Rome: The Vatican, churches around Rome

Today's post is a special one.  Hannah Welch, our staff photographer, has been giving advice to a few students who are avid photographers, and the student photographers have grown and developed their skills significantly in only a few weeks.  Just for the day, Hannah passed the torch to Claire Blood-Cheney, one of our students who has been photographing the trip avidly, and so Claire's photos illustrate this blog post.  (If you're following Hannah's photos, don't worry, you'll see more of her work in the next post.)

This is Claire in a rare moment in front of the camera rather than behind it.

On our final day in Rome, we visited the Vatican museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's.  The Vatican museums house many beautiful objects.  As we have done in previous museums, students were given options--they could follow us instructors and hear our perspectives, they could explore on their own, or they could mix those approaches.  We saw amazing tapestries, frescoes, and other pieces of art.  Max has been particularly attentive to ceilings, and the Vatican offered him many ceilings to photograph and inquire about.



One pleasant surprise in the Vatican museums was the modern and contemporary art collection we encountered near the end.  Zhouyi enjoyed considering the Vatican's contemporary art pieces.

Although the Vatican museums were pretty crowded, as they often are, we still had a few opportunities to stop and contemplate the significance and beauty of the place, as Alex is doing in this picture.




After we returned to Rome, students had free time to explore, with an optional tour of a few key churches in Rome in the late afternoon.  This was also a day when a number of students used a portion of free time to develop and discuss their final projects.  Each student has been invited to construct a project exploring a theme that we have encountered in our travels that is of interest to them.  The project can take a variety of forms of media--photo essay, written essay, video, fiction writing, and many more.  Alexis and Alex each took some time to consider and research ideas for their final projects, and they have both proposed very promising projects!

 Photos by Claire Blood-Cheney