Dark Symmetry

This palm left caught my eye as I walked along the narrow path that took to the little beach a mile down from our resort in Mexico last week. I have photographed palm leaves before but I wanted to try again, this time concentrating on the radial pattern and also trying to manipulate depth of field.I'll have to admit that there is a little Photoshop manipulation in the final product, including the application of a couple of my favorite filters in Color Efex Pro 4 and in the OnOne Photo Suite. But I'm not telling which ones. :-)Other Palm posts:December 25, 2009More Natural SymmetryGod's Ruler?More GreenStringy Palm Leaf - CorfuPalm LeafCanon 5DII 1/60s f/4.0 ISO500 40mm

Same Old Sun, Different Day

Well, I liked the quality of light so much in the photo I posted yesterday that I went back to the same spot 6 mornings in a row to see if I could get something better. In particular, I wanted more shoreline water to show. And this is my next best effort. The casual observer may see little difference between this photo and yesterday's post. And, in fact, there probably isn't - except that I liked the clouds in the previous post better. But I like the dark, wet shoreline in this one.

01-01-12 The Wine-Dark Sea

"The wine-dark sea" is an epithet that Homer used to describe the Aegean Sea. I doubt that Homer's Odysseus ever sailed the waters off of the Yucatan Peninsula, but if he had, would he have heard the sirens' song as I have? Or the mermaids singing?And now, because I can't stop the chain of consciousness that wells up from my distant college past from time to time, I am compelled to quote "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock" by TS Eliot:

"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.I do not think that they will sing to me.I have seen them riding seaward on the wavesCombing the white hair of the waves blown backWhen the wind blows the water white and black.We have lingered in the chambers of the seaBy sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brownTill human voices wake us, and we drown."

But I am not Prufrock, nor was meant to be. . . .

Humane Society?

Compositionally, this isn't a very good photo. But journalistically it gets by because it does tell a story, even if you didn't know that is was taken along the Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain. It is a photo of a mendicant (more rudely, a beggar) and his best friends.I suspect that some may ask if he would have to beg if he weren't trying to feed 4 pets. I would ask instead, "What do you value and how much is it worth to you?"

Ambulanza

This is what a Venetian ambulance looks like. The pilot races down the Grand Canal, weaving through gondola traffic. And he looks cool and poised in his Italian sunglasses. . .

Pelekes Beach, Corfu (Greece)

This little beach is tucked in against the fairly steep western central banks of the Greek island of Corfu. Corfu doesn't match the stereotypic view the of Greek islands. It isn't real glitzy. Whitewashed buildings are not the norm. And the place isn't over run by tourists. It's a wonderful destination.

Tropical Dreams

This one dates back to 2002 and was taken somewhere south of Cancun, Mexico. I'm thinking of getting some kind of semi-opaque version of this to stick to the window I look out when I am working on my photos. Why not turn our back yard into an inviting tropical pool, palm trees and all? And you are all invited!Canon 1D 1/250s f/8.0 ISO250 34mm

A View From the Eye

It's the London Eye, of course. This is a shot I took several years ago on a trip with students that took us to London, Paris and Rome. The Thames looks really brown in this photo, but some of that is due to the HDR and contrast process I applied to this photo.Canon 5D 1/200s f/10.0 ISO250 24mm

Conveyance (Variation)

In the three years that I've been posting to this blog, I try not to post the same photo twice. However, I'm reposting yesterday's photo again, but this time with a different look.Why am I doing this? In part because I want to show the kind of impact color and black and white can make on a scene. I guess I'm also show the kind of power the digital photographer has these days in manipulated photos through fairly simple processes - such as what I've done.

Conveyance

Ljubljana, Slovenia, is a picturesque town that a photographer could easily get lost in. There are things someone like me, from a small town in a rural state, never sees - such as rustic looking painted bicycles.However, I do believe that if someone came to Watertown from Slovenia to photograph our town, they would find strange and photogenic things that we would probably ignore.Giant cowboys might be an example. . . .

Split Harbor (HDR)

This is not a true, layered HDR photo. Instead, I made it using Nik Software's Color Efex Pro 4.0 and Nik Efex HDR. It creates a bit of a surreal effect, I think.Are you a photography student wanting to know more about the process that leads to photos like this? Here's a tutorial I created this morning fresh off the video "press."

Ancient Doors

I'll admit that I know I was in Japan when I took this photo but I don't know where. It was a royal palace somewhere. If only I knew about GPS geotagging in 2004. . . .