Amman, Jordan and around about 35 years ago

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Amman

One of my projects is to scan older negatives and/or prints. I have a box full of them and although this project is going slowly I, from time to time, browse through them and pick a few to scan – in this case pictures taken during my very first field trip for the UN – to Amman, Jordan and subsequently to Cairo and Aswan in Egypt. These are from the Jordan portion. I remember the trip well. It was somewhere around 1979/1980 and I was very excited to be going somewhere exotic. I can’t remember the camera I used, but I’m guessing it was a Minolta Hi-Matic 7sii. All of the pictures were originally in color, but the negatives weren’t in great shape and the colors had faded/changed over the years. So I decided a black and white conversion was in order. The warm tone makes them look older than they actually are.

The first picture is of Amman, Jordan’s capital city. As I recall it was taken from the building where UNICEF was located at that time. It was right next to the Intercontinental Hotel (and connected to it by a tunnel) and directly opposite the US Embassy.

The next four are of Jerash, an old Roman city, which was largely destroyed in an earthquake in 749AD and the remains buried until discovered by German Orientalist Ulrich Jasper Seetzen in 1806 and subsequently excavated. Looking at some more recent pictures of Jerash it’s clear that a lot more has been excavated since I was there.

The last one was taken somewhere in the vicinity of Jerash after a nice meal at the nearby Lebanese House Restraurant. I gather that this restaurant still exists, but has been significantly remodeled. I remember it as a smallish restaurant in the country. Looking it up today it’s quite palatial.

Curiously my older daughter and her family now live in Amman.

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Approach to Jerash

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Amphitheater

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Temple of Artemis (I think)?

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Watching the watcher

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Pastoral scene.

Sculpture in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

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Something attracted me to this sculpture in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery – I’m not sure exactly what. For some time I had no information about it, but just recently I bumped into Kit Gentry’s site, particularly the section on Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, which provides the following information:

This is a monument to John Hudson Hall. It was carved by Augustus Saint Gaudens, who is remembered as one of the greatest American sculptors. This winged figure is a variation of another of his works, called “Amor Caritas,” which can be seen in bronze form at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In my opinion, however, this stone version with a different pose is by far the superior achievement.

Davida Johnson Clark was the model for this work, and for several other notable sculptures by Augustus Saint Gaudens, as well. But Saint Gaudens was no saint. The sculptor eventually found himself supporting two households with children – one with his wife, and one with Davida, his model. Saint Gaudens’ wife eventually discovered the secret, and didn’t care for the news one little bit. After Saint Gaudens became ill with cancer, his wife whisked him away from New York City to their summer estate in Cornish, New Hampshire (now a National Historic Site), and he never saw Davida again. Both the sculptor and his model eventually perished from cancer within three years of each other.

At the Japanese Restaurant

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We recently went to our local Japanese Restaurant. They have redecorated so I took a few pictures of the new look.

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Light Fixture. The background really was pretty much monochrome. I liked the contrast between the the bright, smooth, shiny fixture and the textured, somewhat plain background.

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Tabletop.

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Flowers in the Window.