the London Eye). I was expecting Big Ben to be more underwhelming than this when I first saw it on the first night in England, but when we finally went to see it up close, I was completely convinced of its beauty. The gold details are gorgeous and shine nicely in the sun. I was almost overwhelmed by how much detail there was, it just baffled me how anybody could have the patience to create something like this. The only struggle I had with these photos was taking them when the top of a double decker bus wasn’t in the bottom of the frame.