Weekly Photo Challenge: Unique a “Creature Great”

ApatosaurusLate Jurassic Period Hall of the Saurischian Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, New York

Apatosaurus
Late Jurassic Period
Hall of the Saurischian Dinosaurs
American Museum of Natural History, New York

I went to the American Museum of Natural History recently to seek out textures in the Museum’s fossil halls on the 4th floor. The biggest attraction for me are the large birds in the Hall of the Saurischian Dinosaurs.

On permanent view in the Hall are the Tyannosaurus rex and the Apatosaurus, both characterized as Saurischian because of their grasping hands. They are predecessors to the birds we see every day.

I take time to visit these great creatures when I visit the Museum . I am most intrigued by the Apatosaurus, a Sauropod dinosaur (plant-eating). Its life period is recorded as being in the Late Jurassic (161.2-145.5 million years ago). The fossils in the Hall are so grand that if you stand there and imagine that they are alive they are spooky. Visual imprints of life and survival can fill your mind with sci-fi imagery to ponder over.

Since Dinosaurs are a rarity in the annals of our natural history, unique one might say, I got inspired to create one of my “Painting with Photography” collages for this Weeks’ Photo Challenge: Unique.

Above is a picture I took of Apatosaurus converted into a rich sepia photo. Below are parts of the Apatosaurus fossil that I manipulated in Photoshop to create painted abstractions. These renditions I’ve labeled Skeletal Notes I, II, III…

I hope you enjoy viewing them as much as I enjoyed creating them.