Light
Today’s forecast was rain, all day rain, but in the morning the sun appeared and found little openings between the gray clouds that have blanketed Lisbon for days. I wanted to get out and stretch my legs and decided to take a chance. I wore my camera strap under my coat, in order to protect the camera should it start to rain, and started to walk in the direction of the Gulbenkian Museum. I had been to the grounds several times but had never been inside.
Calouste Gulbenkian amassed a huge fortune and an art collection which he kept in a private museum at his Paris house. An art expert said in a 1950 issue of Life magazine that “Never in modern history has one man owned so much.“
Link to Wikipedia page on the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon.
Link to the museum’s website.
I took more photographs than I expected to and wondered why some days are good for photography and others are not. Or, why does nothing look like a photograph on some days and on other days everything IS a photograph? It had been gray for days, so perhaps the light was simply inspiring. But, I am convinced, it is also in the head!
The first photo of this slideshow was taken outside the museum’s entrance. The second and third photos are of amazing glass pieces… but I was more fascinated by the light on the tree outside and so I focussed on that. The next two photos are of windows with sun screens and the garden beyond. The following photos were taken on the way home. There is the arch made of red cubes, the leaf attached to a wall, and the flattened and wet mango box. Oh, yes, I love mangos, especially the Keitt variety. I tried that variety in Santa Fe a few years ago and was hooked! During the season we have a mango every day. The next photo is of three doors opening to a workshop of some kind. The doors are red and the light streaming in from a glass door in the back is exquisite. The last image is a traffic cone that seems to guard a bike path. It may be my favorite image of the day.
Some thoughts about the museum. It was strange to think that these rare items from Egypt, Iran, China, Turkey, Japan, etc, had been owned by one person. It somehow felt wrong to me. At the same time I was grateful that this owner started a foundation and is showing these items to the public. Who do you think is most likely to do something like this today?
