View allAll Photos Tagged Alight
During the holiday season, the towers of the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco are decorated with strings of lights that run along their edges. Here's a shot of the top of Embarcadero One, the tower nearest to the bay.
This was a test of a new camera lens of mine, and hasn't been post-processed in any way except for some levels adjustments. "How did you blur the top and bottom of the building"? Let me explain...
Basically, this shot is an extreme "tilt-shift" exposure on medium format 120 black-and-white film, using an 153mm Aero Ektar lens, a derivative of a lens design originally intended to be shot at maximum aperture, f/2.5, on 4.5-inch square film, for night-time military aerial recon using flash bombs.
Using this lens on the large types of film allows you to make pictures with mind-blowingly thin depth of field. David Burnett, a well-known photojournalist, uses an old Speed Graphic 4x5 camera and Aero Ektar lens to harness this wafer-thin DOF to very impressive effect! A favorite of mine is the Hurricane Katrina series of his that ran in National Geographic.
On 6x9-cm film with the lens wide open, it's approximately equivalent to a 68mm lens at f/1.1 on full-frame digital. On the 4x5-inch film, it's equivalent to a 38mm lens at f/0.65! Which essentially means that you can make backgrounds that are more than twice as blurry as anything you could do at a similar focal length with a 35mm camera. Gnarly!
Given the large image circle of the lens (the size of the image it projects), if you shoot with a view camera, you can tilt it to change the plane of focus, quite extremely on the intermediately-sized film formats. In this shot, I tilted the lens about 20 degrees backward, resulting in a plane of focus that ran roughly through the middle of the building, progressively blurring the lights on either side. Google "Scheimpflug" for more details.
As with all old military hardware, there's quirks. There's no mechanical exposure control in the rig at all, requiring the wave of a "black hat" as a shutter and timing shots by counting (unless you're using something like a Speed Graphic with built-in focal plane shutter). It's just about as manual as you can imagine, next to having to actually sketch the photo by hand. And, owing to a coupla Thorium-enhanced lens elements, the Aero Ektar is mildly radioactive, casting off a steady stream of gamma rays! Cover the family jewels, breeders!
San Francisco, California.
For more about this photo, see the Functionally Structural series in my online gallery. Thanks for your interest!
This is one of the fruits of an art project to illuminate the bridges along the Thames in central London. By Mark Higham. You can find more of my photos on instagram at @mhigham.photos
Softened with added textures and made mysterious by light, these beautiful dogwood flowers always herald the coming of spring and for many, Easter.
Vivacious and Soft Chaos textures from 2 Lil Owls.
If you'd like a print, greeting card or phone cover, go to 1-rebecca-cook.artistwebsites.com
Dreich. That’s the only word that could ever describe the steel, bitter, relentless, driving rain that pelts off the upright windshield of our Land Rover, as we weave our way along the coastal path that leads to the most westerly point on the British Mainland.
The week has been remarkably sunny and dare I say warm, at our base in Strontian, located at the most easterly point of Loch Sunart, separating the Morvern wilds from the Ardnamurchan Peninsula. We walked in the hills around Strontian one day, then drove over those wilds of Morvern to Lochaline to catch the ferry over to Fishnish another; the Isle of Mull is equally as beautiful and suited for meandering around, taking in the ambience.
Today though we make haste, for our allotted slot at 10:30am at the Ardnamurchan distillery has been shifted earlier to allow my guide enough time to show me around the place before he attends to some rather important duties. I’m chaperoned to the distillery by my father-in-law of last year's electrical lighting fame, affording me the courtesy of any potential drams that may be bestowed upon my eager face. He also loves his Land Rover, so any chance to stretch her legs is reason enough for him.
We’re soon slingshotting around Salen and onwards to Glenbeg, where the road seems to deteriorate further in both width and surface quality - we must work hard for these spoils. A bright white-painted cask end appears indicating there’s one mile left to go before we alight in the stony car park of the Ardnamurchan distillery and visitor centre. We mention it not - this isn’t the first time either of us have been here.
My in-laws visited this place in 2014 just after the distillery opened, enjoying a tour around the only warehouse on site - Warehouse 1 - where the grand sum of four casks had been laid down. A lot has changed since then. I visited in 2022 and in the time since my tour almost a year ago to the day, I too have changed a lot.
I’m nervous. Not because whisky tours make me nervous or because I’m worried I won’t like the whisky, but because I’m hoping to meet the people I’d spent so many months tagging in my Instagram posts and chatting over messages and emails. I guess my nervousness is a poor attempt to mask my desperation that they like me, that I don’t embarrass myself or make them realise I’m a giant fraud.
Last year at this time, the team had assembled at the distillery to blend the 2022 Paul Launois release and I’d been too shy to say hello. It turns out this year they’re doing the exact same thing. Today, in fact.
It’s no secret I'm devoted to the Ardnamurchan way - in fact it’s become a bit of fun for those wanting to tease me about my abject obsession with this place. I’ve spent many hours postulating why the Ardnamurchan distillery resonates so deeply with me, as a person and as a whisky exciter, and over the course of three hours, first in Warehouse 1 then up into the hills, nothing happens to change that. In fact, if you can believe it, my devotion has widened.
We started in the dark, cool climes of Warehouse 1. If you’ve never smelled a whisky warehouse then it's hard to convey the utterly absorbing aroma that greets you upon entry, arriving in waves through your red-hot olfactory machine. It’s easy to spill over into the saccharine romanticism when thinking and speaking about alcohol inside casks plopped inside a building (and oh boy do I fall foul constantly), but it’s undeniably a rather unique place to be. No-one gushes about the alluring aromas of an Amazon warehouse, do they? The difference being that whisky matures inside leaky wooden vessels, and that porosity allows alcohol vapours to find their way into the air circulating around the breezy warehouse and colours the environment with fabulous scents - Angels’ Share is what they call it.
But it’s more than smell - it’s touch and sight too. Casks and their condition are intrinsically linked to the quality and style of maturation and we get to see those variances as we walk along the warehouse. From rough to smooth, bright and clean to looking like a potato that you’ve just dug out the ground; the variety of casks, aesthetically, is quite amazing. If we are so inclined, we can touch the casks, feel their texture and knock on their wooden walls. Sometimes we get to stick our noses inside. There happened to be a cask waiting to get filled, and sniffing through the bung hole the diorama of scents unleashed into my frontal cortex was overwhelming. I managed to blurt out caramel, cherry and vanilla, but in truth it was a million things all at once and making sense of it was impossible - I only wish I could bottle that scent or turn it into a candle.
There’s a tasting element to a warehouse too, and today I was extremely fortunate to be accompanied by 3/5ths of the blending team, who were only too happy to see what was occurring in the warehouse. Drinking whisky decanted, through syphoning via a giant copper straw-like valinch, splashing all over the place before finally finding its way into a glass, surrounded by all this sensory overload is peak whisky for me. The liquid is really cold and viscous. It takes a moment for it to warm up enough in my hand to begin releasing aromas and flavours, but when it does, the mouthfeel, smell, sight and sound of it all is unbeatable. It’s untouched, unfiltered.
It’s been suggested I might soon get to a point where Ardnamurchan stops offering enough to keep my attention, and I’ll start to drift and dabble. Having now tried a number of remarkable whiskies maturing in the cask, from a variety of different cask types, styles, ages and sizes, I have to say I can’t see that happening anytime soon. I kneel down, lower my arms and prepare for the hiss of the blade - perhaps I’m blinkered and naive, or perhaps there’s nothing more to it than simple resonance.
Hmmm. Did you get all that? His words (Dramface) not mine. Landrover, knobbly tyres, type
I know I keep posting these types of photos, but I can't get enough of this fog to be honest. That, plus the grain from the high ISO and the film lens I'm using is really appealing to me.
Glenrock Lagoon on fire this morning. Went for a walk with a mate, Daniel to Glenrock this morning. Colour was evident early, almost an hour before sunrise. Shortly after settling on this composition, Daniel discovered his battery was flat...including the spare.. which left him in complete despair!! Photo dedicated to Daniel and his camera!
Nikon D800
Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED Lens
F11 | 2.5s | ISO 100 | 44mm
Lee Filters | .9 GND hard
12 Images Stitched
14mm photo of a burning red sunset smoldering over the winter salt marsh with sky reflections in the water.
Through shadows to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back and home to bed.
Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,
Away shall fade! Away shall fade!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
The surreal spectacle of the Aurora - here on a very cold winters night on one of the vast lava plains on the south coast of Iceland - about 30 minutes west of Jökulsárlón.
Looks best on black.
Comments as always appreciated, but please no flashy award codes.
© 2018 Garry Velletri. All rights reserved. This image may not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted or uploaded in any way without my permission.
Mt Cook - South Island - New Zealand
Canon 5D MKII - Canon EF L Lens 17-40mm
4 portrait frame Vertical pano.
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Well hit my 500k, a damn site easier on the current version of Flickr but damn did I work for the first 300k!
I've had a great time on here and really appreciate the support of my contacts (apart from Stephen Champness ;-)
Thanks again
Despite the rains of the 59th Koenji Awaodori, the performances were radiant.
雨の日にも、第５９回高円寺阿波踊りの演出は眩かった！
Stay Alight"
Today is World Mental Health Day and this image is one that to me speaks to my own approach to my mental health. Some days it can be difficult to feel that light that burns brightly inside, I wrestle with a persistent negative voice in my mind that tries to convince me that I'm a burden to others, that my voice isn't important and that the world would be better with less of me in it. I fight that each day because I know it's not true, it's a balance each day of reaching for the light and allowing myself to trust that it's there.
To me this image expresses this, that I'm a balance of these two, that they meet in the middle to make me who I am and that some days it might be more of a climb to get to that light but I always get there and I always will.
Take time today to take care of your mental health, go for a walk outdoors or listen to your favourite music. Drink some water and reach out to a friend. Get some sleep, enjoy a treat. Take care of yourself today.
Upper Canada Village Alight the Night Christmas light show. I love to go to Upper Canada Village. It was my first visit during the Christmas light shoe. It was just amazing. A great night to go.