Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS Mk II USM
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Same area as the latest shots. Four captures blended for the sea motion. It looks like a long single exposure, but the water catches the light in an other way.
Switzerland, May 2021
My best photos are here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ticino-best-photos-of-southern-...
My latest ANIMAL VIDEO (warning, it's a bit shocking): www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2-Xszz7FI
You find a selection of my 80 BEST PHOTOS (mostly not yet on Flickr) here: www.lacerta-bilineata.com/western-green-lizard-lacerta-bi... (the website exists in ESPAÑOL, FRANÇAIS, ITALIANO, ENGLISH, DEUTSCH)
ABOUT THE PHOTO:
So this photo is a bit of a novelty for me - at least here on Flickr, but it's also a journey back in time in a sense. I've always loved b/w and sepia photography; already as a very young teenager I would go out into the woods with an old Pentax Spotmatic (which I had nicked from my father) whenever it was a foggy day to shoot b/w compositions of sunbeams cutting through the ghostlike trees.
I used films with a sensitivity of at least 1600 (for those of you who remember what that means 😉 ), and the resulting photos had an incredibly fine grain which I loved; I blew them up to the size of posters and hung them on the walls of my teenage man-cave next to Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Slash.
But then I abandoned photography altogether for 20 years, and when I finally picked up a camera again, it was one of the digital kind. Now neither film nor grain played any role in my photographic endeavours - let alone b/w compositions: because the reason I fell in love with shooting pictures once more was the rare and incredibly colorful lizard species that had chosen my garden as its habitat.
It's this species - the Lacerta bilineata aka the western green lizard - that my photo website www.lacerta-bilineata.com/ and also my Flickr gallery are dedicated to, but I've since expanded that theme a bit so that it now comprises the whole Lacerta bilineata habitat, which is to say my garden and its immediate surroundings and all the flora and fauna I find in it.
I like that my gallery and the website have this clear theme, because in order to rise to the challenge of portraying all aspects of a very specific little eco system (which also happens to be my home of sorts), it forces me to constantly explore it from fresh angles, and I keep discovering fascinating new motives as my photographic journey continues.
Which brings me to the horse pasture you see in this photo. This playground for happy horsies lies just outside my garden, and it normally only interests me insofar as my green reptile friends claim parts of it as their territory, and I very much prefer it to be horseless (which it thankfully often is).
Not that the horses bother the reptiles - the lizards don't mind them one bit, and I've even seen them jump from the safety of the fly honeysuckle shrub which the pasture borders on right between the deadly looking hooves of the horses to forage for snails, without any sign of fear or even respect.
No, the reason I have a very conflicted relationship with those horses is that they are mighty cute and that there's usually also foals. The sight of those beautiful, happy animals jumping around and frolicking (it's a huge pasture and you can tell the horses really love it) is irresistible: and that inevitably attracts what in the entire universe is known as the most destructive anti-matter and ultimate undoing of any nature photographer: other humans.
Unlike with the horses, the lizards ARE indeed very much bothered by specimens of loud, unpredictable Homo sapiens sapiens - which makes those (and by extension also the horses) the cryptonite of this here reptile photographer. It's not the horses' fault, I know that, but that doesn't change a thing. I'm just telling you how it is (and some of you might have read about the traumatic events I had to endure to get a particular photo - if not, read at your own risk here: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/51405389883/in/datepo... - which clearly demonstrated that even when it's entirely horseless, that pasture is still a threat for artistic endeavours).
But back to the photo. So one morning during my vacation back in May I got up quite early. It had rained all night, and now the fog was creeping up from the valley below to our village just as the sky cleared up and the morning sun started to shine through the trees.
And just as I did when I was a teenager I grabbed my camera and ran out to photograph this beautiful mood of ghostlike trees and sunbeams cutting through the mist. There had already been such a day a week earlier (which is when I took this photo: www.flickr.com/photos/191055893@N07/51543603732/in/datepo... ), but this time, the horses were also there.
Because of our slightly strained relationship I only took this one photo of them (I now wish I had taken more: talk about missed opportunities), and otherwise concentrated on the landscape. It was only later when I went through all the photos on my computer that I realized that I actually really liked those horses, even despite the whole composition being such a cliché. And I realized another thing: when I drained the photo of all the color, I liked it even better - because there was almost a bit of grain in it, like in the photos from my youth.
Since then I have experimented quite a bit with b/w and sepia compositions (some of which I will upload here eventually I guess), but this photo here is the first one that helped me rediscover my old passion. I hope you like it even though it builds quite a stark contrast with the rest of my tiny - and very colorful - gallery. But in the spirit of showing you the whole Lacerta bilineata habitat (and also in the spirit of expanding my gallery a bit beyond lizards and insects), I think it's not such a bad fit.
As always, many greetings to all of you, have a wonderful day and don't hesitate to let me know what you think 😊
The spiral staircase is located within UTS Building 2 (UTS Central) and is located along Broadway in Ultimo. The spiral is inspired by the double helix structure of DNA molecules. It was designed by the Australian firm FJMT.
Broadway, Ultimo
December, 2022
Slightly larger than the Least Chipmunk, this little cutie comes in second in my smallest to largest series from our latest trip.
Various scientific sources refer to the American Pika as a vulnerable species with warming temperatures due to climate change as the greatest threat. Their thick coats can cause them to overheat in temperatures in the mid seventies Fahrenheit.
We found this little guy/gal in Rocky Mountain National Park.
The latest variety of daffodils to bloom in my garden. For the first time I can remember, my earliest daffodils are still looking great. In past years, shortly after they would bloom, we would get very hot Santa Ana winds that would just decimate the flowers. This year, some of us are complaining that it's cold, but not the daffodils.
Colourful scooters - Alicante, Spain
As many of you may already know:
Mods and rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the early/mid 1960s to early 1970s. Media coverage of mods and rockers fighting in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youth, and the two groups became widely perceived as violent, unruly troublemakers.
The rocker subculture was centred on motorcycling, and their appearance reflected that. Rockers generally wore protective clothing such as black leather jackets and motorcycle boots.
The mod subculture was centred on fashion and music, and many mods rode scooters. Mods wore suits and other cleancut outfits, and preferred 1960s music genres such as soul, rhythm and blues, ska, beat music, and British blues-rooted bands like The Who, The Yardbirds, and Small Faces.
[Wikipedia]
An image taken from my latest youtube video of 68024 prowling through the night. Caught in rapidly fading light passing Kirkham Abbey crossing between Scarborough and York with the 1F72 15:57 Scarborough - Liverpool Lime Street.
It was really dark by the time the train arrived and I didn’t think I’d come away with an image, fortunately a couple of cars arrived at the crossing at the last moment to offer that extra bit of illumination.
I didn’t mention in the video, but the image is made up from two shots, one of the locomotive taken at 1/400 f4.0 ISO4000, I ran it through noise reduction in Lightroom and then merged with a shot taken 1/6th Second f4.0 ISO125 just after the train passed and moments before the crossing gates opened.
The video link is here, youtu.be/Q3GBB0-edsw its 15 minutes long so give yourself a moment to watch, the day turned a little more traumatic than I expected, hence the title Mist,Mud and Class 68s.
7th December 2020
© Zoë Murdoch. All Rights Reserved. Use without permission is illegal!
Latest face, so effortless
Your great arrival at my eyes,
No one standing near could guess
Your beauty had no home till then;
Precious vagrant, recognise
My look, and do not turn again.
Admirer and admired embrace
on a useless level, where
I contain your current grace,
You my judgement; yet to move
Into real untidy air
Brings no lasting tribute -
Bargains, suffering, and love,
Not this always-planned salute.
Lies grow dark around us: will
The statue of your beauty walk?
Must I wade behind it, till
Something's found - or is not found -
Far too late for turning back?
Or, if I will not shift my ground,
Is your power actual - can
Denial of you duck and run,
Stay out of sight and double round,
Leap from the sun with mask and brand
And murder and not understand?
~ Philip Larkin.
SCT intermodal 3MB9 works around Goondah curve with CSR016 and CF4430 hauling dead attached C’s 502/503/508.
SCT transferred the C class from Western Australia after a period on hire with Watco, they would be detached at Goulburn before being forward to SSR’s Cootamundra depot.
Southern Shorthaul Railroad has added the former Railfirst C’s to their ever growing locomotive fleet.
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
You can see my images on fluidr: click here
You can see my most interesting photo's on flickr: click here
OBSERVE Collective
All images are © Copyrighted and All Rights Reserved
germanstreetphotography.com/michael-monty-may/
My latest microadventure lead me to Val Gardena in south tyrol.
I need to say it to the beginning it wasn´t easy, it was cold, and the climb was tougher than I excpeted. Maybe because of the 27kg backpack including my tent, sleeping bag,
camping stove, etc. but words cannot describe how worth all the struggle was.
It was a breathtaking experience to stay overnight under the cloudless nightsky full of stars and to see my old friend the milkyway or as the funny south tyroler policeman said "strada del la latte" ;-)
Personally, I think this kind of trips are the best way to escape the monotony of everyday life, taking a deep breath, enjoying the silence and forget everything else that’s all I need for.
This pano is made of 9 single shots
and I´m hoping it gives you the same feeling as I had when I stood there
and admire the beautiful landscape. This time my friend Fabio Hain Naturfotografie did a great job modeling for me. Thank you a lot, your presence gives the pano just
the look that I wanted. The light on the horizon is the beginning astronomic twilight, so it was my last chance to take the shot before
the sky is too bright. Normally I avoid to have this twilight on my pictures but in this case I have to say I really like it, I think it looks special `cause for this shot it has
the perfect position directly under the milkyway bow. At the end, before some critical voices say it has to be fake and manipulated. I have to disappoint you, this picture reflects just the reality.
Mother earth is just that beautiful, she don´t needs any corrections.
hope you like it, thanks for watching.
feel free to share, comment or like :)
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______________________________
+++ MIKROABENTEUER Van Gardena +++
Mein letztes kleines Abenteuer führte mich nach Val Gardena in Südtirol.
Ich muss gleich am Anfang sagen, dass es nicht leicht war, es war kalt und der Aufstieg war härter als erwartet. Vielleicht lag dies auch an meinem 27kg schweren Rucksack der mein Zelt, Schlafsack,
Gaskocher und vieles weitere enthielt. Doch Worte können nicht beschreiben wie sehr all die Anstrengungen es Wert waren. Es war ein atemberaubendes Erlebnis die Nacht unter dem wolkenlosen
Sternenhimmel zu verbringen und meine alte Freundin die Milchstraße, oder wie der lustige südtiroler Polizist sagte "Strada del la latte" wiederzusehen. ;-)
Ich persönlich finde, dass solche Trips die beste Art sind dem grauen Alltag zu entkommen, tief einatmen die Stille genießen und alles andere vergessen. Dieses Pano ist aus neun Einzelaufnahmen entstanden
und ich hoffe es vermittelt euch das Gefühl, dass ich hatte als ich dort oben stand und die Landschaft bewunderte. Dieses Mal, hat mein Freund Fabio Hain Naturfotografie für mich gemodelt, seine Gegenwart gibt dem Bild genau den Look den ich wollte. Bei dem Licht das am Horizont zu sehen ist, handelt es sich um die astronomische Dämmerung, also war es die letzte Chance für mich dieses Pano so zu fotografieren
bevor der Himmel erleuchtet wurde. Normalerweise vermeide ich es bei Nachtaufnahmen die beginnende Dämmerung zu fotografieren, aber in diesem Fall finde ich es einfach passend.
Ich finde das Licht macht das Pano besonders vielleicht
auch deswegen weil es die perfekte Position direkt unter dem Bogen der Milchstraße hat.
Zu guter Letzt, bevor die ersten Kritiker schreien, muss ich noch einmal darauf hinweisen, dass nicht hinzugefügt oder auf eine andere Weise geschummelt wurde. Dieses Bild spiegelt die Realität wieder.
Mutter Erde ist wirklich so wunderschön, sie braucht keine Schönheitskorrekturen.
Hoffe es gefällt euch, danke fürs anschauen.
Teilen, kommentieren und liken natürlich erlaubt. klauen nicht :-P
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