This is the beautiful St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral. I’ve been to this spot numerous times. Its an iconic urbex location.
Church of St. Elias Ukrainian Orthodox
When Blair and I traveled to Ukraine to visit Chernobyl, we stayed in a little village called Slavutych. From here, we traveled by train each day back and forth to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone to explore the nuclear power plants, Pripyat, and the surrounding area. On our last morning, we talked to this church in Slavutych to photograph this wonderful facility. I don’t know anything about their traditions, but I found it interesting that the church had no pews or chairs inside. During the service, everyone stands.
As you can see, it was a foggy morning with a gray sky.
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Regensburg
I took this recently on a trip through part of Germany. This cool little college town has some long history like many areas in this part of the world including back to medieval times. We were out most of the day exploring this town. Later that night, I went out for a short period to capture some evening photos. I liked this one because you get the historic Stone Bridge (12th century), Danube River and the Dom St. Peter Cathedral (13th century Gothic style) all in one beautiful photo.
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St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery
I loved this cathedral in downtown Kiev, but I had a hard time capturing it. It’s large so you need to get back to get it all in, but you can’t due to the outside wall surrounding the building. You also can’t get a clean shot without dozens of people standing in the way. There are some clean perspectives around the back that are not as pretty. So, I went with this zoomed in perspective of the rooftop, which was also hard to capture due to trees (as you can see).
The position of this cathedral is great within the city. Its at the end of a major road overlooking the Dnieper River. The facility itself is amazing. I just failed as a photographer to capture it. Sorry about that.
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St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery
This amazing facility is still functioning as a monastery in Kiev Ukraine. It is located on the Dnieper River in a beautiful portion of the city. It was built in the Middle Ages by Sviatopolk II Iziaslavych. Unfortunately, the original cathedral was demolished by the Soviets in the 1930s and was reconstructed in 1999 after the Ukrainian independence. Blair and I climbed bell tower in the surrounding walled structure to get this photo.
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St. Peter's Square
This isn’t my typical photo. First, I don’t normally include people especially tourist. Secondarily, it isn’t technically a good photo. But I liked how you get to see the entire scene with St. Peter’s Square in the foreground and St. Peter’s Basilica in the background. I loved the amazing architecture in Rome, especially in Vatican City.
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Great Bay
It has been a few years since my last visit to St. Martin. I took this photo on the beach looking out at the Great Bay. Amazing location!! I’ve had this photo processed and sitting on my hard drive for a long time…. It was just waiting for it’s time… Guess what? It is time.
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St. Agnes
Here is a quick post for you. This is the beautiful St. Agnes abandoned church in the Detroit area. What a great spot….
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St. Agnes
Happy Friday. I hope you enjoy your weekend. The last 8 work days have been extremely tough for me. I’m ready for a nap now and some relaxing this weekend. I’ll probably do some yard work as well, but some down time is on my agenda.
Today’s photo is one I took within the St. Agnes Catholic Church during our Detroit Urbex Adventure. We had an interesting time at this site.
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Peter Paul
I’ve posted photos from this great spot many times before. This is the incredible St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral. It’s truly a classic. I’ve had a hard time getting a bad image inside this facility. They all just turn out great…..at least from my perspective. Enjoy your Sunday.
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Don’t forget to check out my photo galleries. I update and add to them often.
St. Peter's Basilica
What an amazing facility!! An Italian Renaissance church (the world’s largest church) inside Vatican City is worth a visit regardless of your religious preference. The architecture, design, and detail is world class. In short, I was wowed!!
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Palace of the Grandmaster
Officially known as The Palace, the Grandmaster’s Palace is in the walled city of Valletta Malta. It was built starting in the 16th century and they finished it in the 18th century. It was originally built as a palace of the Grand Master of the Order of St. John, who ruled Malta and at that time, they called it the Magisterial Palace. Today it serves as the Office of the President of Malta and as a museum.
I took this photo inside the Palace. I just loved the mural painted around this entrance and how it worked (matched) with the marble flooring.
To view a larger version, click here: https://500px.com/photo/200207087/palace-of-the-grand-master-by-brook-ward?ctx_page=1&from=user&user_id=3695440
Palace of the Grandmaster
Turkish Grand Bazaar
So….I’m sorry that I’ve been absent lately. MJ and I were on another badly needed adventure with our good friends (Kris and Scott). I’ll be the first to admit that I needed that time away and I had a great time. As far as trips go (for us) it was a very relaxed trip. Lots of naps, down time, sun, a few beers and just fun (no stress) activities.
We’ve traveled with Kris and Scott many times and they make it easy. We all get along, enjoy each other’s company and just go with the flow. I want to thank them and MJ for the wonderful trip.
Anyway, while we were in St. Thomas, Kris found this awesome store called the Turkish Grand Bazaar. I loved this place. The store employees were great. I think they are all family members, but I don’t know that for sure. We shared, talked and laughed. They had so many amazing items in this store, MJ and I could have spent a lot of money in that spot. I loved all the colors, lights, and cool items. Tonight’s photo is some of the colorful lamps. I loved them all.
To view a larger version, click here: https://500px.com/photo/198110491/turkish-grand-bazaar-by-brook-ward?ctx_page=1&from=user&user_id=3695440
Turkish Grand Bazaar
St. Peter's Basilica
During our trip to Vatican City, we visited St. Peter’s Basilica. What an amazing visit!! I don’t know if our guide bribed the Vatican official or not (hard to believe), but we got to skip the entire line. There were thousands of people in line (at least it seemed like it) and they said the wait was about 2 hours long. Regardless, the guide got us inside in less then 10 minutes. It was an outstanding experience and I tried to capture as many photos as possible. This is of the ceiling just inside the front doors. I couldn’t use a tripod, so I did the best I could hand holding the camera.
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Ceiling inside St. Peter's Basilica
Simpson Bay Sunset
Today’s blog post if of a sunset from Simpson’s Bay in St. Martin. We had a wonderful time traveling to this island with a few family members. Mother nature treated us to a week full of wonderful sunsets like this one. I took this photo from the beach at our resort. I like the moody feel of this photo and it takes me right back to our time sitting on the beach watching this unfold. Good times, great location.
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Simpson Bay Sunset
Simpson Bay
Tonight’s post is a sunset from Simpson Bay in St. Maarten. I attended a sunset cocktail party on the rooftop of our hotel. That gave me an opportunity to capture this great scene as it happened. I’m ready to go back to the Caribbean. At this point, I don’t have any future trips booked. That will have to change soon.
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Umbrellas
I captured this scene on the beach in downtown Philipsburg, St. Maarten. What a great little city. I want to live in a city where one block from the main street you have a world class beach, sun, and amazing year round weather.
The Beautiful Gustavia
Last December we had a great trip to St. Maarten. During that trip, we took a day excursion over to St. Barts. What a great little island…expensive, but fun. We hiked up a hill to get this great view of Gustavia. Boy it was worth the walk.
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St. Maarten Rooftopping
When we visited St. Maartin, we stayed at the Simpson Bay Resort and Marina. The resort has a wonderful roof access that allows for a beautiful 180 degree view of the famous Simpson Bay. So I took advantage of this and took a ton of photos of the bay. But to be honest, this photo I took looking straight down at the resort pool was one of my favorites from this location.
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Cruise Port
We did a private island tour toward the end of our time on St. Maarten. I made the driver take us up to the top a hill, which had a gated community at the top. We couldn’t get into the neighborhood, but we got this great view. It was a wonderful stop on our tour that provided a view of the cruise port that most people don’t see. I hope you enjoy it.
To purchase a print or view the entire gallery, click the photo above.