The National Portrait Gallery is one of the underrated museums in the Smithsonian Institution, and is most likely skipped because it's not on the Mall. I've noted this before but in this town it is important to pause amidst all of the iconic buildings, monuments, display pieces, and artwork and look around at the items that do not have interpretive signs. This gem is only noticeable if you look up in a certain wing of the Portrait Gallery. You'll rarely be disappointed looking up in this building.
Taken with an iPhone 8s Plus, this image now adorns my phone's background.
The National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian American Art Museum has a few nooks and crannies that you can easily miss if you're not paying attention. That little doorway at the end of the hall that appears to be a dead end, for example, opens up into this wing that lets you into this room. Three floors of marvelous marble pillars, and artwork around every corner like it were a library. The natural light coming through the skylights cast a cool glow into the room. The settings on the camera must have been for the wrong type of light source; but, no matter, I like the glow of both the blue and the warm yellow lights hanging down.
Taken with an iPhone 5s with the wrong settings, I wouldn't have found this room (and the massive courtyard in the middle of the building) if I didn't have a bit of explorer in me that wasn't afraid to keep looking until a security guard told me to stop.
I passed by this the other day noticing somewhere in the empty corridors of my mind at how odd it was that the coins tossed into this fountain - undoubtedly from 3, 2, and 1 floors above it - seemed to be evenly dispersed from the center of the fountain outward, in all directions. Just a passing thought in my mind. But 15 minutes or so after I left the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, it dawned on me that this could be a good photo if I could lean far enough over the 3rd floor balcony without falling off. So, I returned today.
Taken with an iPhoto 5s, I learned that sometimes our subconscious sees the beauty before our conscious eye can.
Much like the underground stroll between the Galleries of Art, I didn't expect to find this gem of a room in the Smithsonian Castle. I really thought this building was the Administrative offices for the Institution, with little more than an information kiosk and small gift shop inside. But they do have some neat displays in here, worth taking a look at. As for the image, I think the birds (stuffed) flying past the windows are a nice touch.
Taken with an iPhone 5s, I count it as a blessing, these days, to be able to pull out a phone and capture an image like this on the fly.
