Images, Lunacies and Musings

Doesn’t matter where you are, what you are doing. You see more than one person looking up, you can’t help but checking out what’s there.

In the case of these two, it was nothing, they were simply looking at the clouds…

I hung around to see if it was some kind of gag, if they were trying to get people to look up, but they stayed there for another 3 – 4 minutes then left without saying anything.

And yes, lots of people also looked up after seeing these two so interested in something only they could see.…

On one hand, it’s really cool to be immortalized in a church in Rome that also contains the (in my opinion) most impressive sculpture in Rome (Moses by ).

But on the other, how much of a bastard must you be to be immortalized being held up by two skeletons? That can’t be a good thing, right? All others are held up by cherubs and the like, but this guy is surrounded by the undead.

I guess what goes around comes around after all.….

Well, it finally happened. After a few years of watching the angle that the Moon was rising, the time it would break the horizon, the percentage of cloud cover, and what phase the moon was in, I finally managed to have one night when everything was perfect.

The result, a classic DC postcard shot, but I have been trying to take it for a while and I was thrilled to finally be able to take it.

Just realized that I had never posted the shot that I was setting up when I made a friend at Great Falls Park. Terrible oversight…

I’m not entirely happy with the result, I have to say. I had read online that my camera wasn’t a great fit for IR, but since I love IR and I don’t want to switch cameras, I guess I have to make it work somehow.

This is not a bad result considering the conditions that day, but I still think that the cloud/leaves contrast could be better. I can’t help thinking that I used to get better results with my Nikon (some years ago, before the switch).

Well, IR is still a work in progress with the EOS, I guess.…

Also, would appreciate some comments on the quality of the image from the viewers. Any thoughts?

After all the night shots, I think it’s time for a bright, daytime shot.
So I’m driving down in the South of the US, looking for a place to eat some local food.
Surprisingly, the options are limited to crappy fast food joints, which I don’t really enjoy.
So I stop for directions in a store. Now to describe this store would be rather hard, since they sold anything from food and drinks to garden gnomes. Interesting place, to say the least.
Walking out (after getting directions and buying something), I see all the garden statutes. Can’t resist taking some pictures, but my sunglasses are getting in the way of shooting, so I just drop them on a nearby statue and shoot.
When I come back for my glasses, I realize that I had put them on this guy as if he was actually using them. And he looks rather pleased with himself with my glasses on, so a photograph is born.…

Ok, this is the last one.
Completing the round trip through Rome, I walked by the river and saw this church.
With the light inside, the tree right over me, I couldn’t resist.
So I stopped, found a place to balance myself and took this shot, handheld, 20 second exposure.
Have to say I was rather proud to have managed to hold it steady for that long, specially since this was one of the last pictures of the night (was on the way home).
Of course, I took another one shored up against the rock wall, but the composition wasn’t as nice, so it went straight into the unwanted folder when I saw this one was sharp.

I guess this starts to give an idea of how much I walked that night.
Now at the Fontana di Trevi, I had to fight to get a clear shooting position. With all the tour groups, wedding parties, and the not that polite people around me, it was quite the challenge to find a spot where:
1 — I could shoot without distractions in the frame
2 — I could get some support so the shot wasn’t shaken (no tripod, since I was going to walk so much)
3 — I could shoot without being bumped by one of those not so polite people

In the end, after a few (ok, more than 10) minutes of searching, I found a spot, snapped this picture and got the hell out of there to find some solitude in other parts of the city.…

You never know what you are going to find during a night walk (which is probably one of the things that attract me so much).
In my case, after more than 10 miles, 2 batteries completely drained and a serious calf ache the next morning, what I came home with were some nice shots, like this one.

Walking around at night was a great way to see more of the city (through which I walked extensively during my time there). There’s just something about wandering around without a destination in roads that have been in the same place (minus the asphalt and the honking) since before Jesus was born.
Just seeing the Coliseo illuminated by floodlights and realizing that this is the same place where Roman emperors came to see gladiators fighting was enough to make my head burst.
Thankfully I did that once I got home and couldn’t sleep, because during the walk, all I could think about was snapping pictures from the multitude of options around me.
That was a very good night…

This one was taken in Charleston, SC.
Charleston is a lovely city, with views of the river, nearby beaches, old buildings, great food, and even better weather. Basically, all you can wish for in a weekend trip.
As I walked through the heart of the city, I came across an old cemetery.
I will be the first one to admit that I have a weird love for cemeteries, so I couldn’t resist this one. There were graves from before the Civil War, graves featuring couples buried together, and, the most heart wrenching of all, children buried by grieving parents that were buried next to them few years later.
But this grave was different than all the others. The whole lid was covered with words, top to bottom.
And, at the bottom, was what I think is what we all want to have achieved by the time it’s time for our time on Earth to end: durable felicity.
Having found that, what else can you wish for in your life?

As a beautiful day of beer, wine, cheese and jazz at the Sculpture Garden winded down, I noticed that the clouds to the East were nowhere near as thick as the ones to the West.
Usually, I will know what phase the Moon is in, but this night was at the end of a rather busy week and I had no idea what our satellite was doing. Little did I know…
As I realized that the Moon was full, I scrambled around the crowd to find the best spot before the moonrise got too far.
I must confess that I had to rather un-gently nudge a teenage boy out of my way, but at least I was able to shoot this frame.
And then go home even happier than I already was.
It was a beautiful day…