04-20-13 Dubrovnik Mosaic

2013 04-20 Dubrovnik Mosaic

Three Tourists and One Local

He has a gun, a big hat, a red uniform and isn't smiling. The three girls have cameras and casual clothes. So guest who the tourists are.Incidentally, I'm not sure if the soldier is a Beefeater or not. I also don't know what he's guarding. Perhaps an important door? Or maybe he's just a tourist attraction. Kind of like the giant tortoises at Reptile Gardens?

02-02-10 Another World

This is yet another photo from the Plitvice Lakes. I am standing on the shore shooting down. The clear, blue water is not fancy Photoshop work - it is the amazing work of Nature.

02-01-10 Running Water

This is one of the many waterfalls at the Plitvice Lakes in Croatia. I had no tripod for the shots I took in this beautiful location so the water isn't quite as blurry as I'd like. The striking feature of the the Plitivice Lakes is the amazingly blue and clear water that flows through the park.

07-17-09 Centraal Station - Amsterdam

Scott P and I were waiting to catch the morning train to Paris. As busy as this train station is, I was struck by the peacefulness at the moment I took this photo. As I look at the picture, I am also drawn to the fact that the golden morning sunlight streaming in the windows echoes the golden color of the trains. I didn't see this when I took the picture. What I saw were all of the lines and curves and if you go back and look at my architectural photos, it's clear that I have a penchant for lines and curves.

04-25-09 Lakeside Path - Croatia

One of the more photogenic places I have been in Europe is a national park in Croatia called Plitvice Lakes. This park consists of 16 lakes of various sizes connected by cascading waterfalls. Because of the high calcium content of the water in the lakes, the lake bottoms are milky white and the water is a milky blue-green.

In this photo one of the many winding paths leads through a tunnel of trees along the shoreline of one of the lakes . My friend and I started our park tour very early and we almost had the park to ourselves. Two hours later, the paths were crawling with tourists and, as I've thought before, I felt that Europe would be a lot more pleasant if it weren't for the tourists. But wait! I'm a tourist, too, aren't I?

Canon 5D 1/50s f/4.0 ISO500 105mm

03-26-09 A View West from the Arc de Triomphe

I was in Paris with a student group in 2007 and we had made our way to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. We had timed our visit for this time of the evening - when the sun sets and the lights of Paris come alive. There are so many views and so many things to photograph but this view caught my attention.

In this photo I am looking west along the Avenue de la Grande Armee. In the distance is the ultra modern la Defense high rise complex, which is dominated by the stark, white arch known as the Grande Arche de la Defense. There are three famous arches in Paris which line up along what is known as the Axe historique: the Arc Du Carrousel (near the Louvre), the Arc de Triomphe and the Grand Arche de la Defense. Two of the arches were built by Napoleon and one was built by Mitterand.

Compare this to "Chicago Skyline."

Canon 5D f/1.8 1/100 Canon 50mm 1.4 ISO 320

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License