The stairs

This image, looking up at the spiral staircase you have to climb to get to the upper reading room at the library, is what I always call a “Photography 101” picture, because it's such a cliche. But how could you resist this shot?

Geometries

An old ironwork ceiling in Liverpool Street station in London yesterday.

A ceiling

In which I elect not to take the stairs

The Ali Qapu palace is across the square from the Lotfallah mosque. My knees felt very strongly that I should not be making the climb up the six flights of steep stairs to get a closer look at the famous music room, but here's a look from street level.

The ceiling inside the entry is below.

The holy city of Byzantium

The vaulted ceiling near the entrance. I ended up just focusing on the beautiful details, because there was just too much to take in (or photograph) all at once.

Urban poetry

This is an old kind of poetic expression -- quatrains, maybe, or a villanelle: the vaulted ceiling of St. Patrick's, on Ash Wednesday.

I've always loved the ritual of getting ashes -- Remember, man, you are but dust, and unto dust you shall return. (Okay, I was a very strange child.) But for some reason, while most people end up with fairly small, vaguely cross-shaped marks, I always get a huge shapeless blob that makes me look more like a coal miner who happened to wander onto Fifth Avenue than a suitably chastened congregant observing an ancient custom.