Rocky

wow, this was hard to light at high noon!
I took this with a hot shoe flash and reflector in about five seconds while a line of impatient tourists stood in line behind me, waiting for their chance to pose with the Italian Stallion.

A bronze statue of Rocky was commissioned by Sylvester Stallone and created by A. Thomas Schomberg in 1983. (It's actually one of three statues created but nobody knows where the other two are.) The statue shows Stallone's pose when he jogged up the Art Museum steps in training for his big fight. 'Rocky' was placed on the top of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the filming of Rocky III. After filming was complete, a furious debate erupted in Philadelphia between the Art Museum and the City's Art Commission over the meaning of "art." Claiming the statue was not "art" but rather a "movie prop," the city considered various alternate locations and settled upon the front of the Wachovia Spectrum in South Philadelphia. It was later returned to the Art Museum where it was used in the filming of the movies Rocky V, Mannequin and Philadelphia. The Rocky statue is now on a pedestal in a grassy area off to the right of the famous Art Museum steps.

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