“Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.” – Thomas Mann
Photos: click for larger sample
Experimenting with the 6x17 format
Regular 2x3 format
Experimenting with 4x5 format
Experimenting with 6x17 format
Failure to fall within the 6x17 format
Experimenting with 6x17 format
Regular 2x3 format
Regular 2x3 format
Back in August I sold one of my lenses to fund a new one and last week it finally arrived: the Zeiss 35mm F1.4 Distagon. The lens is quite special. Not bitingly sharp wide open and also not very contrasty. But from F2.8 onwards, this changes drastically. As such this lens has the attributes of a portrait lens (lower contrast at wide apertures is good for people’s faces) ánd a landscape lens at smaller apertures.
Included in this post are some samples.The first one is taken at a lake in Kessel-Lo, the others are from a short stay in Rixensart this weekend.
Handheld wide open landscape shot
Farmers' golf (?)
In the hotel
Wall painting
Unedited picture of me
Biting contrast and colors
Elements
Contrast and colors again
In 2003, Barry Schwartz wrote a book called The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. It provides an insight in the psychological effects of having too much choice and how utility diminishes if the number of options increases beyond a particular (personal) threshold.
It was this book I had on my mind when I was going through the first batch of pictures from my recent road trip. And yet, of all the pictures I took (well over 2500) and all the pictures Karolien took (almost 1000), I managed to select just over 500 for potential visitors to see. In writing the most important action is erasing, and in photography this wisdom seems to apply as well.
The most difficult task, however, is to select pictures for the blog. When I started blogging, I set myself a limit of 10 pictures, yet I frequently broke my own rule. Today I will try to confine myself to only 10 pictures (the rest can be seen on my Flickr page if desired). It seems that I liked Yellowstone the most.
As a special treat, all pictures can be clicked on for a larger than usual version. Landscapes need to be seen large to be appreciated.
The Rocky Mountains
On the road
Mount Rushmore
Badlands National Park
Yellowstone
Yellowstone
Quite the scene in Yellowstone
Yellowstone
Yellowstone
Delicate Arch, Arches NP
In the absence of sufficient introduction time, let’s pick up right where we left it our previous blog post: our trip to Yellowstone National Park. What an adventure! We were so thrilled the first time we saw a bison (which was actually on the road right after the Park’s entrance), and afterwards we saw maybe 50 more. In addition we spotted a grizzly bear and two black bears, one of which looked after a cub.
Yellowstone is the most impressive National Park we visited so far. And that includes our previous West Coast road trip as well. The sheer amount of wildlife combined with ever-changing sceneries made for many breathless moments.
This trip is also more adventurous as the last one. Things do go wrong and after driving through a pothole in the road, a front tire ran flat. I never changed a tire before, but fortunately a ranger pulled over and gave me instructions on how to do it. The spare tire we had in our trunk was a emergency-only tire, with a speed limit of 50 mph. We had to leave Yellowstone and went to Gardiner (Montana) to find a replacement. We had the tire repaired, payed only 20 dollars for it, and where back at the pothole, all in under 1.5 hours!
I do find sharing photos more difficult than before. Not only is it harder to assess the pictures on this laptop screen (instead of on the computer at home), but sharing too much will leave me with less stories to tell afterwards. I hope I found the correct balance, here.
Today we drive to Salt Lake City (Utah). We both look forward to see a city again.
Below you can find some pictures of Yellowstone NP.
Mammoth Hot Springs
Mammoth Hot Springs, again
Cloud factories, that are geyzers
Green vegetation
Old Faithful, moments before eruption
An erupting Old Faithful
Typical hot springs in Yellowstone
A geyzer in "constant eruption", I do wonder how that's possible
We landed in Denver on June the 2nd, after a layover in Newark. At the US customs clearance we got asked about our reason of visit and what we planned to see. “The Rocky Mountains?! Be prepared to be out of breath quite often at that altitude”, the officer said. I replied that we expected to be out of breath regardless of altitude, seeing that we are on our honeymoon.
And boy, have we been out of breath. With awe, people. With awe. Denver was a “cleaner” city than we anticipated. It seems it is recipient of a lot of new investments, leading to new and modern buildings and monuments. Of course we went to see the classics as well: the capitol hill building where we took a great tour, the convention center with the blue bear and the student union building. At the capitol hill we even saw the Colorado governor John Hickenlooper and I got my picture taken with him.
After our visit to the mile high city that is Denver, we drove to Grand Lake which forms the western gate to the Rocky Mountains. The normal way to go from Denver to the Rocky Mountains is via the east, but I read somewhere that the west entrance was more beautiful. After spending the night in Grand Lake (which has a nice lake), we were told at the Rocky Mountain entrance that the main road was closed due to a rockfall. That’s what happens in the Rockies. But this meant that instead of taking a relatively short scenic road to the other side of the park, we had to take a four hour detour around it. That’s what happens on road trips. We still made it and went to see some of the park that day.
The day after we rose early, planning to climb deer mountain in Rocky Mountain NP. At 7.15am we were hiking and around 9ish we enjoyed a view we worked hard for. The climb was made difficult because of the high altitude and its steep course. This was what the official at the customs clearance warned us about.
In spite of the name deer mountain, we never saw any deer on the mountain (we did see a lot of their feces, though). However, over our trip so far, we have seen plenty of animals: deer, elk, moose, a coyote, buffalo, a turtle, prairie dogs, a skunk and bighorn sheep. All in the wild.
Yesterday we went to visit Mount Rushmore and Badlands National Park. To be honest, we both had low expectations. Yet we were pleasantly surprised, especially by Mount Rushmore. What a great monument it is! We took an audio tour and it was fascinating to hear about the political economy of building such a monument. Most people there were American tourists and somehow I felt one of them. In Badlands we waited for the sunset, but cloudy weather denied us the soft and rich color schemes we hoped for.
We are currently staying in Rapid City (it is morning here) and will be leaving for Yellowstone soon. We planned nothing today except driving. But with all the cds we made, it will be a pleasant experience nonetheless.
Below you can find some unedited pictures of our trip so far.
Denver, the mile high city
The blue bear of Denver
Me and John Hickenlooper, the Colorade Governor
The lake at Grand Lake
An early rise in Rocky Mountain NP
Room for a view
It IS a road trip, after all
Mount Rushmore
Saturday April 2, I got up early to document a morning at a farm in Limburg. These farmers have held cows for decades, but anticipating their retirement, they will let them go the following summer and focus on growing crops for the next few years.
Every morning of every day of every week of every year of every decade, they get up to milk the cows in the morning and they have to be back home in the evening to milk them again. Even considering the challenging physical labor, this is what makes me respect farmers the most: how inescapable their job is.
Below you can find a series of pictures that tell the story of that morning. Last blog post I talked about my technique and the gear I used for it. Three main lenses were used: the Carl Zeiss 35mm f2 and 100mm f2, and the the Canon 50mm f1.2. I had to include the 50mm since farmers get up very early, and thus low light was a serious issue. The f1.2 aperture sucked in the light: the first picture of the series shows more detail than I could see with my own eyes. The Zeiss lenses were a little too slow to use from the beginning. They have faster lenses in their lens gamma that must be amazing for my style of photography, such as the 35mm f1.4 but I do not own them. As soon as light permitted, I switched my Canon out for the Zeiss’ ones.
Rise and shine
Cleaning out the milk area
Cleaning out the stables
Prepping
Send in the cows
Milk machines
Still early
He's a craftsman
Enormous amounts of cleaning on a farm
Still early
Four helping hands
Cleaning
Cats
After cleaning: check up on the cows
More cleaning
Taking care of his guests
Euhm ... cleaning again
... and again
She looked like a cow
Hurrying, always
Taking out the horse
Like a dove amongst the crows
Prepping the food
Portrait of a queen
Finished feeding the cows
Here are some recent pictures I took. Unfortunately, Flickr adjusted their community guidelines. Hosted pictures need to link back immediately to Flickr itself. So the visuals change somewhat.
Today I went out to test the new toy I mentioned the day before yesterday. The lens is a gem! The manual focus is admittedly difficult (even with the EG-S focusing screen), but only for moving objects. The resolving power it has is easily lost with the slightest focus error. But for landscape it is possible to use Live View and preview the DOF and focus plane, resulting in a nearly 100% hit rate. The results are stunning then, especially in the corners where it puts other lenses to shame.
Another great feature that Zeiss lenses are famous for is its “rendering”, its look. I think it has a lot to do with the high micro-contrast of the lens, even at moderately wide apertures. A great example of this is shown below (picture 1), taken at F5.6, when its resolving power seems to peak. Click on it for a larger version to assess the contrast better.
Greens
The neighbors
Windy autumn
Where I went running for the first time since my torn ligaments
Wide open at F2
The past weekend Leuven In Scène took place. To be honest, I’m not sure what it is. A city-wide carnival is the best way to describe it, I guess. Karolien and I only went to an event on Ladeuze where dansers performed acrobatic air tricks with the library as a backdrop. Beautiful!
On Saturday and Sunday and Monday, we discovered the calm beauty of Maastricht. We strolled around the streets, had a few drinks and then walked some more. Maastricht is a beautiful place, and I have some pictures to show for it (click for a larger – and sharper – version, as usual).
Leuven In Scène
Leuven in Scène - Building up
Leuven In Scène - Apotheosis
Some jealous bikers in Maastricht
A beautiful scene in Maastricht
Near city hall
On the old city walls
A student, I guess
A nice place to walk
A nice place to drink
A nice place to rest 1
A nice place to rest 2
A nice place to be together 1
A nice place to be together 2
Maastricht, a nice place
Dear Reader,
The past weekend I went to Dinant with Karolien and her parents in their mobilhome. After arriving on Friday, we were so tired that we did little else than going to sleep (see picture 1). On Saturday we first went for a bike ride on rail road tracks on adapted go-carts with wheels without tires. As a direct consequence, we are all in perfect shape now: when not biking ourselves, we sat on the passenger seats as if it was a power plate. The ride consisted out of two parts: going forward and going back. In the mean time, there was time for rest (see pictures 3, 4 and 5).
In the afternoon, we first took a walk around the Abbey of Maredsous. The nature was just stunning at times (see pictures 6 and 7). A guided tour around the monastery soon followed, yet this wasn’t completely satisfactory. The guide was perfectly capable of speaking Dutch (the tour was officially bilingual), yet even though some Dutch children were present, she preferred to speak French exclusively. This didn’t seem to bother her, as this was a “cultural event”, implying that addressing children was redundant (see pictures 8 and 9). As a Flemish person I am fully aware of the language issues in Belgium, but I felt most sorry for those children that seemed genuinely interested in what this lady had to say. But – apparently – the majority rule seemed to apply here and only French was used during the tour (making some jokes about an ‘alarmbel’ didn’t seem to help and could upset some other – very friendly – Walloons, so we all just went along with it). In the evening we ate the Maredsous cheese that was bought and went for a small, local tour around the area.
On Sunday we headed for Dinant itself. We visited the Citadel (see picture 11) where the father of Karolien had his picture taken when he was 3 and 19 (or 20). I took a similar picture now, so it would be interesting to see those three pictures next to each other. After taking a boat ride on the Maas (see picture 12), we headed back to Kessel-Lo.
Arriving on Friday
Making sandwiches for lunch on the rail road track
Lunch after biking uphill and waiting to go back
Waiting to get permission to bike back
Resting while waiting
Scenery during our walk
Walking
Buying tickets for the bilingual tour
The tour guide making the children bored
In the evening: thinking of new Bongo gift certificates
A (much) friendlier tour guide on the citadel in Dinant
The boat ride
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