Sunday, January 23, 2011

Crocheted Coral Reef at the Natural History Museum

Last Saturday, while Eric was watching the SuperBowl, I had an adventure of my very own. I walked through the Sculpture Garden, past the ice skaters, and headed to the Natural History Museum on the National Mall. They have a few new exhibits, including a huge crocheted coral reef in the Oceans wing of the Museum. 800 people helped to create that reef and it has a section in the back that's in whites and greys and beiges to symbolize a bleached coral reef. And it has a section made almost entirely of plastic to represent the amount of plastic that can be found in today's oceans. They also had separate display cases around the outside of the room for the portion of the exhibit that travels from one place to another.


I also went upstairs to see the new setting for the Hope Diamond. Of the three possible settings that the American public got to vote on, I definitely think the one that was chosen was by far the best. The title of the new setting is "Embracing Hope" which I thought particularly fitting. I also took a quick peek at their rotating exhibit which is about Cyprus right now. Unfortunately, no photography was allowed in the exhibit, although I was unaware of that when I first entered. Some "nice" lady pointed it out to me in the middle of my trying to capture something on film, which scared me so much that the composition is completely out of wack.
My biggest wish right now is to get a new camera that I can actually manually zoom in and out with. I'm so tired of trying to get a cool close-up with my digital camera and 9 out of 10 pictures coming out blurry until I figure out what distance isn't too close and tricking my camera into doing what I want it to do.

2 comments:

  1. AHa, ist das ein Hinweis, was du gerne zum Geburtstag haben moechtest.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds like you've been busy! Good luck in the home search! I agree- the "Embracing Hope" is beautiful.

    ReplyDelete