You just never know what you might find when you look up. A beautiful spring garden, growing over the street lights on a street in Rome. One evening on our trip we wandered around the old city, to get a feel for it at night.
This year of travel I have fallen in love with night photography. There is such a different feel at night. Different illumination and shadows. More contrast between light and dark. A challenge of it’s own. But the result… beautiful.
With photography, timing is everything. Finding the transient light, that fleeting expression, the transitions of nature. Or in this case, that other photographer’s flash! I love this image from Venice, where just I happened to have the shutter open at the moment someone in the gondola took a picture. I love the star of light from the flash, the sharp shadow of the gondolier on the wall, the interesting exposure of the buildings. A serendipitous happenstance, I couldn’t have planned this shot. That makes it all the better.
Here is Bolzano, at night. It was an pretty town, but amazingly quiet as soon as the stores closed. Very few restaurants open past 8 or 8:30pm. It’s like it’s not even Italy! Things are barely getting starting in restaurants around Milan at that time. My colleagues told me that this region is “not really Italy” but I guess I had to live it myself to believe it. It also shows how much we’ve gotten used to “Italian time” and come to expect certain things to be a certain way. It was a little reminder that’s not true! That’s what travel does for you, keeps you from getting complacent in how you think the world “is” – you realize that things in the world are a lot more relative than you had come to believe.
I’ve gotten much more into night photography lately, as this photo attests. Part of it has been the time change, we are out a lot more at night. When we travel in the summer and the days are soooo long – we barely make it to dark and we’re done. We aren’t wandering at midnight with an 8 year old in tow. 🙂 So, in winter, I find that I’ve gotten to enjoy taking photos at night of more places. It’s cold, but it’s nothing some warm clothes and a periodic hot chocolate can’t solve.
The other part of the increase in night photography has been this wonderful new 35mm lens I got in December, which has an aperture of a whopping 1.4 and allows me to just get more light into the camera. It has extended the range of light I can use to take photos while still hand holding the camera. It’s enough that I tote around my big lenses (2 now!), I’m not interested in carrying a tripod and then setting it up, etc. So this lens does a fabulous job of extending my range at night while still keeping me mobile. It’s like a whole new world to photograph!
A children’s book store in Padova.
I love books. I love to read all types of books (as evidenced by yesterday’s post). I love libraries so I don’t have to buy books! I still love bookstores and browsing. Even though I don’t read Italian, I still wander into bookstores and look around.
Which way out of the labryinth? Hard to tell! I liked this photo from Alice’s Curious Labyrinth in Fantasyland. Brandon loves mazes so enjoyed this little walk through adventure. As always, the folks at Disney have some great ideas and make even an attraction you basically just walk through on a path enjoyable.
I’m still uploading my pictures from Disneyland and hope to post the full album of the pics tomorrow. Today I’m also posting the photo of my new blog banner – I liked the lanterns above the Tea Cup ride. I personally didn’t ride the ride myself, too much spinning! But it’s fun to photograph.
My favorite photos of places generally tend to be the scenes that capture a small detail, rather than the famous buildings and sights that we visit. But I can’t help but include a photo or two of the Eiffel Tower. It’s been done, and re-done, and done some more… but there is more beauty in this structure than I expected. It draws you to it, and it’s no wonder that it’s become the symbol of Paris. You have to see it just once, for yourself, to understand.
I couldn’t decide on this one though, the warm colors of the night lights or the classic black and white. What do you think?
