A seventeen-entry photographic journal of my trip to Europe late in 2024.
-
Views of York Minster
My wife and I just returned from two and a half weeks in Europe, so for the next month or two I will be featuring photographs from that trip. Our trip began in York, England, where we had three full days. Well, we would have, except the weather was so hideous the first day that… continue reading
-
York and Yule
Two of York’s big draws are York Minster and The Shambles. York Minster was the focus of last week’s post, but I’m not sure that I have enough worthwhile images of The Shambles’ narrow streets and snickelways (super-narrow alleys and passages) to warrant an entire post. But here’s a few, just to convey a taste… continue reading
-
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… continue reading
-
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… continue reading
-
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… continue reading
-
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… continue reading
-
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… continue reading
-
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… continue reading
-
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.… continue reading
-
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… continue reading
-
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… continue reading
-
Brugesycles
When I go through my catalog of images of a place like Bruges, I try to find a few unifying themes that would make good blog posts. While I don’t set out looking for specific things when set out with the camera, I can usually find coherent groupings of images after the fact. So, last… continue reading
-
A Bolder Bruges
Bruges has a lot of brick walls. Most are unpainted. Of the ones that are painted, most are in muted colors either due to intent or age. When there are bolder colors, they are usually on the doors and window shutters. All of this is admittedly a generalization, but the bolder colors usually caught my… continue reading
-
Bruges at Night
Part of the fun of exploring Bruges in the run-up to Christmas is all the lights and light-shows scattered around the city center. Since recapping Christmas decorations isn’t something that is going to appeal to anyone in late March, I chose pictures for this post that, by and large, aren’t overtly Christmasy. In the image… continue reading
-
Snippets of Bruges
I was bound to have a post that was largely isolated windows, doors, and drainpipes, wasn’t I? Well, this is the Bruges Edition of exactly that. These first two images, above and below, are obviously of the same building. For whatever reason I did not take an image of the door and the window together—it… continue reading
-
Bye-bye to Bruges
My time in Belgium was very short: only two full days, plus a few hours on either end. But in a city setting where I am always on foot, I can take a lot of pictures. In this case, about 1,200 in Bruges and a few hundred more around Damme. Even though the weather was… continue reading