I just returned from a great workshop held by Loren Fisher (go check out his work)! The subject of the workshops was the night sky and light painting. We had a lot of fun and learning about Milky Way photography, capturing the sky and lighting up subjects to create an interesting image.
Here’s one from the workshop…
This patchwork truck stands out in the field and is a great subject to capture at night with the help of some intelligent lighting (by Loren) and a long exposure.
My apologies for the intermittent posting over the past week or so. Currently, I’m attending a Night Photography workshop in Vermont taught by the wonderful Loren Fisher. I’m very much enjoying this, but it did require me to get a week’s worth of work completed before I took time off starting Tuesday.
While iPhone photography is not the medium of choice for capturing lightpainting or great Milky Way shots, here’s a quick snap to tease…
I took this shot as I was capturing a 30 second exposure with my Canon R5 (I will share from those shots later). As Loren was painting the light on this truck, this shot worked out pretty well and I like the sense of vintage that black and white presents here.
Much more to come later…some of the shots came out pretty well.
It may have been a slightly inconsistent week for posting content, as sometimes work gets in the way of life. Today, I did make it out to my wife’s herding lesson with our wonderful Cardigan boy, Stuff. As it was a rather breezy, but nonetheless lovely day, I did a little exploring with one camera and came back to take some iPhone shots.
Here’s one of those shots…
Stuff is bringing the sheep around (probably not the correct herding term) as part of his training. Despite being small of stature, Cardigan Welsh Corgis can herd animals much larger than themselves, as Stuff has even worked with cattle.
He’s a good boy and had a nice treat during the ride home.
In the vein of last week’s post in Travel Tuesday, I posted a lovely statue in the dry climate of Egypt. This week, I figured that another statue might be interesting, especially since it has a very different charm. This time, it’s in the much wetter climate of the Netherlands.
Here’s that statue…
Queen Wilhelmina reigned as queen of The Netherlands from 1890 until 1948, at which time she handed over the throne to her daughter Juliana. This statue of Wilhelmina is located in ‘Het Park’ (the Park) in Rotterdam and was unveiled in 1968. The sculpture aims to capture the queen’s personality in her simplicity, as the mother of the Dutch people, looking up to her people. Her robustness also typifies Wilhelmina’s approach and perseverance in leading the Dutch nation throughout the difficult years of World War II.
Some days it seems that between work and all our commitments we barely have time to think and take a deep breath of inspiration! Luckily, I squeezed in a bit of time this weekend to visit the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill in Boylston, Massachusetts. This is one place were I usually can relax, although it was a tad busy this Sunday.
Here’s one of the observations from this outing…
Over the past couple of visits I have been drawn to a number of plants that showed me some intricate patterns. Last time, it was a lush crop of oregano and this time, I’m not sure what it is… (I should read the labels!). The abundance of the growth definitely intrigues me, as the plants are sprawling all over one another.
What did you capture this past weekend?
It seems like this series of posts has been well-traveled over the past number of months (use tag to travel). There are just so many great places and people to visit on this planet of ours! For pure landscape, I’ll admit that Iceland is still tops on my list!
Here’s another magnificent moment in Iceland…
Skogafoss is a stunning waterfall in this land of many great waterfalls. It’s also visited quite a bit, as its location is close to the ring road and not too far from Reykjavik. Every time that I come here, the waterfall presents itself in a unique way for that day, varying based on time of year, rainfall, melt-off, and many other factors.
It’s great fun to revisit images from past vacations, which is what I grabbed for this week’s edition. I’m looking back to a vacation that took us across quite a bit of Scotland back in 2013. Planning our vacations always takes a bit of extra effort to ensure that all our animals are taken care of in the best possible way (read: they get spoiled by a pet sitter while they enjoy all the comforts of home). As this was our first significant international vacation, there were definitely lessons learned.
Here’s an image that goes back to that 2013 vacation…
The Bodach is a sort of trickster in Gaelic mythology and this particular one has a story of admiration. The statue sits at the top of Loch Long in Archer where, according to legend, the Bodach helped repel the Vikings who attempted to drag their longships across the hills to take over the Loch and beyond.
And those lessons learned from our vacation? As I had carefully planned a route across Scotland and many bed and breakfasts for us to stay at, we wound up spending too much time driving and not enough time enjoying. Later vacations were planned differently by picking a location to stay and exploring the surrounding area; much more restful and much less packing of suitcases!
This week we’re jumping back to a more modern view than in last week’s Wednesday Window, while staying on the same island. Last week we were in Scotland, and this week we’re just a wee bit south in the wonderful city of Liverpool.
Here’s the view that I captured in 2019…
This is a view across Alroy Road from somewhat higher up in Anfield stadium, the hallowed ground of Liverpool FC. This was my first visit to the stadium, so I took one of the tours (highly recommended). For those of you who are Everton fans, Goodison Park stadium can be seen in the distance across Stanley Park.
This is my mid-week contribution to the Monday Window thread, a creation of Ludwig Keck. To read more about Ludwig, check this page.
This week’s episode features another image from our most recent big trip to Egypt. My wife and I try to aim for a major trip every other year or so, as there’s always quite a bit of planning involved, as it’s not just us. We also have to think about the 3 Cardigan Welsh Corgis and 2 Siberian Forest Cats. So yes, these trips get planned at least a year in advance!
Here’s another image from Egypt…
This mighty Falcon sits by the second ramp that leads to the incredible mortuary temple of the pharaoh Hatshepsut. Part of what drew me to this falcon is the intrigue of the detail of the feathers that is visible in the outer layer of the statue. Much of this outer layer has been lost, but it still provides a sense of what the original look of the falcon was. Additionally, note that there is still a bit of paint visible around the eye. It would be magical to travel back to antiquity and see this statue when it was just installed.
You might be able to tell that I’d love to return to Egypt, just to spend more time at all of the monuments visited and many more… a lifetime might not be enough!
Even though I did go to Tower Hill Botanic Garden this past weekend, I added no further source material for my Infrared collection. No need for despair, as I created plenty of material over the previous weekend!
So without further ado…
My reason for this tree image was simply to work through some further experimentation with processing. I’ll share that I’m not 100% done yet with this one. Some of the contrast between tree, sky and human-made objects comes across to some degree and has given me some ideas for additional shots to gather over the next couple of weeks…
Stay tuned for more to come!
