Beer

A couple of weeks ago, Ljubljana had its annual 'Museum Night' where most museums charge no admission, one of the museums we visited was the brewing museum which is part of Ljubljana's Union brewery. While I prefer craft beer (and Slovenia has a few very good craft breweries), the museum was pretty interesting, and we got a free beer at the end of the tour. As far as lagers go, Union isn't half bad ;-)

The first photo is outside in the courtyard of the brewery, the second is of a bar from a typical inn from a hundred or so years ago, the last is an assortment of the beer Union now produces (the smaller bottles are special limited beers which will only be sold for a few months). This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Union brewery.

Distance Saturation

Colours dissapear in the depth of the sea, but they also dissapear with distance. Slightly modified, but not in a way of processing differrent parts of the picture separately, I find this "distance saturation" looking photo of the wider Ljubljana center quite cool. If you take a closer look of this panorama view from Rašica, taken with Canon EOS 7D I was testing a few days ago, you can see that our boxing champion Dejan Zavec is arhitectural almost as much important fot our city as the Castle :) The lens I was using is super stretchy Canon 18-200, which is not realy sharp and you can clearly see the vigneting in the upper corners. The 18 megapixel photo was useless though, especially out of its center and blogger doesn't allow me to upload a bigger photo also :(

The night approaches

Taken minutes between this shot and this one - all three of these are some of my favorite photographs I've taken and show how important beautiful light is. I have another similar shot of this building, but I really like the diagonal that the clouds make - not to mention the small moon in the background.

I was going to post this earlier, but Žiga's last post is just so awesome, I wanted to keep it on top for a bit longer :)

Framed triangle

This is a relatively new building in Ljubljana, behind the main railway station. I never really noticed it until one evening when the last rays of sunlight lit it up in this beautiful orange-yellow light.

Superman's Metropolis

Photography, when you get down to it, is simply the capture of light. Sometimes the light can be so beautiful it knocks the breath from your lungs and leaves you speachless and dumbfounded. The interesting thing is that you often don't even realise the complete magnificence of the light - our eyes tend to adapt all too well and decrease the contrast between the light and dark, in effect making the scene less powerful. Also, as darkness falls, we see less and less color. This doesn't happen to cameras (be it on film or digital). So sometimes, the image from the camera can be even more powerful than you remember it.

This image above reminds me of the strong, beautiful colors present in many comic books - Superman being the most iconic. Whereas many newer comics tend to be darker (must I really mention the legend?), Superman has always had a bright, punchy and highly saturated (at times even cartoon-ish) color palette (as can be seen when comparing the first picture on his Wikipedia page with that of Batman's).

I first considered naming the post just 'Metropolis', but I decided to be specific. After all, it is the name of a very iconic film as well as a generic name for a large city.

Cracks in the dark

The view from Šmarna Gora. This one is from the times when I used to walk up there alone in late hours. Scary some times, especialy in windy days :)

Watch tower

A lonely watchtower, trying in vain to keep the night away.

We already have a few different photos of Ljubljana's castle on this blog, but then, it is quite photogenic. Here are three examples: click click click. On this one here, I really like the bright clock face and the dark purple of the sky. I had already written the line above as part of this comment, but I liked it so much, I decided it needed space of its own.

University of Ljubljana

The university building in Ljubljana, taken very late in the evening - that's why the sky is such a strong, dark blue. The building was renovated a few years back, and it's one of the more beautiful buildings in Ljubljana.

Building reflections

Taken during a walk around Ljubljana sometime last year.

Smaug?

One of the dragons on Ljubljana's Dragon bridge. Not Smaug (the dragon from Tolkien's book The Hobbit), but one of the typical Ljubljana dragons.

Unrelated, but I'm in Costa de Caparica, just south of Lisbon, Portugal. I'm at a friends house having some beer - we'll be going to the beach later.

Darkness falls

Late evening, sometime last summer, a crescent moon over Ljubljana's Castle. Those dots below the castle are lights put up around the castle hill.

Geometry

Taken somewhere in Ljubljana (nope, I haven't a clue where exactly).

Parlament photographer

Photography at night is usually more about trial and error than about light meters and such. Usually, the best way to go about it is to take a few test shots (with a digital camera) and find settings that are as close as possible to what you want to achieve. This was taken from a tripod in front of the Slovenian Parlament, that's Žiga on the left trying to sit still for the few seconds which I needed for this shot. Taken with one of my old Konicas with black and white film.

A work in progress

Ljubljana's castle is probably its most known landmark. But, as we've already shown in one photograph, it's undergoing reconstruction. This shot was taken from my sister's apartment, which is in the very center of town, with my old Konica. As with most of my night photos, I used film and a sturdy tripod. The sky behind the castle is as bright as it is because of light polution, the magenta colour of the castle is from floodlights which light it up every night. They are actually never magenta, but change colours - in this case, the camera caught both red and blue and put them together :-)

Pollution is beautiful

The picture speaks for itself, I really like the colourful dirty buildings in the night, especially at longer exposures, when the smoke becomes so flat and blurry. The photograph was taken with a compact Canon G9, which has a problem, that the shutter can only stay open for 15 seconds. But I still like this picture of Belinka factory.

Festive Ljubljana

Taken sometime around the holidays, this shows Ljubljana in its most festive mood. The bridge in the photo is Čevljarski Most (Shoemaker's bridge), behind it is the center of town. The photo itself was taken on Veliva colour film which is great for showing off the beautiful colours reflecting in the Ljubljanica river. Obviously, I had to use a tripod and a slow shutter speed, which is why the river is so silky smooth. I was thinking of cropping in a bit tighter to show the bridge, but in the end I decided to show more of the reflections in the water. I think it came out quite nicely :-)

Trnovo bridge

Like the church in Trnovo, this was done on velvia film on a tripod at night. It's actually from almost the exact same spot as the church, only in the opposite direction. This bridge is very new, and I like it quite a lot, though I've heard it is responsible for quite a bit of light pollution. This year is the international year of astronomy, and this is one of the things which astronomers are fighting, since it makes star gazing much harder. From a photographic point of view, I agree completely. It's nearly impossible to take photos of the night sky anywhere near Ljubljana (or most other cities), since the sky is just way too bright.

So close

Sometimes we forget how close to the alps our little capital Ljubljana stands. And I think most of people can't really imagine that. When I get some really clear weather and when SCT workers get their asses of the castle, I will be waiting in this positin for the best light. And then I am going to have a coffee up there.

Trnovo church

Another night shot done on film, this time the church in Trnovo.

Old town

This was taken in Ljubljana's old town one lazy Sunday afternoon on black and white film.