As the Forbidden Gardens was an incredibly impressive place with several large displays, I’ve got several days worth of posts that I’ll spread out on the blog as I try to get to the more current pictures in a timely manner. The main attraction & major reason I decided to visit the soon-to-be-closing Forbidden Gardens was to see a scaled down replica of the terra cotta soldiers that guard Emperor Qin’s tomb in China.
I took dozens of photos of just this area & really enjoying playing around with different processing techniques and some black & white developing too.
These robust & beautiful horse and carriage sculptures were life size (if not larger) & stood in front of the army.
I was often confused about the sculptures- were they supposed to look this way? or is this look the result of years of neglect?
There were several rows of life-size (6 foot) soldiers in various states of deterioration- discolored, askew, missing limbs, broken parts.
The 6,000 slightly scaled down soldiers were impressive and makes me want to visit the 8,000 six-foot tall warriors in China that were only recently discovered in the late 1970′s.
Row after row, line after line, they all were all crafted with different outfits, unique hair, their own facial expressions and individual hand positions.
But in the midst of all the order & all the meticulous detail was disorder & decay. It was very distressing to see such an amazing display, that somebody had made their life work, slowly succumb to the elements of time without any caregiver to lovingly repair and maintain this fantastic collection.
Although only 2 feet tall, the sheer quantity of soldiers devoted to protecting Emperor Qin in the afterlife was an amazing sight. Last I checked, they started selling off these soldiers and other items on Craigslist. 
GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: GORGEOUS day here- we’re headed out to SpringFest with our friends.
