Clouds over the foothills

The foothills of the Karavanke, which I've shot many times, this was in the autumn, I love the play of the shadows and the sun breaking through here and there. 

 

The hikers

 My daughter, not yet three, with my wife behind her, look towards the Karavanke mountains in the background during a short walk up a hill in the vicinity of Ljubljana.

Peaks before the dark

 The last light in a narrow mountain valley, looking up at the peaks. The most prominent mountain here, on the left side of the photo, is Špik, whose name literally means "sharp"

Last rays on the Karavanke

Took this a couple of weeks ago - after a few days of rain the clouds started to part, just in time for the setting sun to light up the Karavanke mountains. The one on the left (towards the west) is Brana, on the right (partly obscured by clouds) is Planjava (whose west wall I climbed years ago), between them is the Kamnik saddle.
 

Triglav vol. 2

We recently went on a scenic airplane ride around Slovenia's Mount Triglav, which I previously posted some years ago.

Krvavec

The ski resort of Krvavec, taken on a late winter evening. The light towards the Karavanke was beautiful but fleeting - one minute the sun lit up the mountain tops, the next minute all was in shadow. This kept repeating for about ten minutes before the sun sank below the horizon - just enough time to pull out the camera and take three or four shots.

Also, to anyone who reads this - a happy new year :-)

Vogel

The ski resort of Vogel, above Lake Bohinj during the summer. The photo was taken from the near by mountain hut of Komna around four years ago with an old film camera.

The view

Taken below the Grossglockner, facing south-east (that's the Stuedl Hut below on the right). This is very close to the spot which I took this photo two years ago (though this older photo is facing south).

Sundown on the Croda da Lago

The last rays of sun illuminate the Croda da Lago, one of the Italian Dolomites. The photo was taken about a week ago, when we spent some time climbing in the Dolomites around Cortina D'Ampezzo. This was taken from the Cinque Torri as we were finishing for the day.

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).

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.

Alpine green

While the last one wasn't very colorful, this one makes up for it. Taken about a half hour after the previous shot, we had already risen out of the valley and had come closer to the alpine meadows. The last few wisps of clouds and fog were rising, and it turned out to be a beautiful day.

The path

 

I've finally gotten around to editing all of my photos from last year's trip to Triglav. When I come across photos I like, I sometimes play around with them on the computer - this one seemed more interesting when given a bit of an old-fashioned look. This was toward the beginning of the hike, and we quickly found ourselves out of the forests and in the high alpine trails. The path we chose is one of the rockier and more dangerous ones, but it was a great two days.

Lovely view

It was indeed. Taken not far below the Grossglockner in Austria.

Land of wonder

Taken late one cloudy day, looking towards the Karavanke, if memory serves me correctly.

Jedi from the mountain

Blaž during our hike to Triglav late this summer, looking for all the world like a Jedi Knight. Too bad that Star Wars quotes are way too obvious and I can't really use them ;)


ps. This is completelly unrelated, but I think it's so awesome it deserves to be mentioned. More than half a year ago (soon after we started the blog, in fact), I posted a photo of a Chevy Nova SS (an american muscle car). Now, Mike, the guy who sold this very car to someone from Slovenia, actually came across my post. It's a small world, and getting smaller all the time :)

Happy mountain gnome

Taken during a recent hike (which I mentioned here), this is my sister, Vida. The title of the post was inspired by Blaž, who says Vida's happy (and anything but quiet) nature reminds him of a happy little gnome. It sounds better in slovene - 'Mala palčica', which translates to 'small gnome'.

I don't mention equipment all that much (except with photographs taken on film), but this was taken with a small, pocket-sized compact camera - the Panasonic Lumix LX-3. This is by far the best pocket camera I've ever used, mainly because of the very wide and very bright lens - from 24 to 60 mm with an aperture that goes from F/2.0 to F/2.8.

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.

Alpine pond

A lovely little pond (which probably dries up in the summer) somewhere above the plateau of Pokljuka. Taken last fall, around October or November, one beautiful Sunday morning. Ljubljana spent the entire day in fog, above 1000 meters we had tons of sunshine, as you can see.

Auto-portrait at sunset

Taken sometime last year with a wide-angle lens I was testing. Yes, that's my car and my shadow on the window, behind me is a beautiful sunset. Taking photos of sunsets is way overrated: pretty much everyone who has ever owned a camera has a few nice photos of sunsets. The trick is to look the other way and try to find something else that is interesting in the awesome light a sunset gives off. The mountains in the background are the Karavanke.