Gallery No. 118: Florida Reflections…Commentary and links #s 112-117

Gallery No. 118: Florida Reflections…Commentary and links #s 112-117

Anna and Ed have returned from a short vacation in Holiday Florida where they stayed with Ed’s sister-in-law, Bernadette (Bernie) Dickau. Holiday is a nice pleasant community with relatively easy access to Clearwater, St. Petersburg, Tampa and Tarpon Springs.

Old Tampa at the water front has, in Anna’s words…been demolished, and what has replaced it is a skyline of exquisite architecture and a plethora of museums a number of which we visited with still more on the list for future visits. 

Among those visited were: The Dali Museum, (St. Petersburg), The Florida Museum Of Photographic Arts, (Tampa) and The Tampa Museum Of Art, (Tampa).

There were no photographic restrictions at FMOPA and a nice representation of the work of Hans Silvester in Ethiopia is provided.

 

The Dali and Tampa Museums of Art had very restrictive no-photography policies so little within those museums is available except in cleared areas and a few purloined shots which I am sure are of better quality than those I witnessed being taken by cell phone cameras and the like.

Though I understand that there are two primary reasons for no-photography policies: copyright, (an argument that doesn’t fly when you consider most of the artwork appears on the internet for anyone to grab, and second the no-flash concept which has merit in some instances and could be as easily policed by those wandering about watching to see if your finger is near your camera’s release button. I don’t need flash as you will see in few instances of material included in this posting.

It is my belief that permitted no-flash photography in most museums would act as a promotion for all museums instead of the current turn-off policies. The FMOPA/Silvester exhibit is one that does not suffer from exposure to light/flash as all those prints were Cibachrome prints, a material I have used. It is not paper but a plastic base coated with an emulsion and a developing chemistry that follows that produces great tonality and color integrity in a finished product designed to last for 200 years.

Day #1 and 2: Gallery No. 117: Florida Reflections: No.1: Holiday Florida To Dali Museum Panel #1

We started with a tour of Holiday and its many community Parks/Recreation facilities. The open photographs were taken in a park where we both began and ended our trip. Bird life abounds in area and the electric plant that can be seen from many vantage points draws Manatee and fish as well as fisher men to the warm water output. We saw no manatees.

After the opening three photos we were off to the New Dali Museum of Art the next day. The building is as much a work of art as its contents and begins the Photo theme: Florida Reflections”.

The panel ends with Dali’s “Rainy Taxi”.

Salvador Dali’s 1933 Rolls Royce Sedanca “Rainy Taxi” will debut at the Lake Mirror Classic Auto Festival.  In 1933 Salvador Dali created what he called the “Rainy Taxi” where it literally rains inside the car – needless to say the original car has long since rusted away.  However, The Tampa Bay Automotive Museum has dutifully recreated the “Rainy Taxi” for the new Salvador Dali Museum which is scheduled to open in St. Petersburg, FL in 2011.

Visitors enter and exit through the gift shop, where, naturally, they're presented with an array of things to buy that feature flaming giraffes and melting clocks. Just past the gift shop sits a black-and-white 1934 Rolls-Royce with a mermaid mannequin sitting in the back seat; for four quarters, you can make it rain, thunder and lightning upon her. The work was made by a local artist in homage to Dali, who has a similar work on display at his hometown museum in Figueres, Spain.

Below the geodesic skylight, a thick concrete staircase winds from the floor to the real attraction — the galleries. One is permanent, stuffed with Dali works, and the other is for exhibitions — though for the first year, it also is full of Dalis (plus his immortal lobster phone).

On the permanent Dali side, which is primarily paintings, the first image visitors see is lonely but important: "Daddy Longlegs of the Evening — Hope!" on an otherwise blank wall. The image — a stretched-out, misshapen figure attempting to play cello amid one of Dali's typically surreal scenes — was the artist's first work after moving to the United States in 1940 (he stayed for eight years) and the first acquired for the collection.

DALI MUSEUM, ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA JANUARY 16, 2011 (OPENED ON 1.11.11)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikdFm92Mz-k&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikdFm92Mz-k&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZFJ4xrugzA    

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lr6UG-pFrM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kc9RIh-eUM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUGRLlqQj8c&feature=related

The Dali collection is very complete from his almost miniature drawings and paintings up to the 14 foot tall Columbus Comes To America. To Be found at the head of the next panel.

http://thedali.org/collection/collection_highlights.html

Gallery No. 116: Florida Reflections: No.2: Second Dali And Dali Area Panel

This panel continues the Dali visit and the grounds immediately adjacent including the also new Mahaffey Theater.  The Panel concludes with four esoteric photos: Fish Florida, The Lone Lemon, A Lighting Fixture Test photo setting up my camera for the next day, and the first photo of that day taken in Front of the AOL Building in Tampa.

Gallery No. 115: Florida Reflections: No.3: Florida Museum of Photographic Arts To The Tampa Museum Of Art

This panel contains the photographic work of Hans Silvester  currently on display at The Florida Museum Of Photographic Arts, (FMOPA).  Also found in this panel are the open photographs associated with The Tampa Museum Of Art, (Tampa).  The museum is also an architectural visual feast. The portion of a glass mosaic was found on the outer wall of the nearby Children’s Hospital.

The photograph containing the multiple minarets was a mystery since solved and identified as The Henry B. Plant Museum already on the list for our next visit.

Gallery No. 114: Florida Reflections: No.4: End Of Tampa Museum Of Art Visit, Lunch And Beyond

This panel includes photographs from the museum, one notable to Anna as it quite resembled a scene she had photographed on a train trip with her sister Rosemary. This area was not as heavily anti-photo policed so…

Some dazzling sky line photos are included here as well as a photo of our luncheon spot: Eddie and Sam’s Pizza.  I had identified this eatery and its New York style Pizza ahead of time but held out little hope that we would end up there, but a serendipitous change of route walking back to the car led us to it and I headed straight for it leaving no choice really. The ambience was nothing to write much about, the Pizza: inexpensive, excellent and large; well worth the stop.

The fountain, waterfall and reflection photos are located just before our garage parking spot.

Gallery No. 113: Florida Reflections: No.5: Tarpon Springs Trip With Dolphin Photos

This panel contains the majority of our boat trip photos, boats, a 3 million dollar home, a boat awaiting refurbishing birds and Dolphins at play. The first Dolphin photo was a surprise as one of the boat captains yelled to me as the Dolphin surfaced in our wake not 10 feet from the boat. It could have jumped aboard if were of a mind to.

Gallery No. 112: Florida Reflections: No.6: Tarpon Springs Trip To Vacation End

There are a couple of fun photos of Anna and few from our trip walk about at the sponge docks, a real tourist trap if ever there were one.  The two tropical fish were photographed in a tank at Rusty Bellies Restaurant where we had supper. That meal was not a winner for the gals and only my meal of everything that crawls out of or lives in a shell passed muster.   

The remaining photos were taken at day’s end back at the park where we began this presentation.  The final photo asked for everything I could squeeze out my camera. Nikon would be proud.

All photos were taken with a Nikon D7000 Digital camera, ISO settings ranging from 100 to 1250. Lenses used on the trip included A Tokina 20-35mm f3.5-4.5, Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 XR Di SP Macro, and a  AF-D Zoom Micro-Nikkor 70~180mm f/4.5~5.6 ED.