Several months after seeing those two women contemplate this sculpture (Birth of the Messenger, by Viktor), I again set up my camera and tripod in practically the same place, hoping to capture more people contemplating this sculpture. I also had some ND filters on the lens, hoping for some interesting people blurs, too. Here are the results over a period of 15 minutes. And if you notice, the "strapless gown of sunlight" the sculptured woman was "wearing" changed over the course of the 15 minutes:

Below: The first of a guided tour group. They did glance at the sculpture but basically were waiting for the rest of their group to catch up.

Below: A minute later, the tour guide brought the rest of the group and totally by-passed this sculpture!

OK, I thought, she'll stop here on the way back down. So I waited. Along came this little boy. He had a pebble that he'd toss ahead of himself, then run, find it and toss it again. Below: Here he's hunting for his pebble, after a quick glance at the sculpture, then totally ignoring it to hunt for his pebble - rather unusual behavior for a boy his age! He found his pebble and went on up the steps!

Finally the boy, with his parents, came back down the steps and did pause briefly to look at the sculpture. Below: You can see that the boy's head swiveled toward it. But he was much more interested in talking about his pebble! The parents paid attention to him, also only briefly glancing at the sculpture!

Finally, along came a lone woman, who did stop and briefly contemplate this sculpture. But for less than 8 seconds, which is the time of the exposure of the image below!

I was amazed at the totally different, almost non-reactions toward this sculpture from those of the women who had contemplated it several months earlier. The tour guide brought her group down past it and ignored it a 2nd time. By this time, 15 minutes had passed, so I packed up and sought out a bench so I could sit down for a while.

Didn't people notice me, you may wonder? Most of them didn't even see me! And those who did, well, I didn't take any pictures of them.

When I realized that some people saw me, I reached in my camera bag and pulled out the camera manual and pretended to be looking something up in it. One or two asked what I was doing, so I told them that I was looking up how to do something.

I didn't want people to be conscious of my presence and that I was snapping away. I wanted fully candid reactions to that sculpture.

My conclusions can't be definitive, however. The first time, when the 2 women stopped for several minutes, contemplating but not saying anything, plus this second time of only 15 minutes isn't long enough to contain a statistically significant sampling.

So this page is mostly about the Bottom Line: what are your own thoughts as you view these various images of this thought-provoking sculpture by Viktor?

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