The Treasure Chest ©2013 - "The Treasure Chest" started with a visit last July to the historic town of Princeton, NJ. The base image was taken in an alcove of the beautiful gothic style Princeton University Chapel. Completed in 1928, it is the religious and ceremonial center for the university and is the third largest university chapel in the world. It is nondenominational, host's regular services for many of the university's faith groups and is open to all people. The rather scholarly looking young man I thought fit very nicely into the composition and is from my vintage photo collection. His pet crow eyeing up the butterflies (which actually consist of only one butterfly that I photographed many times as it fluttered around my backyard) was captured on a recent road trip to Greenwood Lake, NY. The treasure chest containing the butterflies is an enlarged version of a smaller 4x7 inch box I picked up at an antique shop. The window originally contained lovely stained glass but for this composition, I replaced it with two large black vultures that I captured perched on a limb in Pottersville, NJ, one of which is cooling his stretched wings in the early evening air. Because the ethereal butterfly lives a fairly short life after it's metamorphosis from the caterpillar, I consider it to be one of nature's wonderful little "treasures" that, no matter how hard we try to hold onto, are privileged to enjoy for a brief moment, and then it's gone.
