Category: Weekly Blog
-
Reflections on Bruges
Since the Chunnel train was late and the sun sets very early in Belgium in December, our first big photographic outing in Bruges was the morning after our arrival: a boat ride through the city’s canals. Even though the boat was moving rather slowly by objective standards, from a photographic standpoint, the compositions were passing…
-
Damme Town!
After a long walk along the canals, we reached the little town of Damme proper. There were quite a few nice doors decorated for Christmas, but since we are now in the back half of February, I decided to forgo showing any Belgian holiday decorations. The image above was a little bit of a surprise…
-
Damme Canals!
We now turn to the last phase of our 2024 European adventure—Belgium—which was organized around a Light & Land trip to Bruges. (Here is a link to the 2025 installment of this same trip, in case you are interested.) I’ll show pictures of Bruges proper in a few weeks, but this week and next will…
-
London Trees
Since our London hotel was in South Kensington, we walked the length of Hyde Park and St James’s Park (which run east-west and touch corner-to-corner) several times to reach Westminster Abbey and the surrounding area. There are a lot nice trees along this route, and four of this week’s images are from Hyde Park alone.…
-
London Streets
We did a lot of walking in London, frequently over 8 miles a day. During these walks, I would grab lots of quick compositions along the way. Since I was working quickly, not everything turned out the way I wanted, but I ended up with plenty of images that I am happy with. (Some of…
-
Cathedrals and Such—Part Two
This week’s post continues last week’s topic of ecclesiastical buildings, but using examples from London. The image above, from St. Paul’s Cathedral, takes the same zenithal approach as last week’s opening image of the York Minster Chapter House dome. Domes obviously lend themselves to this maximal-symmetry composition, so images like this have a lot more…
-
Cathedrals and Such—Part One
I mentioned last week that I was going to do a separate post on church interiors, but it became clear to me that I had too many images for a single post and thought it best to split them up. This week includes views from inside York Minster (York) and King’s College Chapel (Cambridge); next…
-
Thanksgiving in Cambridge
It is somewhat ironic to spend the Thanksgiving holiday in England when, at some level, Thanksgiving is a celebration of having survived escaping England in the first place. But we had a wonderful day with my friends Rob and Shirley, who kindly met us in Cambridge and showed us around. My phone tallied the day…
-
Stairing in Notting Hill
Our hotel in London was only a mile or two from Notting Hill, so one afternoon I spent a couple hours wandering the streets enjoying the architecture. It was a dreary day, but the resulting soft light was perfect for doors and windows and such, which are obviously a favored subject of mine whether they…
-
Christmas Lights in London
Thanksgiving is an American holiday, not an English one, so I am not sure what serves as the starting gun for Christmas decoration deployment in London, but they were definitely ready to go with at least a month to spare. Along with lots of other decorations, there were an abundance of beautifully decorated trees. While…