Scattered Thoughts . . .

I don't know what it is about the State of Liberty... I've always been bothered by this French gift of art. Don't get me wrong, I love French art and architecture but the Statue of Liberty bothers me deeply for some reason... it creates conflict within me when it really should create welcoming warmth...  Perhaps it is the horrendously ugly and overbearing cyan color... perhaps what bothers me is the prison-like facilities on this tiny island and its sister island, Ellis Island, used to process our poor immigrants... perhaps it is a cluttered, poorly arranged harbor that has bothered me... perhaps the vision of a monstrous, overbearing "Lady Liberty" to greet our east coast immigrants bothered me... perhaps I agree with some movie-makers and think this piece of art is more aptly suited to be featured in movies like Planet of the Apes ... perhaps I just find this monstrous piece of "art" a bit unappealing or even hideous (of course, my own personal opini

I slept away much of the day since I didn't sleep at all last night. Fortunately, my spinal pain has subsided a bit... down into the 4-5 range, at rest.  I'm about to head to bed but wanted to post a photo here first. I worked on processing this image this evening... selective dodging and burning... luminosity masking... selective sharpening... etc.  I shot this photo during a trip to New York City in 2013. The RAW image remained on one of my hard drives untouched. I hadn't even sorted it into one of my "best" folders as I do with the best images in most of my daily folders! When I was searching through the folder looking to pull out this image this evening, I saw a few others which might make some decent photos as well. For now, however, it will be only this one image to add to my collection of finished photographs. I love the contrast of this image... the sun rays... the clouds... the sun reflecting off the buildings in the center of the frame... and I esp