Some slightly surreal snapshots from Serro, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Again, these were all taken with the Ricoh GR, which an excellent travel camera if you forgive the few times when you can not see the LCD thanks to the bright sun… hopefully we have some more serious images captured on film – if it survives the 40 degree temperatures and multiple x-ray exposures.
Some macro images of some very small plants near the Cachoeira Lajeado at Milho Verde (literally “Green Corn”) in Minas Gerais, Brazil. We stopped here briefly while travelling up from Serro to Diamantina, taking a break before tackling the unpaved mining roads. This is quite an unusual environment, with dark rocks, white sand (from the incredible quantities of quartz here) and a peat bog. The bog area is quite sensitive, so we did not venture very far from the seemingly inevitable bathers in the small streams running through the area. […]
Some random images of nature from the Parque Nacional Serra do Cipó, Brazil – a break from work before the New Year starts for real. Click on the images in the album below for larger. These were all shot on digital (Olympus and Ricoh) – it will be several weeks before the film images are processed.
The promenade alongside the marina at Port Olimpic, Barcelona. Leica M7, Zeiss ZM 2/35 Biogon with Ilford HP5+.
A distant view of the Arc de Triomf, Passeig de Lluis Companys, Barcelona. Leica M7, Zeiss ZM 2/35 Biogon and Ilford HP5+ using a dark red filter.
An image of the construction work at the back of the Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria in central Barcelona. The work to construct an underground car-park was completed some time ago and the surface is now nearing completion. It is quite impressive that such a huge amount of work has been undertaken while the main market remained open. Minolta XD-s with MC 24mm f2.8 and Kodak Ektar 100, processed in to black and white.
Back to Barcelona (along with what is for me an insanely high temperature and humidity…), and the question now is: What Next?
The walk from Pian delle Betulle, in Alta Valsassina, to the Larice Bruciato (burnt larch) is a lovely trail through a beech forest and pasturelands. On the way there is the Alpe Ortighera, a summer pasture, where there is the old dairy illustrated in this post. This is the main room at the entrance of the dairy with the churning machine to make butter (the stainless steel drum on the right) and some of the season production of ricotta, a whey cheese. The forms on the shelves are left to […]
Random fragmentary memories from the North of Italy. I quite like using small contextless fragmentary images as opposed to something with more context and depth. The image becomes more about the texture and pattern than the content. I like that the fragments are completely detached – but even more contextualised images (such as the ones below) can be sufficiently alien to take on a similar character if the view is not familiar with the area being photographed and the subjects are not well known: All images were taken with the […]
Three images of Valsassina, looking up towards the head of the valley from the side of Monte Giumello, Italy. These are stitched panoramas using a 50mm lens with a polariser. By careful rotation of the polariser it is possible to bring out a lot of detail in the storm clouds, and also significantly change the apparent colour of the sky. Sadly, this did not allow us to change the weather…
A slightly different post from normal, with some images of greenery from what was the wettest August I have ever seen in the Alps. When not being deluged with water we were usually embedded in the low clouds, making any walking and photography interesting in the best proverbial sense. One thing that really stood out visually was the presence of the colour green. The plants were clearly enjoying the weather better than the humans (and cats) and the foliage produced some very vivid colour while wet. These photographs are not […]
Three graffiti faces at the extremely exciting Cisano Bergamasco railway station, Italy. These pretty much sum up the experience of local travel by state railway in Italy – where the trains are infrequent and where you need to walk back in to town to find a tobacconist to buy a ticket because there is no ticketing on neither train nor station. This is in stark contrast to the flashy private facilities associated with the profitable intercity routes (channeling their revenue in to private profit rather than support for the whole […]
Porto is a strange place to visit, with several different characters all mixed in to the same space around the Ribera. In the centre, there are many buildings that appear abandoned, and which have probably been abandoned for quite a long time. This is not just the ongoing effect of the 2008 financial crisis, but something more fundamental as the town has shifted from the role of wine (Port) exporting to tourism. The result is an odd mixture of derelict splendour, amazing street art, the trappings of the tourist industry, […]
A short visit to Porto re-ignited my fascination for tiles. I love these tesserae with which it is possible to create the most intricate patterns or the simple shiny surface of the monochrome ones. The tiles of Porto seems to focus on flowery inspirations, swirling old-fashion compositions or 70s disco patterns. I have posted here a rather long selection of the ones that caught my eye. And yes, there is a lot of blue (azul) in these tiles.
A short set of photographs taking during the Easter break from the area around Valsassina and Lago di Como, Italy. All images taken with the Canon 5D Mark III and 50L f1.2. The 50mm is a very versatile lens that can switch from stopped down landscapes to shallow depth-of-field portraits without blinking. It is small enough to make an excellent travel lens, and the weather sealing is useful when you have full-sun, snow and rain all in the space of four days…
A set of photographs from Cap de Creus, from a rather stormy weekend. The park is interesting in that the geography and geology mean that it has been largely spared from the industrial tourism that has decimated the character of the Costa Brava. Unfortunately, even here the only areas that are protected are those that would be unfeasibly difficult to construct on, and there are large areas currently under development. Destructive exploitation of the country seems to be a recently adopted cultural feature in Spain – something not helped by […]
Transient Eye 