Day 26 - Through the Château Windows

The trouble with tourist hot sports like Château de Chenonceau is that if you go inside, so did a lot of other people. With crowds like that it's very hard to get a clean shot of the pretty interiors, and even if you do manage to get one, you seldom have time to compose them in an optional way. As I was wandering though the many lovely rooms of the chateau I thought I had managed to get a few really good shots, but as I looked though them on my computer at home I cringed at some of the mistakes I had made, like cutting off the top of a statue's head or not noticing a busy background element. It's much harder to get great photos on the go in a chaotic environment... I wish I could have gone there all alone with my camera, like I had the good fortune of doing in Cathédrale Notre-Dame d'Amiens. My best shots of the chateau are of small details, like this one.

/MrsHjort

Day 21 and 22 - Château de Chenonceau

Now it's time for the next gorgeous fairy tale chateau, situated in the Loire valley by the Cher River. Château de Chenonceau is one of the best known of the valley, and it's not surprising - it really is unique, as you'll see. It was built between 1514-1522 on the foundations of an old mill and later it was built to expand over the river - the castle is literally built on a bridge, which makes me think of a certain place in Game of Thrones. Who knows, maybe this is where George R.R. Martin got his inspiration from? It's certainly a place that sparks imagination and it has an other worldly feeling to is.

I don't have to tell you what a joy it was to walk around with a camera here. The chateau is absolutely stunning! The sky and the lighting really cooperated too, making it even more fun. We stayed here, exploring the castle and it's grounds, for the larger part of the day. As the sun crossed the sky I was lucky enough to catch it lit from different angles. This place really is hobby photographer's dream.

/MrsHjort

Day 12 - Altar, Organ, Spaciousness

I thought I was finished with the shots from Cathédrale Notre-Dame d'Amiens, but I was not. These last ones just had to be added into the challenge. The first, because I love how it shows just how grand the cathedral is inside- and I like how the architectural shapes repeat in foreground and background. To wander inside this fantastic building in the morning in complete silence really was something I'll never forget and this image really reminds me of what it felt like being there... the experience of being almost alone inside this wonder was extraordinary.

The second shot is for Bob, who remarked that the organ in a shot from a cathedral Rome in this post was outmaneuvered by another compositional element. I couldn't help but think about you as I shot this, Bob :). Maybe the window steals the show a bit in this one... but I like to think that it shows off the organ as well. We didn't hear it play when we were in the cathedral, but it sure looks beautiful, and it's very tasteful how the inner decor works together.

I hope you like this one Bob :)

The third is quite similar to the first shot I showed you of the inside, but it's taken from a bit further in and I like this shot's composition better (and you can see the altar better), though the other one shows off the the spaciousness of the cathedral well, just like the top shot of today. Either way, I like this one too much to leave it out, so it became a bonus shot. not that I'm sure which ones are bonus shots and which ones are the official ones... just like a proud mother I like them all ;)

/MrsHjort

Day 10 - Details, Details, Details

The top picture shows some of the wonderful artworks inside Cathédrale Notre-Dame d'Amiens. In terms of color the interior not as lavish as the churches in Rome, but nonetheless beautiful (although I noticed one of the motifs are a bit morbid). There are so many wonderful aspects to this cathedral it's a marvel to work with as a (in my case, hobby) photographer - so many interesting viewpoints and ways to work with perspective. I found this spot especially interesting because of how the Gothic arches work together in both the foreground and the background, and in the art as well.

The bottom picture is from one of the chapels that have yet to be renovated. As you can see it has seen better days but I though it charming nonetheless. I have a sore spot for old faded things and don't mind flaking color or worn wallpaper, in the right environment that is, and this is one of those places. It was interesting to contrast it to the other areas of the cathedral.

/MrsHjort

Day 7 - Cathédrale Notre-Dame d'Amiens

Did you know that Paris is not the only city to have a Cathedral named Notre-Dame? I didn't, until I started to look for places to stop on our road-trip. They're quite similar looking too, but this one is actually larger! And wow, was it worth a stop! It is magnificent! Not only on the outside, but on the inside as well. So, if you're in the mood for Notre Dame, and don't want to wait until the one in Paris is restored, I highly recommend going here to see this one. It's less crowded too ;).

Cathédrale Notre-Dame d'Amiens was built between 1220 and 1270, and it has been on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites since 1981. The stained glass has mostly been changed out since it's construction, but it has been beautifully done, so if you don't have a trained eye, you really wont be able to tell. It's a almost a miracle that the cathedral is in such great shape really - there was heavy fighting around the city in both World Wars I and II and many of the surrounding buildings were destroyed.

As you can see, this image if the result of stitching two shots together - I couldn't get the whole cathedral into my viewfinder the way I wanted it, so I thought I'd try merging instead. It's the first time I've attempted to do this sort of thing. Or well, I've done similar stuff, but I've never attempted to make the result look seamless before. It took me some time to figure things out and I tried a verity of methods to merge the photos together before I was satisfied enough to actually start doing the stuff I do to make things look prettier. I actually have a third shot as well - that is in the middle of the other two - but since the top and the bottom ones overlapped I though it'd be simpler to just merge the two of them. It was complicated enough as it was without adding a third one, and I haven't spent that much time on a singe image in a very long time. There are still some tiny distortions that annoy me, but you have to quit at some point. :)

/MrsHjort

Day 3 - Grote Markt

I promised to show you the view from the Martinikerk yesterday, and this is my favorite picture from up the clock tower. It's of the square called Grote Markt. I really like the architecture. I have always adored the older styles and I love to look at the variants of the countries I visit. Did you know that the reason why many buildings are so narrow in the Netherlands is because of the tax system that was used? You see, they taxed the buildings depending on how wide they were on the side facing the street, so building narrower houses was more economic. It turned out quite charming too - I they they're beautiful! Especially that tiny red facade in the middle :).

/MrsHjort

Day 61 - Basilica di Santa Francesca Romana

The Santa Francesca Romana, an 8th century church, lies right next to the Roman Forum, not far from the Colosseum. According to legend both St. Peter and St. Paul prayed at the site where the church was built in order to challenge a man called Simon Magnus, who thought that his "pagan powers" were greater than those of the apostles. It is said that Simon levitated in front of them, but as the apostles prayed for their god to demonstrate his might Simon fell down dying. It is also said that the stones the apostles knelt on as they prayed are embedded in the church's south wall.

/MrsHjort

Day 60 - Artsy Parodies

Back in day 1, I showed you a picture of me staring into the distance in front of the Vatican. As I explained, it was a shot that was poking fun at me, and today I'll show you Mr's version. He was a bit confused when I got down on my knees - "You're doing what? Why? Really? And you think that will work? Okay...". He didn't know if he could trust my vision, but I absolutely adore the shot, even though it's not meant to be a serious one.

The whole origin of the "deep, staring into the distance in front of a famous cultural spot" photo joke actually (sort of) originates from my time at the university. You see, we had this new relatively young lecturer who took himself just a tad (ok a lot) too seriously. He was our lecturer in English literature and he would just go on, and on, and on, and ooon about stuff that would take anybody else half a minute to explain. I once (unknowingly) "hijacked" part of one of his lectures by going through the ins and outs of a book we had read - symbolism and all that jazz - which left him without anything to add to the (rather thorough) 10 minute presentation that I made (he had asked me to do it as a part of the mandatory course elements). He ended up ignoring the book in question entirely for the rest of the 3 hour lecture and explaining the other ones we had read to death instead (even more than he usually did)... Oh my... Needless to say, I used to be super bored during his lectures - "okay, I get it already! You don't have to use all the flowery words in the world to describe one concept", you know the type... The ones that make you hate a subject that would have been so much fun in somebody else's hands. It totally turned me off from reading and it took years to for me to enjoy books again. I still hate the idea of so called "fine literature" with a fiery passion. But I digress...

Anyway, all the professors and lecturers were listed on the uni's internet site, and his "official photo" was hilarious. Basically it was him, staring into the distance in front of a famous place in Paris, in black and white with a non-level horizon. Very different from all the other staff pictures - that were quite traditional. It was just like him, ridiculously pretentions in so many ways... and more of a rather embarrassing Facebook profile pic than a professional head shot. After I graduated, I once showed it to a colleague at the office where Mr and I work as we were talking about old uni stuff. She thought it was hilarious, so ever since then it has been our own little inside joke. Every time any of us travel to a famous place, we do a parody shot to poke fun at the concept (and ourselves).

/MrsHjort

Day 57 - Mix of Art

Despite being dedicated to Constantine I, Arco di Costantino incorporates decorative material from the time of the emperors Trajan (98–117), Hadrian (117–138) and Marcus Aurelius (161–180) making it a collage of sorts. Though the inscription certainly makes its point; "To the Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantinus, the greatest, pious, and blessed Augustus: because he, inspired by the divine, and by the greatness of his mind, has delivered the state from the tyrant and all of his followers at the same time, with his army and just force of arms, the Senate and People of Rome have dedicated this arch, decorated with triumphs."

/MrsHjort

Day 56 - Arco di Costantino

This triumphal arch - Arco di Costantino - can also be found near the Palatine Hill, just like Circus Maximus. It's actually right by the Colosseum, but I wanted the arch to be the star of this shot, so I turned my back on the stadium and shot the arch from between the two. Arco di Costantino is the largest of its kind in Rome, 21 meters high. It commemorates Constantine I's victory over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 AD.

/MrsHjort

Day 55 - The Tranquility of the Roaring Past

These shots are also of Circus Maximus, but the top one is looking to its other end and the bottom is shot from... well the bottom, right in the middle of it between the racetracks. I don't imagine the old Romans would have thought that people would stroll this leisurely along it in the future. The spot is quite quiet nowadays, there are not even many tourists. It's a nice place to stop and catch your breath.

As you can see I've experimented a bit further with these shots than I usually do. If you've been following me, you know I don't enjoy editing shots from overcast days, but I'm trying my best to find interesting new ways to edit them. So this time I took on a bolder approach than I usually do and tried to use their colors differently, going for green and muting everything else a bit instead. I also added a soft tan treatment to the sky to give the shots a bit of a vintage feel. I bias of course, but I like them more this way, I hope you enjoy them too.

/MrsHjort

Day 48 - Arch Angel

This is the statue on the very top of Castel Sant'Angelo that reminds us of the legend that gave the fort its name (I wrote about it a few days ago, find the story here). Interestingly there have been several versions of the statue throughout the ages. This one, made out of bronze, is from the 1700s. The one before it was made out of marble and there were other versions before that one. At one time it was wooden! I can't imagine that version lasting very long though. In fact the statue has been replaces at least six times since the time of the fort's construction. I wonder how much they resembled each other...

/MrsHort

Day 35 and 36 - Water and Stone

These pictures are, as some of you might have figured already, from Piazza Navona, right outside the Church I've been showing you pictures of the last few days. Here you'll find yet another Roman obelisk, but it didn't make into my choice photos because of background problems - I'm very picky with what pictures I keep and even more picky with the ones I choose to edit. That's the way you get, for bad or worse, when you've been an eager aspiring hobby photographer for... has it been seven years already!? Wow, where did the time go... Being picky is both great and not so great. It's great because it keeps you on your toes and makes you think about your shots in a way that makes you a better photographer, but it's not so great because you loose that spontaneous element of photography - the "point and shoot" without any preparation. So called snapshots really have their own charm and I like how they capture "real moments" rather than choreographed or planned ones, if that makes sense, but I digress.

Anyway, You'll find three fountains at this square and these are pictures of the largest of them - the Fountain of the Four Rivers by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It displays four river gods and represents the four continents to where the papal authority has spread by depicting famous rivers - the Nile (Africa), Danube (Europe), Ganges (Asia) and Rio de la Plata (South America).

I'm beginning to find my footing with the gloomy pictures I think. A comment from my favorite sarge got me thinking a bit, and I tried something that I haven't done before in the middle picture. This is where it all gets a bit nerdy, but it occurred to me that the flat look you get out of photos shot on overcast days can be overcome through selective editing. So, I faked things a bit and edited the statue and the background differently from each other when it came to color. In real life, the color of the stone fountain and the church in the background is much more similar, but I wanted the statue to stand out more, so I edited it accordingly. It's still a gloomy picture, but I like it a lot more with the faked interplay of foreground and background. It may not be entirely honest... but then most photos aren't. From mobile photo filters to "Photoshopping"... everybody likes to enhance their shots :)

/MrsHjort

Day 19 - Marble and Stone

Continuing on with the Vatican Museum theme, here is another example of what the interior looked like. I find rooms like these quite tasteful - discrete natural colors and nothing too excessive. I absolutely love the classical style and I also like the subtle differences in the colors of the stone. (We'll save some examples of "sensory overload rooms" for tomorrow). 

The statues in the museum are beautiful, but it was not easy getting a clean shot of them as there are a lot of visitors in the museum every day. This was one of the very few clean ones that I managed to get, and the one that I like the most personally. It was the angle he angle that caught my eye, and the lighting, though admittedly statues like these look great in just about any lighting. The interplay between background and foreground was interesting as well but I wish I had brought my 55-300 mm lens so that the background would have become a bit softer. That's the price you pay for convenience I guess, but I doubt that I would have been able to get the composition right with it, since it would have required me to stand farther away (I don't think there was room for that). Also there's the light issue. More zoom requires more light or you'll get a slight motion blur, so I guess it was for the best in the end... you can't have everything, and lugging around gear is not that practical in a museum like this where there are a lot of people - the smaller you are the easier it is to make your way through the crowds.

Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the top statues, but the bottom one is of Laocoön - a figure in Greek and Roman mythology - a Trojan priest who was attacked, with his two sons, by giant serpents sent by the gods. The statue is larger but I really like this close-up of only Laocoön. It makes you notice some really nice details like the veins in the arms and torso. The statue was made somewhere around 200 BC but it's likely a copy of a bronze original. In turn, this marble version may not be completely original, as it shows signs of heavy restoration. Nonetheless, it's
considered a masterwork.

/MrsHjort

Day 12 - Winged Victory

I had trouble finding facts about the statues on the roof of Altare della Patria beyond their names and who made them. This is Quadriga della Libertà by Paolo Bartolini and on the opposite side of the roof terrace you'll find its counterpart Quadriga dell'Unità by Carlo Fontana. The terrace itself is named for them - Terrazza delle Quadrighe. The statues were completed in 1911 - the 50th anniversary of unified Italia - but they were not placed on the monument's roof until the year of 1930. As you may have guessed, Quadriga has something to do with the number four - it's what you call a chariot pulled by four horses.

As I went up on the terrace, the first thing that hit me, smack in the eye, was of course the gorgeous view. The next thing was the wonderful camera angle you get of these statues, contrasted against the sky. But how to make the shot different and even more bold? Break one of the basic photography "rules" and shoot straight into the sun of course. So I went to a spot that placed the sun in a way that made it look like a halo over the angel's head, and then waited for the clouds to move into a nice looking position. I hoped for the best and thought I'd worry about the lens flare later. It turned out to be an easier fix than I thought though, and I actually only got one green hued circle (with a tiny yellow one inside it). A few tweaks and some cloning later, and I dare you to guess where it was ;).

/MrsHjort

Day 9 and 10 - Sant'Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso

Sorry, I missed a day there, but I'll make up for it with two shots today.

This is a basilica church called "Sant'Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso" or "San Carlo al Corso" for short. It's dedicated to two saints from Milan - St. Ambrose and St. Charles Borromeo. If you go back to my post on day two, you can actually see the dome in the picture of our view from the balcony of the suite where we stayed. It's the big one right in the middle of the picture. I didn't actually think about that until I researched it (I do that each day as I post these pictures).

Anyway, St Ambrose (c. 340–397) was the governor of Liguria and Emilia before he became a bishop and became one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the 4th century. He is considered one of the Latin Doctors of the Church and apparently he was a flexible fellow who wasn't rigid about religious customs; "[w]hen I am at Rome, I fast on a Saturday; when I am at Milan, I do not. Follow the custom of the church where you are.".

St. Charles Borromeo was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Milan from 1564 to 1584 and a cardinal. He had a leading role in the counter-reformation movement against the protestant reformation and was responsible for several significant resforms including the founding of seminaries for the education of priests.

To move the subject over to photography, I tend to find shooting places like these a bit challenging. There are the standard shots of course, but the ceilings... It's tricky to compose all those curved lines and circles. Not to mention the lighting... Thank goodness for Raw!

/MrsHjort

Day 6 - The Unexpected Obelisk

I admit, I'm no expert on Rome but I never expected to find a huge obelisk full of hieroglyphs, and I even less expected to find several of them spread over the city. This, apparently, is the obelisk of Ramses the second. It is the second oldest and the largest of the ones found in Rome. The obelisk was brought to Rome in 10 BC by order of Augustus and it was originally set up at Circus Maximus. The obelisk was lost at some point, but it was rediscovered in 1587. They then broke it into three pieces and re-erected it at Piazza del Popolo as part of the urban plan of pope Sixtus V.

I shot the obelisk from the sunny side at first - it was the viewpoint from where I came towards it - but immediately realized it would look much greater with a shadowy side visible to contrast a sunny one. I always love how the sun enhances outdoors shots. It brings out depth and colors so nicely. Some gloomy shots can be really nice though, but I've never really gotten comfortable taking them myself. I always find myself wishing for the sun to come out.

/MrsHjort

Day 16 - Mediterranean Morning

Day 9 - Daisy

Today is another hot day best spent in the shade. I parked myself in the middle of our lawn under a tree and snapped pictures from there. Usually I'm always shifting my position to find absolute best ange for a shot, but today it's simply too hot. Though, I have to say, confining yourself to one spot is kind of fun too - it forces you to search for new subjects in a whole new way. Also, working with a telephoto lens makes it all the more interesting because you get to search, not only in different directions, but in depth as well. Today was a fun :)

/MrsHjort

Day 18 - Jump!

Here comes another one of those cliché travelling shots. It seems where ever you go where there are cliffs, there are always people willing to jump off them. As we sat down to have our lunch people started chanting "Jump! Jump! Jump!" as this woman stood on the top of one of the cliffs. So out went the camera, and this is the result.

I'm never really happy with these shots when I see them in my computer. If I get the person mid-air, the drama seems lost to me, and if I get them splashing down I think it looks like just another splashy wave. This one is one of the better ones though, since it genuinely looks like she is falling and not just resting on the rock in a funny position haha. Plus, I got her against the darker spot in the rock which made her stand out more. Yey :)

/MrsHjort