Daily Image - February 2020 Archive

26 Feb 20 Our window of opportunity that allowed for the photo of the cellist also allowed for a photo of the music hall in which he played. The statue of the cellist was apparently not originally located where we photographed it but was moved there after his death at the request of his widow as that was where he wanted it to be located. If you were to draw a line parallel to the front surface of the brown block upon which he sits (look at yesterday's photo), it would take you to the corner of the Harpa Music Hall. Originally named the Reykjavík Concert Hall and Conference Centre, a part of what was to be called The World Trade Centre of Iceland, it was renamed on the Day of Icelandic Music on 11 December 2009. The all glass building was designed to look like the basalt columns seen all over Iceland and won the European Union’s Mies van der Rohe award for contemporary architecture. After taking the photos we made it about a block further down the waterfront before the rains and wind returned. So we made our way back to our cave to settle in for the night unaware of what was in store for the evening. Remember, this was an adventure more than a photo tour. Later that evening, our inner workings suggesting it was time to refuel, we made our way to the dining area and had a simple but delightful meal. Finished, we waited for our waiter to present us with the damages but he never reappeared. After perhaps 20 minutes of no contact we took the matter into our own hands and made our way to the maitre d's stand and offered to pay for our meal. The individual standing there informed us that he was not such and that he too was a patron of the hotel. More so, he introduced himself as the owner, and not only the owner of that hotel, but the owner of 8 others in Iceland. He gave us a nice tour of the facility including a thoroughly detailed history for us which was quite interesting. Educational session complete, we parted for the evening but that was not to be the last we would see of him. The image has been somewhat altered to correct some of the distortion imparted by not having a sufficiently wide enough lens to take it all in without distortion. I had an equivalent 24 mm when a 14 mm would have been appropriate or a 35mm perspective control neither of which I had available. I also gave it a bit of contrast improvement to better show the simulated basalt (glass) columns. Harpa Music Hall Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 800; 1/2000 sec @ f / 9.

25 Feb 20 The adventure that I was to embark upon began on the way to the airport. As we approached the freeway the weather began to change and went from rain to snow to sleet to snow and then a mixing of all three. Little did I realize at the time that this was a harbinger of what was to lie ahead. The airport experience at SeaTac was better than I have ever experienced in the last several years but that ended abruptly upon entering the aircraft. While I've been on aircraft that featured tight seating in the past, nothing prior was quite like flying on Icelandic Air. Normally sardines are packed in oil to give them a little protection from abrasion, but Icelandic Air provided no such relief. Cabin temps were close to 80°F and the lack of food service notable although during the eight hour shipping they did offer two beverage services. Shortly after reaching Greenland I noticed some interesting activity in the sky whereupon the Captain announced that there was a nice showing of the Northern Lights taking place. Surprisingly the lights were white and it wasn't until several days later when I learned that the two prominent colors for the lights are green and white. My two fellow sardines had their seat back displays fully lit and when I told them what was happening in hopes they would turn them off so we could enjoy the show they simple said "oh" and continued watching whatever was apparently of far greater interest that seeing the Northern Lights. The reflection of their screens, in addition to the interference of dark adaption, for the most part obliterated any opportunity to enjoy the approximate 90 minute light show outside. So we pressed on landing safely at zero dark thirty in Keflavik in a mild showering of snow which had turned to a very cold rain by the time we got to our room. The next three days were spent recovering from jet lag and dodging the rain to see some of Reykjavik. We had activities planned for us but we either were too tired to do them or they were cancelled for weather. We did however do our best to see some nearby sections of the city and some of the waterfront area was most interesting. A few blocks from our hotel was the Symphony House, a very beautiful glass building with a view of the ocean and mountains. The approach to it included a couple of small shallow artsy reflection ponds one of which featured a cello player sans bow and strings. That caught my eye and I took a few snaps of it between rain squalls, the current one being visible behind the cellist; one of those snaps is today's offering. I would identify the mountains in the background but I'm awaiting a NatGeo map that will provide such; once in hand I'll be better able to identify locations for you. Other than a small amount of straightening, cropping and contrast enhancement, this is what the camera saw. Symphony Approach Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 800; 1/3200 sec @ f / 9.

27 Feb 20 As I may have been unclear when describing the Music Hall as being made entirely of glass I was just referring to the exterior and some of the interior artwork. Sorry for the confusion. There are many lovely buildings in the city of Reykjavik, lots of them hotels, but the most significant secular building was for me the Harpa Music Hall while the no contest most impressive structure in the city would have to be the Hallgrimskirkja Lutheran Church. I would encourage you all to check out the link. Having spent the better part of an afternoon walking around the city in intermittent rain and wind still recovering from the 8 hour jet lag, we made our way to the top of the city to visit the church for a chance to see some blue clouds. The exterior is designed, like the exterior of the Harpa Music Hall, to represent the basalt columns formed by cooling lava. This structure however is not made of glass. The exterior design is quite striking and you can see it from most of the city sitting atop a hill as it does. Other than the basalt looking columns, it's exterior is not all that exciting. But like many European churches, the exterior can be deceiving and this church is no exception. Once inside your eyes will be treated to a wealth of simple splendor. Lacking a tripod I wasn't able to get any interior photos with the camera, so I fell back on using the cell phone which proved to be a disaster. So I can't share with you the interior, but some of it is available to you via the link above and if you are curious I know there will be more available on the web. While we were visiting we noticed an announcement for a free concert celebrating 40 years of song and thought we should take it in. Sadly, by concert time we had decided we were just to pooped to go back there and that was a big mistake. Had I done a better job of learning about Hallgrimskirkja before departing we would have gone no matter. There is access to the bell tower that give a spectacular view of the city but we missed that as well; $1 for kids, $10 for adults. Next trip I'll fix all this. As some of you may already know, Lutheranism is the state religion and we saw many Lutheran churches during our travels, even worshiped in one in Akureyri three days later. Other than a wee bit of straightening, a bit of contrast enhancement, and some dodging and burning, this is what we saw. Hallgrimskirkja Church Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture priority; ISO 800; 1/640 sec @ f / 9.

28 Feb 20 It being macro/close-up Friday I thought I'd go with a close-up of something from the trip. While visiting a major waterfall, Seljalandsfoss to be specific, one in which you can walk behind the falling water and shoot through it to the surrounding landscape, that is, in the summer, I elected to do a little meandering while berating myself for having made a major faux pas with respect to a camera setting and lost several dozen shots that required an attempt at replacing. As I wandered I came upon another small waterfall whose outflow formed a small stream that passed under the path upon which I trod. Never one to pass up an opportunity no matter how trivial, I took a few moments to look carefully at the stream banks where I noticed some vegetation encrusted with ice. That led to a more detailed scrutiny of the area which, not surprisingly, unlocked a myriad of photographic opportunities. So while the group spent their time working over the waterfall, that is until I informed several folks of my find, I took about a half hour photographing the small stuff which will not come as a surprise to many of you on this mailing. Today's close-up is one among my favorites from that effort. If you look closely you can see the small water drops from the melting ice caps. Hope this doesn't upset Greta. This is straight from the camera sans a tiny amount of cropping, dodging & burning, and contrast enhancement. Melting Almost-Arctic Icecaps Nikon D500; 18 - 200; Aperture Priority; ISO 400; 1/250 sec @ f / 9.

24 Feb 20 So here we go. Back from an adventure traveling some 7,500 miles, covering 18 days, and the recording in excess of some 8,000+ images and a couple dozen videos. With the weather being as I described earlier, which I'll restate as being not exactly prime, I elected to take the monkeys at typewriters hoping to write all of Shakespeare's tomes approach, as patently absurd as that idea is, and shoot as many frames as possible in hopes that I'd get a few usable frames. As always I shot in RAW in hopes of expanding the potential of maximizing my opportunities. I spent some time today carefully reviewing what I got and the RAW approach saved my bacon. The goal of this trip was the same as the advertisement for it, that is, to maximize the opportunities of shooting the Northern Lights. As fate would have it they were out just one night during our 18 days and then so faint that they were not visible with the naked eye. Out tour guide was a very capable one - more about him in another mailing - and he could tell when they were out so we did get in one short shooting of 90 minutes to try our hand at capturing them. Ironically they were fully out over the weekend two days after our departure. So we'll start the next 30 days or so of images from Iceland with a shot of the Aurora borealis such as it was on that sole evening. It's not anything great, and the failure to get to see the lights was a real bummer in that seeing and recording them was the sole reason for the trip! That said, I guess the only thing to do with lemons is to make lemonade so that's what I've tried to do. The 18 days were truly an adventure and I'll do my best to share it with you via many stores supplemented with photos. The forecast was for a potentially good display the night we got our shots, but it wasn't; we never saw them, but the cameras did. This means we walked single file like elephants in the B & B circus until we were all positioned in a line along the side of a road. While we were shooting in total darkness a car approached with its headlights on. This should have ruined our photos but as it turned out the light from the vehicle lit up the mountains in front of us giving a nice look that otherwise wouldn't have been available. With no visible light available, we had to shoot wide open, with a 30 second +/- exposure employing a very high ISO. We all started at 1600 but that was insufficient and had to adjust upward until we got a decent exposure. In my case I had to use 3200 which was a full stop increase resulting in significant noise but software came to the rescue rendering the shot marginally useful. This is straight from the camera but with software employed to remove the noise from the high ISO. With Help Nikon D500; 10 - 20; Aperture Priority; ISO 3200; 30 sec @ f / 4.76.