Shot of the Day – 35 – California Wind Turbines

San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm (22 March 2019)

Driving west on I-10 toward Los Angeles from the desert resort towns of Palm Springs and Palm Desert, one passes through San Gorgonio Pass and a massive wind farm. Begun in the 1980’s, the complex now has over 3200 turbines that deliver 615 megawatts of juice to that ever-growing Southern California market.

San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm (22 March 2019)

I was not driving when this picture was taken…thank goodness. From the passenger seat, I shot through the windshield with the zoom lens at its long end to gather in the distant ridges bristling with spinning wind mills.

As I noted in an old post on what to do when shooting through the window of a moving vehicle, the main objective is to overcome the vibrations in the moving car. I lowered the f-stop to its smallest number. This produces the widest shutter opening which lets in the most light. Depth of field is not a concern since the focus is on infinity. More light means a faster shutter speed to make the exposure right. Faster shutter speeds mean less blur…despite the fact you’re hurtling down the highway at 70.

Shot of the Day – 34 – Notre Dame Synagoga

Of the hundreds of statues and carved objects at Notre Dame, one caught my eye when I first saw it. The picture I took of this beauty has always been a memorable favorite.

Synagoga Allegory, West Façade, 

Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris (29 April 2006)

The photo captures one of the four prominent sculptures on the buttresses that anchor the west façade…the front entrance of the cathedral. The façade and three entrance portals are covered with sculpted figures…saints, kings, bishops…like a French/Catholic Hall of Fame on one huge, vertical, flat display.

The pose is what caught my eye. She is not the usual plump female depiction from the middle ages. She’s attractive, graceful and mysterious. Those hips off to the side are a bit suggestive…or is it just me?

Then there are the other objects in the scene with her. This is an allegory, a symbolic representation to convey a story or message. To say more about this medieval beauty, I needed to hit The Google and learn about it.

The statue is paired with another as they flank the central entrance to the cathedral. The figures, Ecclesia and Synagoga, represent the church and synagogue (really the Jewish religion). At a time when most of the population was illiterate, it was important for the church to get its messages across to the masses visually, hence the added elements to the figures.

Ecclesia Allegory, Notre Dame Cathedral

(Cropped from an image of the West Façade, (29 April 2006)

Ecclesia has a staff with a cross and often carries a chalice (for the Blood of Christ). She wears a crown and is usually triumphal and forward-looking. By contrast, Synagoga is blindfolded or looking down. Her crown is on the ground. She holds a broken lance and some representation of Old Testament tablets or Torah scrolls that are about to fall from her grasp. She is defeated.

This was all about the church’s position that since Jesus WAS the Jewish messiah, Judaism’s own tenets dictate that it was ‘Game Over.’ The religion was no longer necessary and all Jews should convert. Done. The looking down, blindfolded thing is all about those stubborn Jews’ refusal to ‘SEE’ this. Having her blindfolded by a snake in this case seems especially nasty. Twelve hundred years into the church’s existence, they were still shaming Jews…or so I thought.

Turns out this particular work doesn’t go back that far. The message of Christian dominance and Jewish humiliation was important enough to retain in the 19th century. After these figures were destroyed during the French Revolution, the powers-that-be made sure they were replaced in kind.

There you have it. ‘Images and More’ is not just about pretty pictures.