Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged emptiness, figure, interior, lines, loneliness, monochrome, shadow, silhouette, walk on April 20, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
“Gallery Ghost” : Tokyo, 18th March 2012
Another shot from inside the Tokyo National Art Centre.
I waited a long time for random folk to cross my sights for a decent capture, but I’m not really happy with it, to be honest…
See a larger version of this photograph here.
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged art, contrast, Japan, mask, monochrome, night, silhouette, statue, Tokyo on April 14, 2012 | 2 Comments »
“Statue Silhouette” : Tokyo, 17th March 2012
Another shot from the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building complex in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
In the absence of sunlight I opted to produce a silhouette, which worked very well against the pale sky, particularly after applying a filter to simulating night.
Click here for a larger version of this photograph.
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged church, city, clouds, Europe, outline, silhouette, sky, skyline, sun, sunset on March 30, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
“Sunset Silhouette” : Porto, 10th September 2011
When I took this photograph I didn’t think that it would turn out to be anything special, but now I come to process and publish it, it suddenly seems as though it’s one of my best. Strange how things sometimes turn out that way…
You can see a larger version of this photo here.
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged cathedral, church, Italy, Milan, roof, silhouette, spires, statues on February 26, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
“Saints and Spires” : Milan, Italy, 27th March 2011
I’ve been to Milan twice. The first time was about fifteen years ago in the company of a good friend of mine who had lived in Italy for a time and was going to show me around. This ‘showing around’ amounted to getting ripped off in a crappy touristy pizzeria, then drinking beer out of plastic cups in the mosquito-infested gardens of some great fortress or other. Not the greatest of impressions.
My next visit was an impromptu one a year ago. I had been based in Bologna and was nearing the end of a three-week trip to Italy. I’d planned on my final day being a trip out to Ravenna on the Adriatic coast, but as the morning dawned the weather looked dicey and I couldn’t face the prospect of a rainy day stuck in a small town with nothing to do.
At Bologna station I was very pleased to find that for a relatively modest fee I could get a high-speed train up to Milan in only an hour and a half, and even if the weather didn’t cooperate, it didn’t matter, since my goal was a prominent art museum.
When I got their, although it was cloudy and hazy, I couldn’t resist dropping by the extraordinary cathedral, which is quite jaw-dropping in its beauty. I wasn’t interested in going inside, though – my target was the roof. For a fee you could clamber up the stairs and find yourself on the marble-glad top of this enormous edifice, providing some remarkable views despite the poor weather.
A riot of hundreds of spires, statues, gargoyles and ornate stonework, it was worth the trip up to Milan just for this, let alone the excellent art museum I visited shortly afterwards.
I still don’t like Milan too much, especially when compared to Rome, Venice or Bologna, but this was a wonderful end to my holiday.
See a larger version of this photo here.
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged Japan, morning, photography, silhouette, snow, sun, sunrise, tree, winter on February 6, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
“Morning Winter Tree” : Hiroshima, 3rd February 2012
It was morning. It was winter. It was a tree. Not much else I can say about this one 
Check out a larger version of this photo here.
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged figures, monochrome, Portugal, silhouette, Sintra, tunnel on January 22, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
“Cave Dwellers” : Sintra, Portugal, 6th September
Well, they may look like a bunch of troglodytes ambling out of their cave, but actually this was somewhere in the bowels of one of the eccentric palaces constructed by the Portuguese royalty in the rural getaway of Sintra, near Lisbon.
A larger version of this image can be found here.
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged abstract, apartments, architecture, building, city, shadow, silhouette, twilight, urban on January 17, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
“Twilight Apartments” : Hiroshima, Japan, 14th January 2012
I braved the cold last Saturday to wander around the largely unfamiliar streets to the north of Hiroshima’s main train station, and came up with quite a few interesting shots.
There’s no magic in the subject of this photo – it’s just a block of flats, and not a particularly beautiful one at that, but the early evening light intensified the warm colour and threw out those amazingly sharp silhouettes and shadows that provide such amazing contrast.
I also got plenty of strange looks from passersby, though, which makes me a bit worried – what must people think when a guy with a ‘professional’ looking camera with a big lens is taking photos of seemingly ordinary residential buildings?
Check out a larger version of this photo here.
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged bridge, figure, grass, monochrome, mysterious, outline, railing, shadow, silhouette on January 1, 2012 | 2 Comments »
“Silhouette Self Portrait” : Hiroshima, Japan, 28th December 2011
First picture of the day for 2012. Yes, when your time zone is GMT +9 you get to experience these ‘important occasions’ way ahead of your family and friends back in Europe or America. Although any relatives in Australia or New Zealand are even quicker off the mark, of course.
Honestly, I have no idea why people commemorate New Year, birthdays, or any other ‘special’ days. It’s just totally arbitrary, random, and ultimately meaningless. Personally, I like to think that I can give people presents, contemplate the future or past, eat and drink too much and celebrate the joy of being alive any time, anywhere, as my mood takes me, and not at the behest of any calendar, religion, nation-state, or anyone else.
But that’s just me. Go ahead and enjoy yourself as and when you see fit!
And yes, that amorphous shape in the picture almost sporting a halo is indeed my good self.
Click here for a larger version of this image.
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged concrete, Hiroshima, industrial, Japan, shadow, silhouette, tree, urban on December 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
“Imprint of Life” : Hiroshima, Japan, 17th December 2011
A second image from last Saturday’s photo shoot out in the suburbs of Hiroshima following a monorail artery.
This silhouette of a small tree against the backdrop of a monolithic concrete support seems to be an apt symbol for urban Japan, in which nature has been virtually banished by the dictates of industry and the exchange of the wonders of nature for lives of convenience…
A larger version of this photo can be found here.
Posted in Photo of the Day, tagged "botanical garden", "close-up", flora, leaf, plant, silhouette, Strasbourg on November 23, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
“Translucent / Transcendent” : Strasbourg, France, 31st August 2011
I love botanical gardens and I always make a point of visiting them when I’m back in Europe because they provide me with a quick fix of concentrated nature to counteract the sterility and ugliness of urban Japan.
They also provide a lot of photo opportunities too, if you look hard enough, and Strasbourg’s, near the university, was no exception.
This humble leaf of a fairly unexceptional and comparatively unattractive plant suddenly caught my eye as the sun shone behind it, illuminating its structure and transcending it into an object of natural beauty.
You can, as usual, see a larger version of this image here.
