Nature

Castelmezzano

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A short set of images take while hiking earlier this year at Castelmezzano, a mountain village in the south of Italy. Although the town is trying to promote mass tourism (in the form of zip wires, sledging runs, and quad biking), go there when out of the main season and you will find abundant natural beauty and plenty of quiet walks through the villages and hills. Pleasant memories to try to forget the chaotic furnace that is Barcelona right now. All images were shot with the Q3, with cropping to […]

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Landscape

Collserola

Serra de Collserola
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A set of images from a walk up on the Collserola de Serra, the ring of hills that separate Barcelona from the inland areas of Catalunya. The Collserola is not the most aesthetic of parkland areas, with low mediterranean woodland and scrub areas. There are numerous tracks all over, and navigation is easy, particularly if you use Organic Maps which unlike Google or Apple Maps, shows most of the possible paths. This particular walk started improbably from the L1 metro stop at Baró de Viver, running up through the city […]

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Landscape

Don’t go Chasing

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Don’t go Chasing A set of images taken on a weekend hiking trip to Bielsa, in the Parque Nacional de Ordesa. The park is part of the Pirineos, with typical glacial features. We were extremely lucky to have arrived to good weather following a week of heavy rain and storms, so that the rivers were very active for this time of year. We had time for three hikes. The first around los Lllanos de Larri, the area to the west of Monte Perdido and Revilla. The area is quite busy […]

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Abstract

Salamanca Green

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Some images of Ranunculus drawn out in the flow of the Rio Tormes at Salamanca. These were shot from the Roman bridge, using a polarising filter to cut out the reflections from the water and boost the saturation. The 3D-like effect comes from the variation in depth of the plant within the river. We are not entirely sure what the exact plant species is. Some of the white speckles are in reality small white-petaled blossom, but it was difficult to get close enough to inspect the flowers. However, this is almost certainly Ranunculus fluitans, […]

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Nature

El Garraf

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A set of images from a full-day hike in El Garraf, Catalunya. The Garraf is a calcareous range of hills on the coast just south of Barcelona, and one of the few natural areas that can be reached easily and quickly by train from the city. It is not particularly mountainous, raising from sea level to a little over 600m altitude, but lack of shade and the Mediterranean heat can make the hike harder than you might expect.

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Nature

A Digression by any Other Name…

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A slightly belated and vaguely Valentine’s day related post, with a set of macro photographs of prize-aspiring roses. Apologies for what a somewhat “filler” post – this was shot at the annual rose competition in Barcelona last year. Unfortunately, the photography here is somewhat disrupted following several incidents that conspired to combine equipment, photographer and gravity in a rather unfortunate way. The photographs were taken using a mix of Canon 5DIII with 100mm f2.8L macro, and the Olympus OM-D E-M10 with 60mm macro lens. In practise, it is almost impossible to tell which camera took which […]

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Nature

Winter Garden

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A short set of images taken at the Jardí Botànic Històric on the Monjuïc, Barcelona. This particular garden was originally established in the 1930’s by recycling constructions from the 1929 World Fair, before the what is later creation of what is now the main botanic garden in 1999.  The garden is quite small and shady (never a bad thing given the summer environment here), and is notable for its collection of medicinal plants.  

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Nature

Week 12 :: Espais Naturals

Espais Naturals, Delta de LLobregat, Barcelona
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A narrative set of photographs taken on a walk at the Espais Natural along the Llobregat river between Cornellà and El Prat. The green space is very much an afterthought from the planning authorities – it is essentially what is left over after carving out several large motorways, railways, power line systems and the farmland that somehow still manages to survive in this area at the edge of Barcelona. The river is flanked by large artificial embankments (levees) which contain the water when there is heavy rain. There are large areas […]

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Nature

Seed…

Dandylion Seeds
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Fruits of Tarassacum officinalis and the last of the natural cliches. I think that it is obligatory for everyone photoblog to upload one of these every now and then. Taken with the generally under-rated but extremely versatile Olympus 12-50mm kit lens.

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Nature

Slow…

Snail on a rock
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Helix sp on a rock. This is a good example of what can be done to rescue a somewhat badly lit photograph in Capture One. After adjusting the overall exposure, the snail was masked and the surrounding background significantly dimmed. This is the original image:

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