Month: April 2016

architecture, art, culture, photography, street, travel, world

The new castle of Corfu Town

solaner

610_8837_wI guess, you might have expected this weeks topic, when being a regular reader of my blog. Last week I introduced you to the old castle, thus I focus on the new castle this week. Don’t get me wrong. Although, this castle is called the new one, it’s also old. But, it’s newer than the old one.

It’s located ‘behind’ the old town and above the harbor. So, the old town is located between two big, old castles. When walking up, to the castle, don’t forget to turn around. You will have a fantastic view over the old town and the old castle in the back. You also have a good sight overt harbor and the huge cruise ships.

There’s also a small entry fee for adults (minors are free). But, you can use the ticked as a voucher for a drink at the exit. We were up there in the late afternoon, when the setting sun was about to paint the old town golden. Unfortunately, there were lots of clouds that day and it was our last evening. So, there wasn’t a change to postpone the visit. But, after waiting a while I got the image of the old town in the right light. Pew!

Take care!

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art, culture

trying snapshat

solaner

snapcodeFinally, I created a snapchat account. Up to now, I don’t really have an idea, what to do with it. Only very few of my contacts use it. So, do you use snapchat? What do you do with snapchat? Drop me a line in the comments.

Here, I put my snapcode online. Add me, if you want to. I’m “terratux”, because the nick solaner was already taken.

I’m really curious, what will happen.

Same is true for Instagram. I’m solaner_ on Instagram. Looking forward to meet you 🙂

 

art, photography, technic

WPC: Abstract

solaner

600_3284-sc_wThis week’s topic for the weekly photo challenge by “The Daily Post” is “abstract”

Guess, what it is 🙂

Take care have a great weekend!

(as usual, you can see the photo enlarged, when clicking in it)

 

Update:

The answer is: it’s a kind of fan. The fan has a diameter of about 1,50m, that approximately 5 ft. It’s part of a huge turbine. Several layers of these turbine wheels are stacked one after another. In the image you can see the blades four of these wheels. In the foreground you can see another three of these wheels, but these are surrounds by a riveted metal bands.

I illuminated it with my speedlight, that was covered with a blue gel. The flash comes from the lower right side. Thus, each blade throws its shadow on the next blade, while the lights falls of to the background.

Thanks for taking part in the riddle and trying to guess the answer!

architecture, art, culture, photography, street, travel, world

The old castle of Corfu Town

solaner

 

610_7862-s_wI mentioned it before, Corfu town has two big old castles. One of them is way older than other. Today I want to show you some impressions from the older one. It’s very present in front of the old town. Departed by a moat from the Esplanade.

You have to pay an entrance fee, but in the evening (from about an hour before sunset) you can go inside for free. But, the museum and the chapel are closed now. You can go inside for free, because there is a restaurant inside the castle.

Although, it looks big from the outside, it seems to be much bigger, when standing inside. I don’t know, how many soldiers once were living here guarding the town and the whole island. Once, there were 4 castles around the island. We visited 3 of them: Angelocastro, the old castle of Corfu town (this one) and the new castle (next post). The high density of big castles for such a small island might give you an idea of the importance of this island for the Venetian Empire. Corfu was their main source of olive oil. In those times the people needed olive oil for many more purposes than simply for cooking. They made soap from the olive oil and used it for their lamps. It was a very important product.

Take care!

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art, landscape, photography, travel, world

Monochrome Madness 3-02

solaner

mmc02-600_1445-et_w

Another image from Iceland. It’s taken during my trip in summer 2014. Many more images are already here in my blog. You can find them by using the tag “Iceland“.

This waterfall is one of the favorite places I’ve seen in Iceland.

FF,1/5s f/16, ISO100, 135mm, developed with MacPhun Tonality Pro.

.Take care!

architecture, art, culture, photography, street, travel, world

The Esplanade

solaner

610_7786-e_wThere is a huge open space between the old town of Corfu Town and the ocean, called Esplanade. Here you can find access to one of the two castles, horse-drawn carriages, a parking ground and a big park. Inside the park, there are two interesting locations:
– Maitland’s Rotonda: this small ionic round temple is a memorial for the british Lord High Commissioner Sir Thomas Maitland (1816-24 in Corfu), who hast build a new water supply system for Corfu Town. It is located just above one of the new cisterns.
– a memorial with seven bronze reliefs for the union of the ionic islands with the greek main land back in 1864. Each of them represents on of the seven main island. Corfu is represented by the Phaiaken boat. I told you a bit about those people and their role in the story of Odysseus (sometimes calles Ulysses) in one of my past posts.

The place itself was created in the 17th century when Corfu was a part of the Venetian Empire for defending the island mor easily by having more room for using cannons. Today, it us used for more peaceful activities and as a meeting point for the locals. To the west, the place is limited by high residential buildings from the early 19th century. Some of these building have arcaded sidewalks called liston. Here you can find sidewalk cafés, restaurants and bars with tables outside waiting for tourists and locals.

Take care!

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art, landscape, photography, technic, travel, world

Monochrome Madness 3-01

solaner

Welcome to our third year of Monochrome Madness organized by Leanne Cole. Each week several photographers from all over the world send in monochrome images. You can see them all on Leannes web site. Mine is here 🙂

mm01-610_0420-edt_wI took this image in Norway last month. It’s a bridge going over a fjord. The bridge hast to be so high above the water to give enough room for the large ships to pass below the bridge securely.

 

Take care!

art, Computer, photography, postprocessing, software, technical

Creating a photo collage the easy way

solaner

cubacars2Earlier this week I published a collage containing my top 10 images from last years Monochrome Madness, an open competition with only monochrome images. I got a few questions, how I was able to create it.

As usual, there are several options to create such collages. Some of the options might be Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, GIMP* or  Scribus*. (* these apps are open source and available for free legally!) I uses something completely different: Collage Factory Free. This is the light version of a software specialized for creating collages. The light version does not have all features of the complete version. Thus you might call it CrippleWare! Despite this, it has enough features for me.

First of all, you select a template. You can always modify the collage by adding further images, delete place holder or re-arrange them. You can also change the size and the angel simply by clicking on one of the blue dots in the edges of a frame and pull it or click on the red dot above the frame and spin it around as long as you like it.

Next, you select your images and pull them in the free space on the left. From here, you distribute them manually with your mouse or click on one of the automatic buttons in the upper left area (“fill random” and so on) I usually distribute them on my own.

Now, you can add a text box, if you want to. You can use every installed font. The software goes you some effects to add, like shadow, border or fillings.

Not everyone like the default background. That’s ok! You can change it. the app comes with many different option for the background: simple colors, color gradients, patterns and background images. You can even chose your own image for the background.

The last step is choosing the image size for the final image ind jpg format. Here we have the strongest restrictions in the software. There are only very few sizes available in the free version. For me, it’s enough. But, decide on you own. Don’t forget to save the creation in the edible format of the app, too. So you can change parts later, if you don’t like your original creation. The file format is a structure, that contains even the selected image. So, you can even move the edible file i.e. to an external storage and won’t loose one of the used images.

I attached screenshots from the app of a complete workflow. I created a collage from my Cuba images.

If you try the software on your own, please let me know, if you like it and, maybe, you can publish your creations somewhere and leave me a link to it. I’d like to see your creations!

Enjoy!

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architecture, art, culture, photography, street, travel, world

Walking around in Corfu Town

solaner

610_7694-s_wToday’s post is a continuation of my post from last weeks. I want to show you some further impressions taken in the old town of Corfu Town. All the images in the gallery below are taken during several strolls though the streets and alleys.

I really recommend to take the time and leave the main alleys with the shops and walk around, just following your heard. This way you can find some hidden places.

Take care!

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art, photography, world

Monochrome Madness 2-52

solaner

mm52-600_2458-st_wMy contribution to this weeks Monochrome Madness organized by Leanne Cole is da detail from the pipes of a steel plant.

As for each first week of a month, we have a themed MMC. But, this time we have even two themes, because it’s also the second anniversary of Monochrome Madness. So, we have this week “close-up” and “2” as the theme.

Last year, we have had a gallery with all of the imaged published that first year of MMC and nominated the best one of these. This year I have 52 images and I assembled my top 10 images of this second year into a collage. As usually, you can click in the images to enlarge them.

mmc2015
top 10 of the second year of MMC

Take care!