Lisbon - Day 7 - The Photo Ark

It took some wandering, back and forth, down little streets and onto bridges over the highway but I eventually found The Photo Ark.

Before entering the exhibit there was a display touch screen. After answering a number of questions on it, it determined I was most like a Panda.

The entrance through a hallway of photos and then you could take a selfie of yourself on a National Geographic cover.

Joel Sartore is a National Geographic photographer who has undertaken this project

Springbok Mantis. He isn't just taking pictures of cute creatures - bugs, butterflies, reptiles, the works!

Pyrenean Desman. Some of them are really weird looking.

Arctic Fox. He wants the photos to have a portrait quality so he shoots the animals against a black or white background with studio lights. He wants us to be able to look the animal in the eye and feel that it is looking back.

Florida Panther. A documentary was being shown, of how he gets the photos and it was amazing seeing him taking them in a tent that he brings with a velcro opening that he can just fit the lens through. He doesn't want to stress the animals too much so often has the tent set up so that they can explore it from their cages and go into it on their own.

Northern White Rhinoceros. For the bigger animals he had one wall of their enclosure painted.

Fennec Foxes. He did photograph some of the animals outside and the documentary showed his helpers running around with black boards trying to keep them behind lemurs in trees so he could get a photo.

Smooth coated Otter. Some of the animals were very curious about the lens and others attacked it. He had some birds attack him through the tent. There was blood.

Most of the pictures he did manage to get the sense that the animal was watching you.

I left feeling quite emotional; the beauty of the photographs and their subjects, the devotion of this photographer to this project and the number of animals that we are loosing, never to return. I walked for a little while before catching a tram back towards the city centre.

The tram, for some reason, stopped near this market and the driver said it was going no further. So before starting to walk home I went into the market.

One side was obviously a produce market but it was late in the day so it was just being closed down and cleaned.

I realized that I had read about this place in the guide book. It was called the Time Out Market.  It had been redone into a huge "food court" and it was packed. Mostly it was young locals but also a splattering of tourists.

I don't mean a "burgers and fries" kind of food court, this was high end and everything beautifully plated.

Behind the counters that ringed the central area, you could see into the kitchens and some had a sit down restaurant beyond, accessed from outside the market.

It was a great concept and obviously very successful.

Another way to take a tour of Lisbon

Walking back home, one of the neighbouring fairs was holding a Spring Market

and the statues in the centre were not impressed.

This huge poster was just around the corner from my hotel and I went in to investigate.

Héctor Julio Páride Bernabó or Carybé (Lanús, Buenos Aires province, Argentina, 7 February 1911 – Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 2 October 1997) was a painter, engraver, draughtsman, illustrator, potter, sculptor, mural painter, researcher, historian and journalist. He settled in Brazil and naturalized as a Brazilian.
Carybé produced more than 5,000 works; his art was expressed through paintings, engravings, illustrations, wood carvings, mosaics and murals. From Wikipedia.

The woman at the door apologized for her English but I think she said that they were paintings depicting Portuguese exploration in South America.

Unfortunately the glass on the frames and the lighting made it very difficult to take pictures without getting glare.

They were simple little paintings but exquisitely done.

There were 2 rooms of them

and a story unfolded of mutual curiosity. I am sure there was more to it than that but all the write-ups were in Portuguese and my Duolingo lessons hadn't got that far.

I went back to the restaurant with all the clocks, for dinner.

It was another night with a line up at the door, loud and crowded. The bartender delivered my wine to me personally and went off in a string of Portuguese. My neighbour translated that he said I was "a good one because I had come back".