Virtual unreality.

I couldn't understand why the photos were so bad on Columbia University's Amiens Cathedral website at www.learn.columbia.edu/Mcahweb/Amiens.html. The answer, I think, is a mistaken pursuit of a kind of purity in the sense that the photos were like those very bad glass lecture slides taken from amateur photos in early twentieth-century architectural books. Another answer is, possibly, that the photos, black and white all of them, make the lovely soft-pencil drawings and the knockout CAD reconstructions look very good indeed. The text is heavy duty and thorough but, although you immediately want to go and visit the cathedral, the ensemble of the site is less than complete: I guess you feel that after all these centuries we should be able to get together a complete summation of the place. Still, I've booked a Channel ferry for the week after next to see for myself.