What’s a Talus Cave? Am I making up a whole new type of cave for my enjoyment? No, I am not. This is a unique cave made by boulders falling into a deep canyon, leaving an open space below. People walk through this cave, and under boulders hanging above your head, for fun. Also bats live in these caves. Good times.
Even the zombies are coming out to roam the neighborhood this Halloween!
We only spent a short time in Porto, so I wanted to make the most of it. One night I crossed the bridge and made it to the top of the hill after sundown for a panoramic shot of the entire city. You can see it all here, from the oldest parts of town to the near side of the river which is busy with port tasting all day. What you can also see, if you look very closely, are my friends enjoying a lovely meal on the far side of the river. I assumed everything in Europe was open until very late, but by the time I made it down to the restaurants everything was closed. I didn’t get a good dinner, but I got this photo!
I like taking photos during the day, but I especially like taking photos at night. There are fewer people around and long exposure photos have a completely different look. On this night I was in the right place at the right time, and was also lugging my tripod around as usual. I worked quickly as a big street sweeper only waited about 30 seconds for me to do my business before almost literally brushing me aside!
There seems to be a bit of excitement around London the last few days, so I dug one of my shots of the city out of the archive and processed it. Night photos like this always take awhile to setup, and this one was no exception as I had to wait for a group of friends to sort out their way home while teetering on the top of these steps. Ultimately they make a good decision to take the tube instead of driving, and more importantly they get out of my shot!
The sweeping curve of the buildings on this street is unique on its own, but the traffic zooming by at night is what really makes it come to life. I wasn’t actually trying to catch this bus, but the driver thought I was for a minute until she saw the camera setup and happily drove by to give me the light trails I was looking for.
I spent a long time out in the dark to get this photo, but the good news is I had great company to make the time fly by! This isn’t the first time I’ve done star trails, but it is the first time I managed to get the North Star in the shot to make the movement look circular. In the end the wet feet and worrying about my camera ending up in the lake when I heard a big wave crash were all worth it.
Light and angles are two important parts of photography. For this shot I chose dusk for the light and wide for the angle to make a beautiful cathedral a little crazy and dramatic.
The crazy lights on this scary pumpkin head are enough to make you jump as you walk by. This was taken last year at the No Mercy Cemetery in Mountain View, as the No Mercy is no more. The people that put it on moved away so there weren’t any decorations on the lawn this year, but the previous years made it worth doing one more tribute.
Cathedrals are cool and all, but so are light trails from cars zooming by. The night was pretty quiet, but I still managed to get a few cars to drive by to light up the foreground.
