Photography: Dunluce Castle and Belfast

This will be the final batch of photos from my Northern Ireland Trip. They were taken around the ruined Dunluce Castle and the last photo is a sculpture in Belfast. Some photos are HDR and some aren't.

Book Reviews: Married to a Bedouin

This book first came to my attention a few years ago on a trip to Jordan.   The book was in every book shop there.   It's the true story of a New Zealand woman who went to Petra in Jordan on a gap year and fell in love with a Bedouin tribesman.   They got married, had children, and she stayed in Jordan until his death.   Petra is such an amazing place, and it was great to learn about it from the point of view of someone who's lived there.   The book describes in detail what it was like to live as a Bedouin in the 70s, in an ancient tomb, carved into a cliff.   It's fascinating!   Despite the author's strong feelings on the subject, I was quite glad when all the Bedouin were moved from the ancient site that they'd been treating so carelessly.   Its is sad that their way of life was lost, but in my eyes an ancient site as amazing as Petra is more important.   It gave me a real insight into another culture as well.   Made me more understanding.   And she's kind of living my dream too.   I often think I'd love to run away and live in a cave.   There are certain aspects of the writer's personality I didn't like, but apart from that I would thoroughly recommend this book.

Photography: Rome, Day 6

The 6th and final day of my Roman Holiday included going round St. Peter's and the Castel Sant'Angelo.   The latter is a fascinating building.   It was built as the emperor Hadrien's mausoleum, but was later turned into a fortress!   How odd.   Anyway, here are my favorite photos from the day:

 View of Castel Sant'Angelo from the top of St. Peter's

View of Piazza San Pietro from the top of St. Peter's

 

   Tricolore by Castel Sant'Angelo

Photography: Rome, Day 4

The fourth day of our Rome trip took us back to the Palatine Hill for a proper look round there, and to the forum, and to the Pantheon as well.   The two photos I liked best from the day weren't really of any of those things.   I really liked one HDR photo over the roofs of Rome.   The normal version looked pretty mundane, but the HDR version really brought the scene to life.   You can see a little bit of the forum in the foreground, but the focus is on the rooftops.   The other is a photo of the Colosseum from a different angle.   I really like the warmth of it.   It looks almost autumnal.

   

Photography: Rome, Day 2

There's a town outside Rome called Tivoli, and it's well-worth going there for two or three days if you're in the area.   Getting there on Italian public transport was...interesting, but we made it, and spent a happy day going round Hadrien's Villa.   It was his summer palace, and was a shrine to decadence.   It's an absolutely enormous site, and does pretty much take a day to explore fully.   You'll find pools, baths, barracks, complete with mosaic floors, massive storehouses, Hadrien's private study, surrounded by his own moat, and his incredible outdoor banqueting area.   It's a fascinating place.   I'm very pleased with some of my photos from the day, but to honest, most of them aren't of the ruins themselves.  

 Poppies, poppies, poppies, poppies!

  This statue is part of the outdoor party area.   This pool would have been surrounded by columns and statues and the whole thing would have been draped with vines and candles.   At the far end you can see a covered area where the feast itself would have taken place.  Can you see it?  The rich food, the wine, the musicians, the peace of a warm Italian summer night, the candles, the slaves, the Roman nobles in their togas and gold and the emperor Hadrien himself?

Photography: Roman Holiday, Day 1

I've decided to split up my Rome photos by day, seeing as there are so many of them.   Day 1 is mostly HDR, seeing as it was overcast and the light was bad.   The non-HDR photos just looked flat and uninteresting.   We went round the Colosseum and had a bit of a wander around the Palatine Hill as well.   Carrying my equipment round Rome all day for a week certainly took its toll on my shoulders, but I think the results were worth the pain.

 Colosseum, obviously.   I love how the HDR turned boring, grey, overcastness into fierce storm clouds.

Arch of Constantine as seen from the Colosseum.    Also love how the HDR turned mundane tourists-in-the-way to splashes of brilliant colour.

                                                                    Arch of Titus

                                                Colosseum seen from the Palatine Hill

                                                                 Arch of Constantine

 Vittorio Emmanuele monument.   AKA the typewriter.   Most Romans don't like it cos it's so pompous and self-indulgent.  I do though.   The marble glows white in the sunshine.   This was my best attempt to get it without traffic in the way.

      Poppies coming up between the paving slabs in the forum.   The only non-HDR photo from the day that I liked.   There were poppies absolutely everywhere.   It was beautiful.

Inchcolm Island

Firstly, I would like to announce a three week long blog hiatus due to holidays.  Hurrah!  

That being done, the topic of tonight's seminar will be Inchcolm Island!   Inchcolm is one of the islands in the Firth of Forth.  There's a very picturesque ruined abbey on it, so one sunnyish day I went to explore it.   I took a bus from Waverley Bridge and then boarded the boat at Queensferry.   It's a great little island!  Not much to see other than the abbey though, just a few WW2 fortifications.   But I had a good time photographing the Abbey and scrambling about in long grass.   I practiced HDR again this trip, and I was quite pleased with the results.   Here are a few of my favorite HDR pics from the day:

                                                                Forth Rail Bridge

                                                                     The Abbey

                                                 I hate whoever put that bin there!

And one non HDR photo that I like:

                                       The late afternoon light on this rock was spectacular!




And for good measure, a seal!