Lights From Off Camera Flashes and Christmas Trees, With Some Guest Appearances from Violins and Ducks

And now, to bring my daily photography up to date...

It took me awhile, but on the 17th I finally decided I should take a photograph of my new guitar.  It was the first thing (besides necessary food) that I purchased once I moved to Belfast.  The guitar is nothing special...I don't mean anything negative by that, it plays well and sounds good, but it just seems to be your standard, tad better than amateur acoustic guitar.  I really wanted to bring my Danelectro with me, but travelling light was necessary, and my beloved guitar would have taken up too much room.

I really enjoyed taking this shot.  It was much more technical than many of my daily photographs.  I shot it through the viewfinder of my Kodak Duaflex.  Any chance to shoot TTV makes me happy.  But on top of that, I used an off camera flash that was triggered from the other side of a door so that the little translucent window on the door would diffuse and spread the light.  There was much careful positioning with much trial and error before this shot was perfected...I love the glare and spots of light...

There are a few street musicians in the middle of the city that are fairly ingenious.  In an attempt to reach further with their beautiful violin playing, they have attached what resembles a piece of an old bugle to their violins.  The picture doesn't make it easy to see exactly how they did this, but I've been trying for awhile to get a good shot of one of these guys and their inventions...they always escape my camera, so I will just have to manage with this photo from behind...

The 19th of November marked the first day of the Christmas season for Belfast.  Thousands of people gathered in the dark city, around what was a dark Christmas tree, waiting for the moment that all the Christmas lights would be turned on.  A countdown started just a couple seconds before 7pm, and once the voices reached "one", the whole city became illuminated with twinkling lights of all different colors and sizes.  This photo was taken just a second after the lights went on...

This morning was the type of morning that requires a nice walk by a river or some similar body of water.  So we obeyed.  We grabbed cameras and sweatshirts and made our way to Lagan Meadows.  It is a wonderful place to spend a cool but sunny morning.  Or at least all dog-owners think so...and that right there is enough reason to go, mass quantities of adorable dogs...sadly, neither of these are dogs...

There we go, all caught up.

Mostly Floral and Botanical Photography

The 13th of November was Remembrance Day, also known as Armistice Day or Poppy Day.  It provided me with a chance to take a more photojournalist approach to my daily photography.  Here are two photos, one from a ceremony that was held outside of Queen's University Belfast and one from the ceremony outside of City Hall...presented in that order...

I was walking down a street on the 14th when I noticed something strange about the building I was passing.  The brick cut-outs for the doorways (which there were many of) were all the same, but the doors and windows in each cut-out entrance were all very different.  The part that caught me as strange was that these doors were all about five feet away from each other...on the same building...

I went for a very early walk through the nearby Botanic Gardens on the 15th.  I noticed that the Palm House's glass windows were pretty foggy from the early morning mist.  I decided to try to use this to my advantage by using the foggy windows as a filter of sorts.  It worked, blurring portions of the image as well as allowing significant light leak in certain parts of it...

I guess I had flowers on the mind because the next day, the 16th, I was back at the gardens looking to do some macro-esque floral shots.  I am not the biggest fan of flower photography, but I am a fan of trying my hand with any photographic subject.  Something I do enjoy with floral shots is the usage of black and white film (or b&w digital processing).  It seems like a field that (at least nowadays) isn't as saturated.  Now I know that some of these shots are not technically "floral" shots...but some are, and that's what I went out intending to shoot, so that's good enough reasoning to keep calling it that, yes?...

  

I really like the second photograph.  Anyone know what kind of flowers those are?

Spain

Our plane landed in Malaga in southern Spain around noon on Wednesday November 9th.  Not having any specific plans for Malaga, except that we would need to get to the bus station in the evening, we headed towards water.  There was visible water...a sea or something we figured...within walking distance.  Checking Google maps, it seems like it would have been either the Alboran or Mediterranean Sea.  We only got so far before we saw a fairly large hill with ruins upon it, with an old steep path allowing you to get right up to the ruins.  We took that path and it took us to one of the nicest city lookouts I've ever been to.

I give you...Malaga .

...and here is a tilt-shifted image of the ruins that we were able to get nice and close to.  (Prepare yourself..I brought my homemade tilt-shift lens, thinking I'd get some nice tilt-shift opportunities.  I did.  Many.  Hopefully you like tilt-shift photography as much as I do.)

While we were looking for a place to have lunch, we saw this man.  My abnormal love for street musicians makes it hard to pass by without taking a quick shot.  He had a beautiful voice and a rather nice smile.

We hopped on the bus, headed to Ronda, stared at the gorgeous scenery zooming by, and were greeted by the night when we hopped off...

Our hostel was incredible.  Incredibly cheap and incredibly similar to a hotel...we had our own room, our own bathroom with a shower attached to the room, and I think there was maybe one other couple there, so we basically had our own whole hostel/hotel to ourselves.  As well as continental breakfast in the morning.  Which included fresh squeezed orange juice from probably the best oranges I've ever had.  We got up early on Thursday so that we could wander around the town before too many people/tourists were up and moving. We stepped outside and were greeted by sights including but not limited to these...

The city of Ronda is on top of a cliff.  A few cliffs actually, connected by a few stone bridges, the most famous of which, Puente Nuevo, took 30 years to build...from the 1750s-1790s.  We were able to look over the beautiful Spanish landscape, as well as directly into the gorge between the two cliffs, from our fantastic vantage point.  The sun was rising just as we first started looking around, illuminating the misty fields and mountain ranges that surrounded us.  Also, I tilt-shifted a horse.

We spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make our way down the side of the cliff.  After attempting to converse with a local (which on average went much better than we expected, all thanks to my somewhat-Spanish-speaking wife), we found out how to get down and did so.  

Here are some views of Ronda from below the town...showing the bridge. 

We then continued to roam through the town.  Orson Welles, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos all lived in Ronda at one point in time or another.  I can understand why.  It is seriously the most beautiful town I have ever visited and I will definitely be returning for another trip, if not joining those three greats by living there at some point in my life.  Supposedly the birthplace of bullfighting, Ronda's culture has evolved around it and with it.  Much of Hemingway's writings that include bullfighting were inspired by what he witnessed in Ronda.  Also, the most climactic scene in For Whom The Bell Tolls took place there.  But the town is on a cliff! Its main road is the bridge!  That's enough to get me to return.

On the other end of the town (a half mile away) there are some of the traditional Spanish homes with white washed walls and red roofs all clustered together...

I got an interesting "abstract" shot of them as well...thanks, of course, goes to my handy dandy homemade tilt-shift lens...

We then had to make our way back to the Ronda bus station so we could get back to Malaga so that we could get an overnight bus from there to Madrid.  The bus ride was ....interesting.  At one point in time my wife got off at what was just supposed to be a stop for a bathroom break (and luckily it was) but both she and I got a tad freaked out when at three in the morning the bus let those few people off, including her, and then proceeded to drive away.  Just slightly frightening, rather disorienting and extremely surreal as we both had to basically hope that the bus was going to return, as opposed to us never seeing each other again.  It did.  

Apparently it just needed to fuel up.  

We escaped that screwy bus once it reached Madrid.  Knowing how quickly hostels fill up, and having a certain desire to relive our Ronda hotel-like experience, we immediately sought one out.  We found a rather nice one with a great view of the city streets from our room, dropped off our bags and went out into the city of Madrid.  There was a beautiful park with an area filled with topiary, a little gallery with a local artist's work, a pond that looked like it would be a great place for some ice skating in just a few weeks, and a building made of glass that goes by the name of the Crystal Palace...there was an interesting exhibit called Written in the Celestial Bodies, which provided me with this shot (which I absolutely love, maybe due to lighting, maybe composition, I'm not sure...but I like it so much that in comparison all my other Madrid photographs bore me and won't be posted)...

After checking out another museum and a cathedral, as well as more walking around (always walking) we made our way to a grocery store, purchased some cheese, olives, baguettes, and fruit, went back to the hostel for a late dinner in our room.  We were up bright and early the next day, not by our own accord...our flight was a fairly early one and we never want to test the airport god.  All went smoothly, though.  Here are some shots from in the air on Saturday...

The first one is Madrid soon after we made it into the air.  The second one is France.  We think.  We carefully went over maps and considered the other land masses we were able to see.  Does that look like France to anyone?  Can you confirm our suspicions?

So yeah, note the amount of photographs from each city.  One of those cities has many more photos than the other two cities combined.  That one with the most...that was the best part of the trip.  That's where we have already decided to go for one of our future anniversaries.    

Hey.  That was Spain.  That was almost a week ago, though.  Normally I wouldn't post without including all the day's photos up to the day of the post.  But I am going to break that rule.  I've rambled long enough.  I'll post the last few day's shots either later tonight or tomorrow.

Cleaning Up Before Spain

I wanted to post yesterday and today's pictures before heading out for Spain tomorrow morning.  I figure if i don't post them now, they will just end up tainting four days worth of Madrid, Malaga and Ronda.  So here they are..nothing too fantastic in that I haven't had much free time, what with the Spain prepping and whatnot...

Yesterday's photo is the first shot of my wife's university that I took that I actually like.  I got it right before the sun began to rise.  Queen's University.  

Today's main photo gave me a chance to get my old Duaflex out for some TTV shooting.  Again, it was early, the sun was yet to rise, and the dark sky in my photo is proof of it.

My other picture from today is my ongoing book list.  I didn't want to have it as my only picture since I just recently did so with Moby Dick... So that's why you get to look at a TTV lamp as well.  Here is The Stranger by Camus.  A very good and also very quick read.  I finished it in about three hours and picked up his The Fall.

Downtown Belfast, Saint George's Market, Above the Rooftops, and Belvoir Forest Park

In planning a trip to Spain for next week (amongst other things), I have gotten behind on my photo posting.  I will try to keep my ramblings to a minimum so as to get through the many photos from the past few days.

It starts with the first of November.  I really like this photo.  The colors are soft and the minimal approach makes the scooter stand out all the more.  Sadly, I'm sure I will offend someone by calling that thing a scooter.  I think it's a scooter...but I'm not certain.  Most likely it isn't...leaving me open for attacks for calling something that is obviously more manly/sexy/feminine/fast/street legal/expensive than a scooter a scooter.

Next up is the 2nd.  Walking through downtown Belfast in the evening, my wife and I came across the first signs of Christmas.  There were banners with cheery Christmas messages, lights being strung, and department stores changing their inventory to more Holiday-oriented items.  I took some pictures of these Christmasy things, but none of them turned out as I would have hoped.  A photo of the clock tower in the middle of the city did, on the other hand, turn out decently... so that is what you get.

The 3rd provided me with some free time to meander.  I ended up with a photo with some beautiful colors...

...one with a nice antique feel to it...

...and one with interesting lighting and composition...

The 4th was Friday.  Saint George's Market day.  I frequently get my Friday photographs there, but they are normally of the products being sold, the stands, or the people.  The market is inside a beautiful old building and I decided that it was about time for me to get a picture of it.  It's a pretty long building (it almost takes up a whole block) so I decided to try cropping it differently.  Panoramic cropping seemed like the best method, allowing me to get the whole building without getting too much foreground or sky.

Looking at the panoramic result, I realized that this photo would lend itself well to a style that resembles a pen or pencil sketch with watercolor coloring.  So since I am pretty pitiful with a pen or pencil, and since I lack watercolors, I fired up my photo editing program and applied a crap ton of filters and layers, hoping I could achieve the image I had in my mind.  Luckily, I could...

Yesterday, on a roundabout morning walk to the grocery store, we found an area that takes you above the rooftops.  It's just a bridge, but the streets surrounding the bridge are densely packed with houses that being above them gives you a feeling of either being in an entirely different world with an entirely different landscape, or being a chimney sweep in Mary Poppins.  Having messed around with panoramic cropping the day prior, I was still in that mindset and applied it to this strange "landscape."  This photo made me want to go to Epcot.  Very badly...

This one reminds me of some otherworldly graveyard... 

I love the cranes in this one...

and here's a bunch of awesome looking chimneys all lined up... because no one can ever have enough photos of chimneys...

Today we got up early, found a nice area within walking distance that we knew nothing about, donned our jackets and headed out.  It was on the River Lagan and was called the Belvoir Forest Park.  It's a really nice area that is actually a forest within the city.  There is a pretty massive meadow that while traversing you will, not may, walk right into the middle of a herd of cattle and end up getting stared down by a few of them.  The river itself lazily makes its way through the trees, gathering mist in the early morning light, and is home to tons of ducks and other waterfowl...

I shall be kicking the quality up a notch with a few days of Spain photography soon...stay tuned.

Halloween

Apparently Halloween is celebrated differently here in Belfast.  They have the costumes and the loud shrieking that gets annoying pretty quickly.  I'm not sure if they have the trick-or-treating, I really hope so.  What kind of place wouldn't?  But they add something strange to the common mess of spaghetti brains and zombie face painting...fireworks.  Now, don't get me wrong, I love fireworks.  Fireworks has the word fire in it, insuring that it will find a special place in my heart.  But a full fireworks display over the river? It seems kind of strange.  But again, I have no problems with it, I just wasn't expecting it.  So here's that display of working fire from the 30th...

That boat on the left...apparently it's a museum.

Today, in that it is Halloween, I decided to try my hand at something a little more abstract and perhaps even a bit...spooky.  I'll leave it up to you to decide if I succeeded in the spooky department, but I am definitely intrigued by the result of my attempt.

This is a portion of a window that I can see from my living room window.  I upped the saturation, overexposed on the light parts, and underexposed on the dark parts...besides that, there was no extra editing, no adding of a fun house mirror reflection in any glass pane.  The strange images you see in each glass pane are just the reflections of whatever is near those panes plus the bent glass' ability to distort it.  Strange, right?..the fact that each pane has something different in it?  I sure thought so.