Jan 142015
 

I took this photo looking down at Botafogo’s busy streets from my hotel balcony one night. I had to wait a while for Christ the Redeemer to show himself from behind the clouds.

I won’t be posting for just over a week as I’m going to London for meetings. First though, I’ve tacked on a long weekend to Marrakesh and will be making a return to Amsterdam once the meetings are finished. It’ll be my first time wandering around Amsterdam’s canals in winter.

view of christ the redeemer lit up at night from an elevated viewpoint in botafogo, Brazil

Apr 032012
 

Before writing about today’s post I’d just like to state that the roads around Toronto are bloody terrifying for an island boy used to driving on the left. I haven’t got a clue how anybody from out of town ever could have navigated the corkscrewing web of highways prior to GPS. I was using a TomTom and even it got confused. Just as we were reaching our destination it instructed me to keep right. Somewhat unsurprisingly this lane split off, with no warning or recourse, before the off ramp that the TomTom thought it was directing me to. Fortunately, the little machine successfully assessed the situation and plotted a new route.

That was at the end of my trip, this photo was at the beginning but the traffic reminded me of my return journey. I’ve had a bit of a whinge in a previous post about some of the difficulties I encountered on the night I arrived. My flight to New York was delayed and resulted in me missing my connection. I got there far too late to hit all the points I had planned. I decided on my way into the city that I’d concentrate on taking some skyline shots with the last remaining light. Then, the fog, the all enveloping fog that obscured the city from view.

It seemed unlikely that the viewpoints I first had in mind would be possible in these conditions. I could only see a couple of blocks in all directions. I resigned myself to doing some research with the plan to have a really successful morning, if the fog had receded. Then, I realized I was near one of the viewpoints I’d researched and decided to check it out.

I arrived on top of the Queen’s Quay Parking Garage, with a view of the Gardiner Expressway, Rogers Centre and the CN Tower. On this night the CN Tower was just a stem, disappearing into the clouds, but, then the fog became my ally. The purple lights of Rogers Centre glowed in the fog and buildings faded in and out as traffic flowed into the city. Happily, I set up for my first successful photo in Toronto.

I keep mentioning my pre-planned view points of Toronto. I had discovered these points the day before I left for Toronto on the following site:

http://www.blogto.com/toronto/lists/the_top_views_of_toronto/

I processed this photo as usual but then brought back the shadows as I felt that the HDR process had actually pulled out features i couldn’t see (or didn’t notice) at the time. The photo felt more natural with darker shadows.

View of the Gardiner Expressway, Rogers Center and the CN Tower in Toronto from the top of the Queen’s Quay Parking Garage with the purple lights of Rogers Center glowing in the fog and traffic flowing into the city.

 

 

Mar 202012
 

Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge is quite a hectic experience – in a good way. There are loads of people walking across the bridge on what is a relatively narrow pathway considering that one half is reserved for bicycles – and people fly across the bridge on their bikes. Heaven forbid you should accidentally stray into the biker lane. This happened quite regularly and the bikers’ responses ranged from frantically ringing bells to comedic outbursts of rage.

Looking over the edge I noticed the scene was much calmer and snapped a shot of this car on it’s way home. The peace didn’t last long as this road was soon swarmed with commuters once again.

I felt like the lone car gave this photo a bit of an apocalyptic feel – like it was being driven by the survivors of a zombie invasion.

View from the Brooklyn Bridge of a lone car on the road giving an apocalyptic feel.

Jan 312012
 

On my last night in Prague, nearing the end of my five-hour stroll,  I decided to make my way to Charles Bridge from the Old Town Square. I didn’t want to take the same route I had in the past and took off in what I was sure was the general direction of the river. Luckily, I was right. On the way there, I stumbled across this building and a very busy intersection in front of it. At the time I had no idea what the building was, but decided I definitely had to stop and take a photo. As I stood there shielding my camera from all the foot traffic, it was situated about a foot off the ground, the van driving politician cruised through with his music still blaring.

Since getting back home, Google Maps has informed me that this is the Czech Philharmonic at Rudolfinum, which I think is a great name for a building.

Czech Philharmonic at Rudolfinum in Prague at night with lights and cobblestones.