There is a legend concerning the black ravens that occupy The Tower of London. It simply states, should the ravens leave The Tower, the Crown and the Kingdom would fall. As superstitious as this sounds, it has been the policy of The Crown to keep seven ravens within the walls of the Tower; six being necessary to service the protective properties of the myth. The seventh acting as a backup. Continue reading The Ravens
Just off the plane after a 14 hours flight. It’s 7 am local and I am fighting the effects of jet lag. After renting a car and a long drive from Heathrow to Islington, North London, I grab my camera and take a walk along one of the canals that was once the backbone of British commerce. Later I followed the canal on a map to it’s final destination; an old armory that once served the British army during the Napoleonic Wars. Continue reading Islington, North London
My wife thinks this works better as a color image, while I tend to lean towards the Art Deco approach. Of course, she has multiple advanced degrees, and I’m just a simple flight engineer with a taste for Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Henry Miller…
Paris at night. There is nothing like it in the world. For this pic, I propped the camera on the hand rail of a bridge and set it for timed exposure. In Lightroom I edited out the light pollution and mist from the rain for decent night shot. Light pollution is a huge problem in many built up areas and sometimes you have to go the extra mile to get the shot to where you want it.
We rented an apartment in a castle in South West England. Thornbury Castle has been around since the 11th century in one form or another. After a pleasant night in one of the nicest bedrooms in the Western World, we explored the surrounding ruins of the castle. This scene here appears to be from one of the gate houses that serviced the western entrance of the grounds. It needed more than a little bit of cleaning up, but it serves as a great image Continue reading Southern England
Right place with the wrong lens. I had just managed to arrive at Buckingham when the changing of the guard was taking place. I had on a rather slow telephoto and was in auto when I fired off my camera several times hoping one would be useful. According to the meta data, I got off lucky. Shutter speed 1/200th at 55mm with a 7.1 aperture and an ISO at 200.
Other than some minor cropping of the right side, this was all in camera.
During a week in Paris, I was subject to two kinds of weather; beautiful and raining. The beautiful days were the day I arrived, still punch drunk from jet lag, and the last day as I went through security screening. The rest of the time it was cold and raining. Continue reading The River Seine, Paris
Seeing Stonehenge is an impossible experience. I had visited the United Kingdom in 1973, taking pictures with a Kodak 110 pocket camera. Those pictures are lost to me now, but on my last trip to London, My wife and I made a point of going to Salisbury. We left early in the morning to avoid traffic and made it to the site at about 8 am local, only to find it was closed until 9 am…. it’s in the middle of the Salisbury plain, out in the open… how can it be closed? I thought this, but didn’t utter the words; I worry about becoming the ugly American when traveling abroad. Continue reading Stonehenge, Salisbury England
Centre Pompidou is to pop culture what the Louvre is to classical art. There is a lot of cutting edge and, for lack of a better word, flamboyant, modern pieces to be seen. As a whole the Parisians are a very expressive people, sometime to the detriment of their cities appearance and landscape. Still all in all, I love Paris and its citizens. Continue reading Centre Pompidou
A rainy day in Paris is not conductive to color photography, but you make the best of what you have. I found this scene on the path outside of Les Invalides. I knew immediately this was a black and white shot, classic composition, but that it was going to a be a bit tough getting the tonal range right. I think I achieved just the right amount of contrast, but I toy now and again with this shot, trying to find that sweet spot.
Here is something I always tell people about the Eiffel Tower; no matter how big you imagine it is, it is always bigger when you stand under it.
The Digital Lens 