Blog
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Doortraits of Rome
You didn’t think that I wouldn’t get around to doors, did you? I enjoy photographing interesting doors anywhere, and Rome is no exception. The image above is typical of the warm, weathered look of streets in Rome. I love the colors and textures. The flower shop door, next, lacks the warm colors of the previous…
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Climbing the Basilica
Making images of architecture is always, at some level, trying to transform someone else’s art into your own, but this seems particularly true when the subject is the interior of St. Peter’s Basilica. On top of that, untold millions of people have been there with a camera before you. With landscape photography, you can always…
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Exterior Columns
A tidy row of columns lends itself to compositions that rely on symmetry. This week’s post is full of columns, but this is the only image that exploits it. It uses the converging parallels that come from looking upwards, too. I wish I had had my 14-24 zoom with me, because I think a little…
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Stairways of the Long-Dead Rich
My favorite quality of the image above is the subtle color contrast between the warm lighting on the stairway and balcony and the bluer light filtering down from a skylight overhead. The contrast gives the image much of its sense of depth. I tested this hypothesis by converting it to black and white; the result…
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Streetlights of Rome
I could have used this first image as a high-contrast entry in last week’s post, but it makes a good transition into this week’s theme: street lamps. For that matter, this next image would have worked, too: Moving beyond the simple silhouettes, this next image is fun. It’s a rather cluttered alley with all the…
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High-Contrast Rome
As promised, this week’s collection of images are much higher-contrast than last week’s: lots of deep shadows and silhouettes. The image above exploits the strong late-afternoon light raking across the face of the building., which accentuates the texture and adds long shadows cast from the smallest of protuberances. My favorite part, though, is the way…
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Roaming the Roads of Rome
Wandering around central Rome with a camera. It’s easy to get tired doing that, but not easy to get tired of doing that. There are fun things to find down every alley and around every corner, and there are a lot of both. The only real challenge is that Rome is somewhere being popular and…
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Windows and Staircases
Upon my arrival at Heathrow from Denver with my wife and son, we checked in to our hotel near Russell Square and walked over to the British Museum. As is my practice when I am in a more casual photographic mood, I just bring my 40mm lens because it is light and unobtrusive. (Let’s ignore…
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Wide-Angle Westminster
Last time I visited Westminster Abbey, I exclusively used my 24-120 zoom. This time I decided to go for wider views, and used the 14-24 zoom instead. Because Westminster Abbey is so heavily visited, unless you are standing right in front of something, any wide-angle view is going to have a lot of people in…
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Castles and Towers
There is a dearth of proper castles in the United States, so they are always fun places for me to visit in Europe. In the image above, the clock face provides a convenient reflective surface to give the composition a bright anchor point. The image below, of Dover Castle, uses a similar trick with the…