Thursday 29 September 2016

From Russia with Love





Its been far too long since I grabbed my camera and took any piccies.  A new term is always rather fraught and time is at a premium (yes I know teachers are always moaning etc etc).

Still, this weekend I had the chance to go and see the Moscow State Circus (yes I am writing this on a Thursday night*)

Sure enough they didnt disappoint.  After a few minutes there was all sorts of craziness and tomfoolery going on.

Inside a tent with no available sunlight made taken pictures rather tricky, even with the 50mm Carl Zeiss.  No flash was allowed either so I had to ramp up the ISO!  Of course with there being lots of moving stuff getting focus with the manual lens was something of a challenge.

Here are some of the better ones.



 Nutter...


Great show - tough to take pictures.  But thats all part of the fun.

*I decided to go for a walk along the river near me.  In my infinite wisdom I decided that stinging nettles don't really  hurt and wandered through them in my trademark flip flops and shorts.  Last night was far to painful for me to type up anything or edit photos.  Tip of the day is too never walk through lots of nettles with shorts and flip flops


To quote Donald "Red" Grant:
"The first one won't kill you; not the second, not even the third.." The bloody 50th sting will though!

Sunday 25 September 2016

Reflexions of Crete




(CLICK ON A PIC AND IT WILL GO BIG)

A holiday in Crete. Lots of stuff to snap you'd think. Probably however it turned out a bit lazy so there's quit a few pics of the Villa! I took along the good old Takumar 50mm f1.4 and 17mm f3.5 fisheye plus my new staple of the 28mm f3.5 plus just for those rays the 58mm f2.4 Asahiflex. Hope your suitably envious!!






The White mountains were beautiful and provided great opportunities for vistas


The roof terrace


The 58mm Asahifex doing it's thing


Olive grove below the villa


View at night

Cannot recommend the villa more highly It's Villa Renata (Rena Villa on the site) in Aptera and found it at Homeway.co.uk

There is a Botanical garden created when an olive grove burnt down. They still retain burnt trunks of the trees as a reminder

One of the burnt olive trunks

Amongst the Orange Groves

A storm brewed and created wonderful cloud patterns above the White Mountains




The Castle at Fragokastello

A lot of inner framing going on







A classic village nestling under the mountains


Georgioupoli has a lovely little church of St Nicolas which sits out in the bay connected by a stone path.

Terrible! I waited too long and the light went

Back at base I had seen a particular shot and wanted to get it one evening. I had to be in the pool the get it so was particularly careful with the camera! Its the sun setting behind the frosted glass screen balustrade around the pool.




Ancient town of Aptera. Lots of cool stuff with underground chambers and shit. Loved it!





Lots of ants doing there column thing. It's amazing how good a 17mm Fisheye can be as a macro






And now the cool underground chambers. They were huge!!





Loved the colours on the old plaster walls

Quit chuffed with this one


The pigeon feathers had gathered into piles in any indentations in the floor from the winds.


Again the colours on the walls



The outside of the chambers

Sub framing again!

From in the small church


The castle from the roman villa (Which was shut!!)


Amphitheater


Why??

View of Souda Bay from the castle

The bay with the abandoned defence instillation at Kastro Itzentin Would love to do a shoot in that place.

For the record a close shot using the Canon 100-400 (EFRS kit) lens

An afternoon back at Georgioupoli and that church. The sea was up and I wanted a long exposure. The ND filter I have is a cheap variable one that I got to see if I needed one. It's crap and vignettes at the slightest hint of sun in it but I rarely use them I'm not sure I will bother getting any. Anyway I thought no one would be mad enough to take the walk to the church and I would have the place to myself. How wrong I was. Never underestimate the plucky Brit abroad. There were all sorts from grannies to toddlers getting soaked. I gave up for a break in the populous and snapped anyway. I actually like the results.




Moon through the linen curtains on the veranda

Chania


Chania Port


I occasionally just let the shutter go with the camera at my side as I am walking no focus just vaguely point in the right direction. This one worked.



Am I actually doing street photography!!! with PEOPLE!!!!!!

They were having a Tolstoy exhibition in the town hall. This was an instillation. However the woman wasn't and I managed to snap it at just the right time. Really really pleased this one.

I had a good one this year with interesting stuff. Not to many landscapes compared to Sardinia but other stuff made up for it!










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