A violent thunderstorm and drenching rain had passed over the lake. It had truly been, ‘a dark and stormy night’.
We were staying in a small, lakeside hotel in Yvoire, France on Lac Léman. Our room looked over the lake, a harbor, and the terrace restaurants below us. The heavy downpour had created havoc. The restaurant staff had to frantically put away all the tables and chairs and take down the semi-permanent terrace awnings. As they cranked down the awnings heavy sheets of water drenched them. Table cloths and napkins were scattered by the wind. Lightning lit up the lake and showed us flashed glimpses of the sailboats anchored in the harbor.
The French word for this is orage – a violent thunderstorm. (We had first heard this word when we were eating dinner on the beach in Montpellier, France several years before. It seemed like a nice sunny evening. But the restaurant staff scurried to take down the tables and umbrellas. They tried to let us know to find shelter, “Orage, orage!” We headed back to our hotel and before long an intense lightning and rain storm moved through the town. We learned about the orage.)
I had a plan to photograph in the beautiful medieval village of Yvoire at dawn, before anyone was on the streets. I got up at around 4:30 am and quietly left the hotel. It was misting and water was running down the steep cobblestone streets leading up into the village. It was still dark and quiet. I walked through the main streets and went back downhill to another harbor next to a beautiful old chateau. I set up my tripod on the breakwater on the outside of the harbor. It continued to rain so I covered my camera and waited for the dawn. But it was just too rainy, so I found shelter in a small public restroom and waited.
After a while the rain stopped, but it was still overcast and the light was bad. Everything looked drab. I took some photos and then wandered back through town, returning to the hotel disappointed and frustrated. As I was getting ready for breakfast I noticed that it was brightening outside. I grabbed my pack and hurried back to the other harbor.
As I entered the harbor area the sun emerged at lake level under the clouds. It reflected across the surface of the lake like a spotlight on the harbor, the boats, and the chateau. Over the next half hour I got several successful photos of the harbor, the central square, and the chateau. During the several days we were in Yvoire, the few successful photos were taken during that half hour when the light was right! In the calm after the orage.
I tried for a long depth of field to show the full length of the pier. And I enjoy the reflected masts on the right side. Photo: 1/100 s at f/18. You can see other Yvoire photos in the Photo Gallery at my website: www.earthmapphoto.com
We visited Gavarnie in the fall after the busy season. The massive glacial basin of the Cirque de Gavarnie is an easy walk from the village. The cirque is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The national park not only permits sheep grazing, but it also honors the traditions of the mountain shepherds and culture of the movement of the herds from villages to the high mountain pastures and back.
We were able to be in Luz-St-Sauveur for the festival of the return of the herds. It was a day of music, sheep-shearing, friendship, singing, wine, and celebration. The mountain cycle was completed for another year.
Gavarnie is a small village that is very convenient for day hiking or longer mountain walks. There are mountain huts and well-marked trails. We got lucky with the weather and found beautiful, empty, mountain meadows with commanding views of the cirque basin and La Grande Cascade. The Cascade is the tallest waterfall in Europe and is fed by glacial melt water in the eastern part of the cirque.
These quiet meadows were perfect places for picnics. We could easily carry bread, cheese, yogurt, fruit, and a small bottle of red wine on the steep trails. The weather was warm and the breezes helped carry the sounds of the Cascade and the sheep bells from the high meadows across the canyon.
On our walk to a picnic site on the west side of the canyon we came across the painter in this photo. He had composed a beautiful scene from that stream-side vantage point. The old stone bridge made an interesting feature in the foreground and the blue sky of the Pyrénées complimented the lush green pastures and forest. The stream is the runoff from the Cascade. The Pyrénées are a beautiful and interesting part of France. It is a place to celebrate mountain culture. Photo: 1/350 s at f/3.4.
You can see more photos of France in the Photo Gallery at my website: www.earthmapphoto.com
What if playing a video game like Grand Theft Auto had been more important?
Ieoh Ming Pei certainly did his homework. He completed architecture degrees at MIT and Harvard. Then he designed and completed buildings around the world. Architecture is an interesting mix of art, science, and math using both sides of the brain.
“One has to persist, and not give up principle. But there are many ways of persisting, many ways of trying to convince a client to do certain things. There’s a polite way; there’s an impolite way,…but that doesn’t mean I’m less insistent, less demanding, …not at all.
I’m probably as demanding as any creative person. But you have to identify the important things, and then press for them, not give up.” –I.M. Pei (http://www.barth.lib.in.us/IMPei.html)
My educational background is in the earth sciences. But for some reason I have been hanging around math people also. I think that is partly due to running friendships on the track at the local university, Humboldt State. Many of the math faculty are runners. But it is also due to working on scientific papers with a statistician at Humboldt, Dr. Yoon Kim. I have always been rather weak at math and the graduate courses in statistics gave me some understanding, but could not create the foundation that I avoided by not doing my math homework when I was younger. OK, really, I hated math when I was a kid.
Dr. Mark Rizzardi was patient with me and helped me struggle through a graduate class on generalized linear models. But as he filled chalk boards on three sides of the lecture room with formulas, I questioned what I was doing in a graduate math class. After making it through that course I have teamed up with Yoon on several papers and scientific posters for national and international conferences. I never thought I would enjoy math, but they have helped me to work with it effectively.
Yes IM Pei somehow stimulated that math confession. I don’t know why. And that all grew from the beautiful Louvre pyramids that IM Pei designed. There is a connection there somewhere. Really.
One connection is the crazy geometric combinations that IM Pei brought together to make an exquisite and artistic entrance to the Louvre. Math creating art.
The escalators and stairs under the main pyramid in this photograph lead you below the immense Louvre courtyard and into the museum itself. (You can see the location of the pyramids in the courtyard by looking at the photo in yesterday’s posting.)
I enjoy the contrasts in this photo. The contrast between the people underground and the outside courtyard; the contrast between the 1989 pyramid and the centuries old palace visible through the glass; and the contrasts between the spiral staircase and the escalators and the rigid geometry of the pyramid itself. And I’ve always been fascinated by the two workers standing at the upper railing watching the people below. Photo: 1/125 s at f/3.4. For other Paris photos please visit the Photo Gallery at my website: www.earthmapphoto.com
It’s never too late to learn. Now I’m doing my photography homework.
You can’t ride a camel to these pyramids. These are timeless pyramids, but not old.
This is a true oasis. An oasis from the pettiness and routine of daily life.
It would be easy to wander through the passageways and hidden alcoves for days. There are royal treasures and icons of ancient religions.
This view is only a portion of the singular Musée du Louvre. This former palace is a fitting and daunting home for 500 years worth of art collecting. The 13th century fortress, rebuilt in the 16th century, was converted into a national museum in 1793.
The IM Pei pyramids form an impressive entrance to the museum. There are a group of pyramids with fountains within this vast plaza.
The first time we visited the Louvre we were on an early morning walk without a goal. We were just walking. We had wandered into what we thought was a municipal courtyard. We noticed huge statues along the balconies of the upper stories of the buildings all around the courtyard. As we walked around we looked through an archway and saw these pyramids in the distance. We hadn’t known that we were entering the Louvre from an adjacent courtyard. We “discovered” the Louvre, without intending to. It was a weekday morning and the lines were short. “Let’s visit the Louvre, OK?”
We spent many hours and got lost a few times. It is a place that you could return to many times. Soon I will post a photo from inside the main pyramid that shows more of the artistry of IM Pei.
I have been working on a large remote sensing project on a contract with a short deadline. It requires spending long days editing training course material about image processing of satellite scenes and other kinds of digital terrain data. It feels very good to take some time away from that and return to this creative work. I enjoy the remote sensing work and the people that I am working with. And it is worthwhile work. But this few minutes working with this photograph and telling you about it is fun for me. I hope that it is a nice escape for you also.
Travel keeps on teaching, even after you return. Photo: 1/500 s at f/4
You can view more Paris photos in the Photo Gallery at my website: www.earthmapphoto.com
Cristo Redentor, Corcovado, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
You have probably seen many images of Cristo Redentor. It is a central part of the image of Rio de Janeiro. It sits atop one of the many peaks that surround the city. The mountain is called Corcovado.
Corcovado is a massive granite monolith overlooking Rio de Janeiro. You can drive to the summit, or take a taxi van as we did. There is almost no parking on the narrow peak, so you when your car works its way through the line to the turn around, you are dropped off to take the last stairs to the top.
There are a few souvenir vendors and a fantastic view. We were there on a sunny day, so the site was crowded. The Cristo Redentor statue is very impressive, but when you stand next to it, it doesn’t seem quite as big as I expected it to.
There are stairs and terraces on several sides. Each provides a different view of the statue and of the city below. This photo is a perspective that I had not seen before.
It is easy to get lost, or at least disoriented, in large art museums.
At one end of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris there are five stories. When we were last there, the impressionist paintings were on the fifth floor. But they had been moved since we visited previously. We had spent some time wandering and marveling at the current exhibited works, but had started to wonder if the main collection of impressionists had been temporarily transferred to another museum or placed in storage. We finally found them though. The collection is amazing!
The museum itself is impressive. After I feasted on the paintings I took time to look at the building interior. I found this interesting collection of lines, shapes, and colors. I stood at the railing looking down into the stairwell and the escaltors for about an hour. I tried different compositions and exposures. It took longer to finish all the combinations I wanted, because each time someone used the escalator I had to wait for them to pass. I didn’t want any people in the photograph. I wanted only shapes and colors.
Many people passed by while I was standing there. I am sure they wondered why anyone would spend time taking a photograph inside a museum. Well, this photograph is why. Photo: 1/25 s at f/4.5
There are more Paris photos in the Photo Gallery at my website: www.earthmapphoto.com
No strolling beach vendors, no high-rise hotels, and no traffic. Just the beach. And agates!
The edge of a continent without the commercialism. The Pacific washing soft sedimentary deposits. The slow immense pressure of the subducting Gorda tectonic plate pushing under the North American plate lifting up more material for the beach. Deep under this beach the Gorda plate is pushing from left to right.
This is Agate Beach in Patrick’s Point State Park near Trinidad, California, USA. A long, steep trail leads a few people down to this long stretch of sand. At the far north end of this beach is Big Lagoon, where a narrow spit separates the Pacific from a freshwater lagoon. The soft sedimentary deposits that form the bluffs do produce many water-rounded pebbles, some of which are collected as agates. I prefer to collect small, perfectly rounded white pebbles. I keep them in a shallow glass bowl like a rock garden. Time passes surprisingly quickly when you are absorbed in sorting through sand and pebbles. It is easy for your thoughts to drift. There are no intrusions. In the background you hear only the wave wash and the gulls.
I am a person that prefers mountains, but my wonderful wife is a beach person. I have learned to enjoy beaches thanks to her. We have walked together on beaches in France, Brazil, Switzerland (lake), Mexico, California, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Maryland, and Hawaii. We try to balance our mountain time with beach time and city time. There are interesting scenes to photograph in all these locations which helps me build a varied collection of photos. I try to show you that variety on this blog. Photo: 1/500 s at f/5.6.
Shadows, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California, USA
It’s just a white wall.
And a black handrail.
In fact the handrail at the bottom of this photo is the only surface in this photograph that is not painted white. But there is very little of the photograph that looks white. And it is a color photograph.
I was impressed with how many shades of white to black are possible on a surface covered with white paint. I prefer color photography even though I respect the dedication and skill required for interesting black and white images. But I do not want to remove the reflected colors from the image.
This scene is inside the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The geometric shadows are from a skylight. The long shadows of the bolts add interesting patterns.
Regardless of what art is exhibited in the floors below, this upper stairway and the suspended walkway overhead provide a place to look at simple shapes and shadows. It is a place to take a break from the visual stimulation of the imagery on display. The varying intensity of the sunlight and passing clouds change the scene inside. Photo: 1/1000 s at f/5.6
A practice field in the heart of football country.
Copacabana is a 4 km (2.5 mile) long beach. In the early morning it is used for exercise before work and school. During the day and until well past dark it is used for football and volleyball as well as relaxation and sunbathing.
There is a six lane street along the beach, Avenida Atlântica. It has a broad meridian and wide walkways on each side. The walkways are paved with hand-placed stones. (Search for ‘Copacabana Rocks’ in the search box within this blog to see a photo of the pattern.) So with the traffic lanes, meridian, and walkways it is a very wide avenue.
Each morning at a set time the police lead a reversal of traffic direction on one side of the street so that all six lanes of traffic travel in the same direction. This is to help the inbound commute. In the evening this is reversed for the outbound commute. This is an efficient way to deal with traffic congestion.
But, on Sunday, they are even smarter. All six lanes are closed to vehicles. The Avenida Atlântica becomes a massive neighborhood block party. On a warm sunny day, people stroll slowly with their families. There is live music and food vendors. People take time to talk or sit in the shade on the curb and watch people go by. There are bikers, runners, and skaters also.
And still it gets better. The entire length of the avenue along Copacabana is filled with people. But if you continue around a rocky point at the west end of Copacabana you emerge onto an equally famous beach: Ipanema. The Avenida Vieira Souto is also closed to vehicles. This adds another 3.7 km (2.3 miles). The vendors and music vary in the different neighborhoods. You can spend all day walking on these closed avenues from one end of the beaches to the other and back. The avenues are bustling the entire way, and on sunny days, the beaches are packed also.
The Carioca of Rio de Janeiro love to be on their beaches. The photo above is from the west end of Copacabana looking east. Everywhere you look as you walk the beach there are soccer balls and volleyballs flying. Photo: 1/750 s at f/5.6
I know a local painter who loves to paint rocks. She paints rocks in various settings, many of them under or near water. I thought of Julia Bednar when I was scrambling over this intricately jointed pink granite at low tide on the north shore of Brittany.
This is the Côte de Granit Rose, the Pink Granite Coast, near the village of Le Diben, France. The shore is very gently sloped so when the tide goes out, it exposes huge fields of tide pools. Not only is the granite colorful, but also, it is covered with marine organisms that add patterns and textures.
The tide pools fill with sand which supports other organisms, both plants and animals. The tide pools are usually very clear and the sand is clean. When the water drains away, the white sand is left to trace the shape of the pool. The coarse granitoid sand is washed or blown into the tidepools.
The tide pool in this photo is only a few centimeters across and less than a centimeter deep. You are looking straight down through water to the small plants and miniature shells that look like gems. The white sand is covered with water, but the rest of the rock is exposed.
The Côte de Granit Rose is famous for the fantastic shapes formed by the rock. As the rock weathers along linear joints, or cracks in the rock, the surf carries away the broken fragments and sculpts lifelike and abstract shapes.
At low tide, you can spend hours crawling over the rocks. But in many places you will share the tide pools with locals who turn out to look for mussels and oysters. Each person has their own special gear for collecting these shellfish. Some use little hooks to pry individual mussels off of rocks, while others use a sturdy net on a pole and scrape the sand accumulated in the shallow water beyond the rocks. The nets look very much like butterfly nets except they are scooping with them, rather than waving them in the air. Each person has a wire basket or plastic bucket to carry home what they find. At very low tides, popular collecting rocks near villages are covered with people hunched over prying and scraping. When the tide returns, the crowds retreat.
The pink granite is also used for construction. Many homes in Perros-Guirec are made entirely of pink granite. Even deck railings and pickets are pink granite.
We spent several days on these rocks. I took MANY photographs, so I will post some of the others that show some of the rock shapes at another time. You can also search for ‘The Tide Abides’ in the search box above (in this blog) to see an example of the granite shapes. Photo: 1/80 s at f/22
There are other photos of Brittany in the Photo Gallery at my website: www.earthmapphoto.com
Thatched roof houses are somewhat rare in Brittany. These natural materials are dull and gray. But brightly painted shutters and flowers brighten them.
We saw this old house near a small village called Marzan along the Vilaine River. It is at the very southern edge of the Morbihan département of Brittany.
The Vilaine River is the next river north of the more famous Loire River, and they are not very far apart when they enter the Atlantic. Between them is the large Parc Naturel Regional de Briere. This park is mostly marshland and is a source for thatch. Within the park there are villages with groups of thatched roof houses. Marzan is outside the park, but close by.
Brittany is remarkable for its stone buildings and walls. It also has many Neolithic stone monuments and standing stones. Some of the stones mark burial sites, but others are less well understood.
We found that drives through the back farm roads of Brittany were very rewarding. One afternoon after exploring villages and chateaux we found ourselves on a narrow lane across a farm field near the Vilaine. We drove along the field until we found another lane that went down to the river. We ended up at a very small picnic area with a boat launch and pier. There was a sailboat tied up at the pier and as the sun was setting we watched them fish for their dinner. They looked like they lived on the boat. We had brought food with us so we had a pleasant picnic and enjoyed the quiet setting on the riverbank. Following the light through the countryside can lead to unexpected adventures. Photo: 1/320 s at f/4
Over many centuries, on September mornings, a narrow band of sunlight has shown through stained glass windows onto this small sculpted stone face; unless it is cloudy.
On partly cloudy days the sunlight entering this ancient cathedral is intermittent. As the Earth turns and the clouds float overhead, it is only luck if the Sun shines brightly inside the cathedral and highlights interesting objects. The tall, colorful windows pass under the Sun, and with each opening in the clouds the sunlight enters a different window, at a different angle. Each bright few moments cast different colors on the stone from the varying scenes depicted in the stained glass. And the light comes to rest on different parts of the interior.
Sometimes a previously dark, stone column is bathed in rich red, purple, and gold. When the sunlight is bright it is hard to look at the windows because it hurts the eyes. But when the clouds close, the cathedral is dark enough to make it difficult to read. Sometimes because of the angle of the window to the Sun only a narrow shaft of light hits the stone. The arches, columns, alcoves, and ornamental sculpture make intricate shapes for the light to move across.
On this morning in Tréguier, France when I entered the cathedral there were several women working with cut flowers decorating for a wedding. Otherwise the beautiful old stone building was empty. I had practiced my rudimentary French in order to ask permission to photograph inside the cathedral. They smiled in response and said yes. My French probably was humorous and they seemed warm and friendly.
I spent a couple hours inside photographing different scenes and trying different lenses. The changing light was remarkable and challenging. I had wandered toward the back of the building when the clouds opened up and a small patch of light flooded in through a clear portion of a window. I took about six photos of the light on this red Breton banner and a small sculpture face on a column. During the minute or so that I photographed the light moved across the face from top to bottom and then the clouds closed again. In this photo the smiling face is highlighted against a very dark background in the archway behind. That night when I looked at the day’s photos I was surprised by this small happy face. It is beautifully sculpted.
The white shield on the red banner is filled with the Breton emblem. The small black emblem depicts an ermine. Two versions of the origin of the ermine emblem are that either: a 10th century duke witnessed an ermine being chased by a fox and the ermine turned and attacked the larger animal so the duke was inspired by his bravery, or Ann Duchess of Brittany saw an ermine chased by hunters, and the ermine stopped and refused to cross a pool, preferring to die. Ann saw this as an act of bravery. Which perhaps led to the motto of the Duchy of Brittany, which translates as ‘Rather dead than spoiled’ (http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/Flags/fr-bz-du.html).
Over the centuries this beautiful, smiling stone face has been sunlit many times. I am very thankful to have been there for the bright few moments it was in the Sun on that September morning. Photo: 1/100 s at f/4
You can view other photos of Brittany in the Photo Gallery at my website: www.earthmapphoto.com
It takes a LOT of water pumping up through those 200- 300+ foot trunks to feed the growing tips of redwoods.
They are shallow-rooted. And they need water during the northern hemisphere’s summer. They get that with the help of fog. Fog collects on leaves and branches, then runs down the stem, or is absorbed through the leaves, or drips on dry surface soils. Significant amounts of water are collected from fog. The summer moist marine air layer limits the range of the coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens. It only grows near the coast for this reason.
But today, it is just direct, heavy, drenching rain. When I went for my morning walk I used a raincoat and an umbrella. Rain was running down the roads and soaking the soil. It was pouring. Then when I got back home, it decided to turn up the volume and pounded on the roof. It continues to rain and the sky is dark. This is the water that percolates deep into soils that feeds streams later in spring and summer.
Where do redwoods come from? Well, almost every molecule in those huge trees comes from the soil. Decomposing organic matter, atmospheric gasses entering the soil surface, and weathering soil minerals provide the nutrients. The water carries the nutrients to their roots. It is a rich day in the redwood forest. A day to count blessings. A day to keep the fire stoked.
But it is also a day to enjoy life. For me, that includes the daily run. If you live in the redwoods and you are a runner, you run in the rain. After all, water does not hurt you.
Spring will arrive soon. But today is a day to savor the sound of the rain on the roof. “…Sit back and groove on a rainy day,” was how Jimi Hendrix said it. Photo: 1/500 s at f/4
When I went for my morning walk today the traffic and honking were hard to ignore.
The geese are heading north along the Pacific coast!
The coastal overcast provided a neutral gray background for low-flying flocks of geese. They were very low and very loud.
I go for a short walk to start each day. We live in a redwood forest. So it is hard to see very far toward the horizon. But if you look straight up through the overhanging redwood branches in forest openings you can see the sky. I could hear the geese approaching, but could not see them until they were directly overhead. They were not very far above the top of the redwoods. Their formations were ragged as they were not very far from the marshes nearby where they probably started the day.
The sound catches you off guard when the first geese of the season fly over. It sounds like strange laughter or chattering. Robert Redford described it as a “cocktail party” in the great movie Sneakers.
I was able to photograph at a local birding festival last year, and will again this April. I had not been involved in birding since early in my college days. My assignment was to photograph the bird watchers, not so much the birds. These photographs would be used to publicize the event.
This spring bird migration festival is called Godwit Days. It is held in Arcata, California, USA. There are over 100 different field trips over several days to marshes, forests, rocky shores, and bays. To find out more about it, visit their website at: http://www.godwitdays.com/
The photo above is from Godwit Days last year. This was a shorebird field trip. The participants had great overviews of rocky shores along an easy trail. It was fun to tag along and see their enjoyment and fascination. I used a small step ladder to provide a view over their shoulder in many settings. Most bird watching photos show a front view of a group of people looking into telescopes or binoculars. But you have no idea what they are looking at. I thought it would be more interesting to stand among them and provide a view of what they were seeing also. This photo is taken from a more distant position to show more of the setting. Photo: 1/320 s at f/6.3
Do you walk down the block to a café in Paris every morning to watch as the city wakes up?
Most people have a morning routine. Sometimes it is dictated by family responsibilities, such as making breakfast and getting ready for school or work. Other people choose to start their day in a public place. Their routine includes reading the newspaper or talking with friends who share the same routine. It is a place to discuss events and make plans, or just tell jokes with your buddies.
Starting the day in a café must be more common in an urban setting. And it is probably more common for people who don’t have children in the home.
One of my favorite times to photograph is just before dawn and in the short time right after dawn. I am not interested in the dawn sky itself. But the dim natural light gives each feature a chance to stand on its own. The photograph is exposed for one small scene and the surrounding area is dark, which helps emphasize the main object.
Strolling the pre-dawn streets of Paris with a camera is an interesting way to start the day. The sounds, smells, and sights are different than during the busy daylight hours. You get to see café workers set up the outside terrace seating, the cleaners power-washing the sidewalks, people walking and bicycling through dark streets on their way to work or school, small store owners setting out their produce tables, and watch ancient cathedrals emerge from the black of night, all without crowds of tourists. And you can sit alone in a café sipping espresso and know that you have even beaten the morning regulars to the prime terrace table.
Photo: 1/125 s at f/2.8 You can see more Paris photos in the Photo Gallery at my website: www.earthmapphoto.com
If your image of California is of freeways, smog, congestion, and crowded beaches that’s fine with us.
Even though most of California is rural, that is not its media image. We often, only half-jokingly, say that the north coast of California is rainy, foggy, gray, cold, and miserable-you would hate it. That is our selfish way to keep the crowds down. In truth, it does have that kind of weather, but some people love it. The small towns and uncrowded forests and beaches are a bonus.
It takes a particular kind of person who lives with purpose, and is willing to strive for enjoyment, to thrive on the far northern coast of California. The Hollywood weather and easy access to every imaginable store and service of southern California, or even the San Francisco Bay Area, are thankfully distant. It is OK with us if we are lumped in with the crowded parts of California in the minds of people in surrounding states. We continue to savor the beauty of the redwood forests, the mountains, the rivers, and the beaches.
Economically, it is a difficult area. Tourism is important. So there are those people who are forced to admit that we have sunny days. Right along the coast the summer temperatures are moderated by the cool marine breezes and morning fog. (OK, sometimes the fog stays for days, but….) People from the hot, crowded parts of California seek shelter in campgrounds and coastal motels. But they are well-advised to bring a coat.
It is still possible to have a memorable family beach cookout and not see any other people on the beach. It is one of our favorite summer activities. Several times each summer we have potlucks with family and friends. We stay to watch the sunset before fording the coastal stream and climbing the long, steep, crumbling steps back to the car. That is the ‘striving for enjoyment’ part.
The reward is a beautiful deserted beach like the one in this photograph. Photo: 1/350 s at f/2.2.
Electric Mountain Train, Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
Today is International Women’s Day.
It is a day to recognize and honor the importance of the work of women; their work at home and away from home. It is also a day to recognize the limitations on women’s involvement, safety, education, advancement and equal pay.
One of my heroes is Wangari Maathai of Kenya. She won the Nobel Peace prize for leading the Green Belt Movement in Africa. This primarily village women’s movement has planted tens of millions of trees across Africa to slow soil erosion and provide shade and organic matter for agricultural soils. She argued that there would be fewer wars if the men would stay home and help manage resources and grow food rather than fight over resources that are degraded. Of course this is complicated by multi-national corporations and foreign governments.
Here are a couple useful links about international women’s programs, where you can learn about some of the issues and programs, or make a contribution:
What does that have to do with this photograph in Switzerland? Well, this woman’s simple act of kindness salvaged a long day of photography that had produced very little, up to that point. And it may be a stretch, but I think that it also shows a woman’s natural inclination to do something nice, to make things better, to help, or to contribute, rather than ignore situations. She didn’t know anything about me or my day, but she could have ignored me or turned away.
This is one of my favorite photographs. It was in a train station in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. I had spent the day riding cable cars and mountain trains and walking trying to photograph the amazing peaks of the high Swiss Alps. The weather had not cooperated. I was on my way back to Wengen where our hotel was. I decided not to put my camera back in my pack, even though it didn’t seem like there would be any photo opportunities. As trains came into this little station, I started following them in and photographing them as they slowly came to a stop. This woman spotted me and decided to participate in the photograph.
The afternoon sun shown a short ways into the train car. It was just enough light to highlight her smile and her graceful peace sign. The other passengers remain in shadows.
This track was under a glass roof inside the station. The highlights are subdued. The Swiss railway worker adds color and precision as he walks the shadow line. Lines converge toward the woman; the railway worker’s shadow, the roof structure shadows, and even the upper arm that connects the electric train to the power line, lead the eye to her. There are interesting textures, such as the expandable rubber train passageway at the left edge, the solar panels on the parking structure behind the train, the train wheels, and the red cable at the bottom of the train.
May the women in your life lead a peaceful day today, and tomorrow. You can view other photographs of Switzerland in the Photo Gallery at my website: www.earthmapphoto.com
Pedestrians Behind Ornate Clock, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Time is different in an art museum.
For some, it drags on forever, while they wait for the art lover they are accompanying. Others lose track of time as they imagine the setting and ideas of the artists, tens or hundreds or thousands of years ago.
This ornate clock in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris calls attention to time. But the artwork throughout this converted, cavernous train station is timeless. The clock and the building themselves are works of art. The clock is certainly more than is required for industrial efficiency.
How much time has been spent absorbed in the imagery of Monet, Renoir, and others? The time has been too short for me. I am just learning the impact of these artists. The collection of impressionist painters in the Musée d’Orsay is worth every moment spent there.
The people walking behind this clock were going from one wing of the museum to another. When you walk through these passageways, you are not always aware that you are behind the clock.
Ahhh, Paris. We need more time there. Photo: 1/6 second at f/16.
You can visit my online galleries to view more of Paris photos. Click the Photography link above.
I admit that is an eccentric question. But I stood in this spot for hours and the roar of this rapid was amplified by the narrow river canyon. I think that I can still hear it.
I arrived before dawn and waited for a little light before I climbed over the rocks down to this ledge next to the Trinity River in northern California. The clouds hung in the canyon all morning and kept the focus of this scene on the river and the rocks. The longer exposure helped to portray the speed of the river and may help you imagine the sound.
It was my first photo excursion with a new camera. And because I wanted the river to fill the foreground of the photograph, the tripod legs were sitting on the edge of the rocks to keep the camera close to the water. I kept a hand on the tripod most of the time. I kept imagining the camera tipping it over, plop, into the river!
I kept the aperture very small so that the rocks next to me would be in sharp focus as well as the rocks in the rapids and the trees across the river. The lichen on the rocks in the foreground added color to this subdued scene.
The Trinity River comes from snowmelt and rainfall in the ‘Trinity Alps’. It was very busy during the California gold rush and still has active mining claims on it. California State Highway 299 travels next to the river for many miles and makes the drive from Redding to Arcata very scenic. The Trinity River is an important salmon and steelhead stream and is popular for kayaking and rafting. Photo: 3.2 seconds at f/22
This rural road in southern Brittany had very little traffic. It followed gently rolling hills through corn fields and pastureland. There were small patches of woodland and scattered farmhouses.
Even though only a few people drove past this farmhouse it was generously decorated with flower baskets. It had been stormy, but an opening in the clouds let the afternoon sun spotlight this well-maintained stone building.
We were staying in a beachside gite near Pénestin, France. It was September, so the holiday crowds had left. We were about the only people on the short lane to the beach. We could walk less than a hundred meters and down a sandy trail to the beach. The only other people we saw on that beach were early morning fishermen rowing out to their boats and a few mussel gatherers.
Pénestin beaches were part of the occupying German fortifications during World War II. There still are ominous concrete blockhouses perched in the rocks above the beach. They are on the sides of points so that they were not easily visible from offshore. The opening for the guns faced across the beach, not out to sea. So they could not be attacked by the landing Allied soldiers until they were on the beach, entirely exposed to the machine guns in the blockhouses. Even though they are just concrete boxes, they still look vicious.
Each day we had traveled out into the Breton countryside. Some days we just wandered with only a general photography plan like, “Let’s see what kind of villages are along this south-facing slope above the river. The afternoon sun will be shining on them and we might find a chateau next to the river….” Thank goodness for the detail of Michelin maps and my wife, our navigator!
This farmhouse was in Malestroit. We found it after a very pleasant country drive. The openings in the clouds were like an ‘on’ switch for the sunlight. The light-colored stone and the mortar reflected the low-angle sun. I stood against a tree next to a roadside ditch and photographed during several brief openings in the clouds. I waited for the sunlight to brighten the stone and the flowers. But it is hard not to cast a shadow into the photograph when a setting sun is behind you. I thought I had tucked into the tree shadow, but you can see my hat brim and my shoulder in the opening between the two tree trunks. It surprised me that you can see the shadow of the entire canopy of this tree. I guess that is thanks to the wide angle lens. Photo: 1/80 s at f/14 with 16-35 mm lens at 16 mm.
You can visit my online galleries to view more of my portfolio. Click the Photography link above.
