Didacus67 (mostly off, my friends...)
(Quantum) Tunnel View
At the border of the high Padan Plain, just at the feet of the first line of the Prealps, there lays a string of five lakes. They draw a line that is the base of the so-called Larian triangle, i.e. the triangle-shaped mountainous land between the two arms of the Lake Como (also called Lario). These lakes, often called the Lakes Briantei, or the Brianza Lakes (from the name of that land, Brianza), are way smaller than the Lario and the other great lakes of Northern Italy - just a string of beads in the higher plain - but they share the beauty of their larger cousins, although on a smaller, more intimate scale. I have always felt quite strongly the fascination of their common origin, which dates from the end of the Würm glaciation, some 11,700 years ago. I can easily see in my mind the enormous, mighty glaciers from the Alps flowing beyond the last mountains and spreading through the high plain. A powerful sight, indeed... Yet all that glory was deemed to end as the climate was becoming warmer, and eventually the glaciers began to recede, leaving behind deep ditches and huge semilunar terminal morains. You can easily fill in the story - the melting waters, the swamps, the debris from the looming mountains, and, eventually, the lakes.
Well, this is not a lesson in geology - I am by no means an expert, just a guy who perceives geology in a deeply emotional way (quite possibly a trait acquired from my late father, who was a passionate amateur mineral and fossil prospector).
I have begun a photographic exploration of those relics of the last glaciation, the Lakes Briantei. At sunrise, of course.
My first session was at the Lake Annone, the largest one, that is divided in two basins by a narrow peninsula. I limited myself to the Western basin, mostly looking Eastward.
This is a detail landscape showing, if needed, how a grand landscape may have smaller, complete landscapes nestled within itself. There could be many landscapes-within-a-landscape, every photographer might perceive and discover new ones. I loved this detail, as a gap between the mountains lets the eye run further and further away, following the outlines of distant mountains as the air becomes more and more transfixed with golden light, until it reaches the lone, elegant outline of the Pizzo dei Tre Signori (= "Peak of the Three Lords", a name stemming from the historical division of the area that it marked, between the State of Milan, the Republic of Venice and the Grisons canton of Switzerland). I am bound to this mountain by epic, adventurous memories from my youth and this quantum tunnel beams both my eye and my mind from the lake directly to that proud peak (which is some 30 km away), as the enticing, sparkling reflections on the waters of the lake make my soul dance. I hope that the photo is good enough to stir emotions within your heart as well... Have a happy Sunday!
I have processed this picture by blending an exposure bracketing [-2.0/-1.0/0/+1.0/+2.0 EV] by luminosity masks with the Gimp (EXIF data, as usual, refer to the "normal" exposure shot).
Along the journey - post-processing always is a journey of discovery to me - I tried the inverted RGB blue channel technique described by Boris Hajdukovic to give a slight tonal boost to several parts of the scene. As usual, I gave the finishing touches with Nik Color Efex Pro 4.
Raw files processed with Darktable.
(Quantum) Tunnel View
At the border of the high Padan Plain, just at the feet of the first line of the Prealps, there lays a string of five lakes. They draw a line that is the base of the so-called Larian triangle, i.e. the triangle-shaped mountainous land between the two arms of the Lake Como (also called Lario). These lakes, often called the Lakes Briantei, or the Brianza Lakes (from the name of that land, Brianza), are way smaller than the Lario and the other great lakes of Northern Italy - just a string of beads in the higher plain - but they share the beauty of their larger cousins, although on a smaller, more intimate scale. I have always felt quite strongly the fascination of their common origin, which dates from the end of the Würm glaciation, some 11,700 years ago. I can easily see in my mind the enormous, mighty glaciers from the Alps flowing beyond the last mountains and spreading through the high plain. A powerful sight, indeed... Yet all that glory was deemed to end as the climate was becoming warmer, and eventually the glaciers began to recede, leaving behind deep ditches and huge semilunar terminal morains. You can easily fill in the story - the melting waters, the swamps, the debris from the looming mountains, and, eventually, the lakes.
Well, this is not a lesson in geology - I am by no means an expert, just a guy who perceives geology in a deeply emotional way (quite possibly a trait acquired from my late father, who was a passionate amateur mineral and fossil prospector).
I have begun a photographic exploration of those relics of the last glaciation, the Lakes Briantei. At sunrise, of course.
My first session was at the Lake Annone, the largest one, that is divided in two basins by a narrow peninsula. I limited myself to the Western basin, mostly looking Eastward.
This is a detail landscape showing, if needed, how a grand landscape may have smaller, complete landscapes nestled within itself. There could be many landscapes-within-a-landscape, every photographer might perceive and discover new ones. I loved this detail, as a gap between the mountains lets the eye run further and further away, following the outlines of distant mountains as the air becomes more and more transfixed with golden light, until it reaches the lone, elegant outline of the Pizzo dei Tre Signori (= "Peak of the Three Lords", a name stemming from the historical division of the area that it marked, between the State of Milan, the Republic of Venice and the Grisons canton of Switzerland). I am bound to this mountain by epic, adventurous memories from my youth and this quantum tunnel beams both my eye and my mind from the lake directly to that proud peak (which is some 30 km away), as the enticing, sparkling reflections on the waters of the lake make my soul dance. I hope that the photo is good enough to stir emotions within your heart as well... Have a happy Sunday!
I have processed this picture by blending an exposure bracketing [-2.0/-1.0/0/+1.0/+2.0 EV] by luminosity masks with the Gimp (EXIF data, as usual, refer to the "normal" exposure shot).
Along the journey - post-processing always is a journey of discovery to me - I tried the inverted RGB blue channel technique described by Boris Hajdukovic to give a slight tonal boost to several parts of the scene. As usual, I gave the finishing touches with Nik Color Efex Pro 4.
Raw files processed with Darktable.