Follow the track

One from the winter time, when we took a walk on Krvavec, where is also a very popular ski resort, closest one to our capital Ljubljana. This is a track of snowcat, taken widely from a close range. Very high contrast is also added.

Flowers in the window

I took this just a few hours ago, during a walk around Ljubljana's center. It was already dark, but I got a couple of nice shots. These plants (I've no clue what kind they are) were in the window sill of a flower shop, very nicely illuminated.

Water clock

Another photo I've had sitting around since forever, this is the water clock in the gardens by the Villa Borghese in Rome.

Three sheep

I took this photo 2 days ago, when we were walking down from the Triglav mountain (which we've shown at least once). These three sheep look so cool looking the mountains in the distance, but sadly there is someone's foot in the bottom left of the picture that is a bit out of place.

Rocinante

I've had this photo sitting in my 'coming up' folder for at least a year. The strong colours come from the Fuji Velvia film I used and very warm light - it might have been late in the evening, close to sunset (I really don't remember). As for the name of the post, book addicts such as myself will probably recognise it, everyone else can google it :-)

Self portrait - the reader

Shit.

I'm not sure what just happened. I was sitting behind my computer when my brain (which has a mind of its own) decided to take a photograph. I rush out of the house, since my camera is in the trunk of my car (let me make it clear that it is two in the morning), then rush back in to find my tripod. My idea was to make a self-portrait outside (yes yes, night time, I know, I had a few creative ideas I wanted to try). But then my lazy side kicked in and I decided to do it inside instead, since one of my ideas did not require a background.

I setup the tripod in front of a chair and quickly focused manually just a bit in front of the chair (where I imagined my head would be). I grabbed one of the books I'm currently reading (I am always reading anywhere from seven to twelve books at any given time). This one, as you can tell from the cover, is Kurt Vonnegut's Bluebeard. I start the timer on the camera and hop in the chair, book in hands. This was to be a test shot, just to see where exactly the camera was pointing and where it was focused. To my surprised, it turned out great. Call it a moment of inspiration, I guess, though I'm still having trouble understanding it myself.

p.s. Searching through my books, I've realised that I can't find Kerouac's On the Road. Whoever I lent it to, please let me know (or I'll be forced to buy another copy).

Which is fairer, flower or leaf.

This beautiful flower is from a tree right outside my window. I do not know what kind of tree it is, though I'm not sure I even care, its blossoms are wonderful enough. I realise that photographs of flowers are like photographs of sunsets - too common for their own good, especially with the advent of cheap digital cameras. I know I've certainly taken my fair share.

But there are damn good reasons for this - the main being that we're human (for better or for worse, I guess). We see in the flower the passing of time, the fleeting moment. It is delicate, usually intricate, sometimes simple.

The best way to take a photograph of a flower, you ask? Keep it as simple as possible. In a world that's obsessed with the big picture, with seeing the forest (instead of the lone, forsaken trees), often, simple is best (try thinking less, it helps).

Livestrong

Tadej climbing at Ljubljana's Roman wall. The title of the post (Livestrong) comes from the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which (according to their words) helps unite people to fight cancer. The yellow wristband Tadej is wearing is a well-known symbol of this foundation.

Sea otter

A sea otter - Enhydra lutris - from the Lisbon Oceanarium. This is my fourth post with a photograph taken at the Oceanarium. The first three were about atlantic puffins, some jellyfish and a barracuda. I think one of these days I'll have to visit Ljubljana's zoo.

View of heaven from the top

Sundown above the Caribbean sea taken from the plane. One of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Taken at regular 35mm. I wanted to go wider, but there was also a wing of the plane:)

Chief Sitting Bull

Žiga after a day of climbing in Vipava last year, doing his best impression of an Indian chief surveying the land.

Deep Water Solo

This is Cuban kid climbing from the water at the Malecon in Havana. Malecon is in my opinion one of the nices parts of Havana, because Cubans are there mostly because of themselves, not because of turism. Malecon is a few kilometers long road next to the sea and at the evening people like to gather there, just everybody, young and old. During the day families stay there like being on vacation (and the problem is that the Cubans are on vacation all the time:) and children jump in the water all day. If you jump you must get out also and at some high parts there is no other way than this kid is taking:) City with around million inhabitants right next to this water, garbage at the bottom of the sea right under you, but most of the time this water is crystal clear. So I also took a swim. No turist close to me I was feeling like a cuban child:) and met some of the most unspoilt people there. Taken with the telelens...

Building reflections

Taken during a walk around Ljubljana sometime last year.

Barracuda

Another shot from Lisbon's aquarium, this is a barracuda - for Janez ;-) Again another tough shot - I have two more of this same fish, both a bit too blurry because of the low light.

I was going to mention the Plymouth Barracuda (mmm, with a nice hemi engine :) ), but a quick search reveals that quite a few ships, two ship classes and an airplane all shared this name. I now have 9 tabs open in Firefox, all of which refer to something labelled 'barracuda'. Isn't Wikipedia great?

Edit: damn it, I've now found out that IMDB also has a database of cars in movies - Barracudas (the cars, not the fish) have appeared in quite a few movies, the most memorable one being the original Gone in 60 seconds (from 1974). As if you care.

Climbing silhouette

Another shot of Barbara. I took this a few days ago at Ljubljana's Roman Wall. This wall dates to the Roman times, though it's been renovated twice - once by the architect Jože Plečnik, and a second time in the early 90's. It is often used for recreational climbing, especially by students in Ljubljana. We went climbing in the late afternoon, and when the sun started to go down, the light became incredible. The photo below, of my sister, was taken maybe ten minutes before this one.

What?

I've just realised that it's been a while since we had any portraits here. Here's a nice one of my sister Vida, taken last week right around sunset - the light was just awesome!

Jellyfish

Taken in Lisbon's aquarium, I have no clue which species of jellyfish this is, but it sure looks nice. This was a pretty hard shot to take, since it was very dark. The specks in the photo were actually floating around in the water, though I'm not sure what they are.

Going up!

I took this a few months ago in one of Slovenia's larger climbing areas, Kotečnik. Barbara is doing the climbing, and the photo was taken on slide film with an older Canon EOS film camera.

Edit: I didn't even realise it at first, but because of the light, she looks like she's climbing into the sky. Or am I imagining it?

Warp factor 9

This sci-fi photo was taken in Lisbon, at the Oriente subway (metro) station (above which is a train station). The tube in the center of the photo is an elevator which leads down to the subway station. I got this weird effect by zooming in as I took the photo - I set a long shutter speed and zoomed my lens quickly. It reminds me of special effects in science fiction movies such as Star Trek. I can't help but hear Jean-Luc Picard in the backround saying 'Engage'.

Atlantic puffin

These two puffins, along with quite a few others, live at the Lisbon Oceanarium, which I visited on my last day in Lisbon, this July. While I've been to larger aquariums, this one is has a very impressive collection of animals and plants - over 16,000 according to Wikipedia.

Photography in the aquarium is very hard, if you don't know what you are doing, it's pretty much impossible. Flash is forbidden, though it wouldn't help at all, since it would just bounce back from the windows (though despite this, people use flash all the time - presumably because they don't know how to turn it off). The main problem is that it is very dark inside the aquarium. I had to use a very high sensitivity, up to ISO 1600, to have a fast enough shutter speed so that the fish and other animals were not blurry. Besides this, most cameras have a hard time focusing through the glass and into water. The lens I used has a very fast and precise focusing motor, but it still had problems every now and then. Still, I managed to take quite a few nice photos, which will find their way here.