Skopje 2011

From our trip to Skopje at the end of this summer. For friends, they know who they are ;)

Skyscraper

A huge skyscraper in Shanghai, though it doesn't look so tall since the photo was taken from an even larger building - the Shanghai World Financial Center. This is currently the second highest building in the world, though it has the highest observation platform. The buildings around it are huge, so it's weird to look down a them. Sadly, Shanghai has quite a bit of smog, which means that the visibility isn't what it could be.

Police officer

I'm pretty sure police officers are exactly the same all over the world - and I love the slightly bored expression on this guy's face. Who know how long he's been standing there, and how much more he has to go before his shift ends.

The Constellation

I took this photo in the summer of 2010 in Stockholm during a ride on a small ship from our hotel towards the center of the city. This ship was leaving the dock, and we felt quite small as we made our way around. As can be seen, this is the Constellation (the ship's full name is the Celebrity Constellation) and she even has her own Wikipedia page. During the summer months, when this photo was taken, she travels the Baltic sea, during the autumn she's in the Mediterranean and in the winter she's in the Carribbean. Here are two more photos from this same trip to Stockholm - one is a shot of the town around midnight, and another with a couple of pretty Swedish girls.

Reflections of climbing

Taken in Vipava this weekend in the beautiful, warm sunshine.

Imposing

 

Taken in Shanghai last week, this is the Shangai Art Museum, though it also houses a restaurant on the fifth floor (which is the reason I was there in the first place). I found Shanghai interesting because it's such an intense mix of the old and the new. You can easily have a traditional Chinese building next to a huge, modern skyscraper, with a European style building next to that. 

The overall feeling in Shanghai is that it's big - very big. The city has a population of over twenty million (and that's just the official number), and the area is about a third of the size of Slovenia (a good six thousand square kilometers). I loved it, even though I could not imagine living there for any extended period of time. 

Just to note, the photo above was taken hand-held with a fixed 28 mm F/2,8 lens. Shanghai is actually very, very bright, especially at night. It has quite a bit of smog, which tends to reflect the light back down. Because of this, I imagine one never sees the stars (kind of sad, when you think about it).

Swan

This beautiful swan was relaxing in Zurich, where I recently spent a couple of hours during a stop-over on my way to Shanghai (yes, photos from there are on their way). This is in the center of the city, where the Limmat river runs from Lake Zurich. The light was pretty nice, since it was still quite early in the morning and the autumn sun hadn't risen too high yet. I had a (borrowed) telephoto lens which allowed me to take this tight shot from quite far away - I think this gives the photo a more intimate feel.

Gone surfing

Here's the video from this Saturday. I'm so new at video that I'm learning as I go along, every step of the way.

The surfer

Nejc started surfing a few years ago, about the time I started climbing. Since I started playing around with video, we've been talking about making a short video of surfing - and today we finally got around to it. We left early, since the wind was supposed to be the best in the morning. It was a cold and relatively gray day, the light was definitely not the best for photography, especially in the end, when this was taken. The water was quite warm and Nejc wasn't cold at all, while I was freezing on the beach.

I spent most of the time shooting video, but I took a few stills (photographs), around twenty in all, with this being the best. The video will come later, I'll need much more time to edit it all.

Self portrait - the photographer

These self-portraits are surprisingly fun to do - the first one I did was the reader, the second was a reader of caves. On one hand they are quite easy, since the model has quite a bit of patience and understands where to stand and what to do. But being ones own model has its drawbacks, since, well, I have to do everything.

The most interesting part though is the journey from idea to final image. I saw a photo almost exactly like this in my head, though as with most art, once I started working on it, it started to change (however slightly). The end result isn't exactly what I had in mind, but it's interesting in its own right - I'm very happy with it.

For the shot I setup my camera on a tripod, and I had an external flash back and to the side, sitting on a shelf (I would have put it on a second tripod, but I didn't have it with me). I had to use the timer on the camera to trigger the shot, and the exposure (all of the settings on the camera and the flash) started out with guess work, but after three or four shots I figured it out (interesting how with time one gets a feeling for the camera and can predict what will come out). The focus was set by the scale on the lens, though this was easier since the lens was very wide and the aperture closed, both of which lead to a very wide depth of field (that is, pretty much everything is sharp). Then all I had to do was fire off tons of shots, positioning myself in as best a position as I could each time.

Corner of Leavenworth and Lombard

To many people, these two street names don't mean a thing and this is just another pretty picture. But Lombard Street in San Francisco is known one of the crookedest streets in the world - though the crooked part is just one block which runs down a hill with a grade of 27%. The block itself starts at Leavenworth and heads up to Hyde Street, and most photographs of Lombard Street are taken at the corner where Lombard Street intersects Leavenworth.

Hemi beast

I spotted this Dodge Ram 1500 (with a Hemi engine, no less) in San Francisco recently. For anyone from the US, this is obviously nothing special, but coming from Europe, we very rarely see a full-size pick-up such as this one.

Windy

Taken on top of London's Monument this spring. Gregor and I visited his sister for the weekend, and we did all of the usual touristy things one does when in London.

Dry tooling in Vipava

Blaž and Anton dry tooling in Vipava, Slovenia. I spent the entire four or five hours filming, then another six hours putting it all together. Dry tooling is climbing with ice tools (ice axes and usually crampons) on dry rock, usually as a part of ice climbing when the ice runs out, though in the past few years it has become a sport in its own right.

Makedonsko devojče

Just got back from Macedonija this morning, after a one week vacation. Together with some friends we spent a few days in Skopje, then went south to a town called Kavadarci for a couple of days, followed by another weekend in Skopje.

This was my third time in Macedonija, unforgettable as always, thanks to people like Elena M., pictured above, and Elena R., who invited us to stay with her family in Kavadarci. For the time being, I've got plenty of work ahead, but a small part of me is already thinking about the next time we see each other again :)

Hi there

For those complaining I haven't posted for a while. A little monkey, chilling and relaxing on abandoned temple somewhere in east Bali. I adore those creatures. This guy has a "Beckam" haircut.

Garden rain

I just bought a new camera (a Canon EOS 60D) and had to test out the video. Since it was raining out this is what I quickly whipped up :) All of the shots are from around my house.

Climbing in Arco 2011

A video I made from photographs and video clips taken during our recent stay in Arco. The video was made with Apple's iMovie software and all of the photos and video clips were recorded with a small Panasonic camera. Making video is actually quite fun, though there's so much to learn. I think you can expect to see more such videos in the future ;)

As for the climbing, this was during the holidays before the first of May. We spent about a week near Arco, where we've been a few times (see here and here). It's a great place with lots of rock all around, a friendly atmosphere, and around four or five hours from Ljubljana.
 

The Ultimate

Not much to say, after all, it's written a few times - this must be one ultimate machine.

Vipera berus

I went trad climbing today to the little-known Slovenian mountain called Kogel, and during the walk to the wall we ran into this fellow, the common European Adder (locally known as a Gad). I've seen snakes before in the wild, even poisonous ones, but this one is the biggest so far (as well as the closest). We estimate that it was around 60 cm long, though his hiss was surprisingly loud (you could hear it clearly from about 10 meters away).

A creature in slovenian sea

It's true, we don't have a lot of sea in Slowenia. But the Jellyfish can still be a monster. Harmless though.

Sunbeams

When I came up with a title for this post, I checked Wikipedia and was amazed to discover there's quite a long and informative article on what are correctly known as Crepuscular rays. They are also known as both Buddha's Rays and God Beams - not surprising, given how majestic they can appear. Not that it matters, but this moment of serenity and beauty took place in Italy - in the Dolomite mountains.

Trenta valley

A shot of the Trenta Valley, with the smaller Zadnjica valley in front. This is one of the more demanding paths which lead to Triglav.

Android test

This is just a test of my posting on the go. With a picture of a guitar kind of instrument that I have found in Paris music museum. I think imortal Steve Vai used this thing in 18. century ;)

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