Looks like someone wasn’t that careful parking here. The poor parking sign is doing an imitation of the Leaning Tower of Pisa!
Happy new year to you, dear reader. I’ve been posting photos here for twenty years this year. My first image, this yellow flower, is only 700px wide, but with the advent of high-resolution screens I’m now posting 1280px wide ones. I’ve gone through times when I used the featured image of the post instead of embedding it in the post like I did with this one, and that lasted for a year or two. To deal with those posts, I wrote a small function that copies that image into the post if it’s not already there. It seems to be working OK.
Here’s to the next twenty years. Gulp.
I also decided to embrace the new WordPress Twenty Twenty Five theme, and play around with the formatting of blocks. Nothing fancy at all. Just the bare bones, really.
If you visit the Acropolis in Athens, be prepared to join the crowds of other tourists visiting at the same time. There’s an insatiable interest in the area, of course, because it’s so well known.
First you walk up the side of the Acropolis hill, and enjoy nice views of the city, including the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, and the modern buildings surrounding it, and then the crowd bunches up as you enter the ruins, with tour guides holding flags up and lots of chatter from everyone.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I got up there. The smooth cement ground pictured above continued through the middle of what turned out to be a massive construction site, with scaffolding around a few of the buildings. Those paths made the site more accessible for everyone, which is to be commended.
Walk to the side, and you were on rougher ground, on gravel and bare rock, with construction materials and tools seemingly left unattended, within roped off areas.
If you’re hoping to get photos of the site without other tourists, you’ll probably have to go early in the morning, with a tripod to take multiple photos of the same photo and remove people digitally.
This is a long exposure shot of the Parthenon temple. There were loads of people around. A huge group was congregating to the far left of this photo, and another group was heading over from the far right.
On the way out, when I wanted to take a photo of the Erechtheion, a smaller temple apart from the Parthenon, someone else wanted to pose. Our bus was waiting for us below, so there was no time to waste. Afterwards, I liked seeing the human element in this photo.
If you’re visiting Athens, a trip to see the Acropolis has to be high on your list of things to do. I only had an hour or so there, but I’d love to return and spend more time there taking photos.
This is the last post of the year 2024 here. The Acropolis has been around for thousands of years. What will human civilization look like in another two thousand, five hundred years? What will happen to all our digital records? Who or what will be remembered of us in that era? Not much survives over those time periods.
There’s something magical about Edinburgh during the golden hour, when the sun begins its descent and bathes the city in warm amber hues. I was walking along Princes Street with my colleagues after a long day of meetings when this scene stopped me in my tracks.
At first glance, it might seem like just another urban sunset, but nature has a way of adding its own whimsical touches to our carefully constructed world. A pigeon had chosen one of Edinburgh’s grand statues, the statue of King George IV, as its evening perch, creating an unintentionally perfect silhouette against the burning sky. As I framed the shot, I noticed its companion – another bird adorning a statue atop one of the buildings to the right (The Royal Society of Edinburgh, if Google Maps is right), as if they were having a silent conversation across the street.
The Georgian architecture of Hanover Street creates perfect leading lines, drawing your eye down to where the street meets the sky. The passing cars, their tail lights glowing in the dimming light, add a modern contrast to the historical grandeur of the buildings. There’s something deeply satisfying about capturing these moments where the past and present, nature and architecture, all converge in perfect harmony.
I shot this handheld with my camera set to underexpose the scene slightly, letting the buildings fall into shadow while preserving the rich orange tones of the sunset.
I love that there were pigeons sitting on those statues, even if they’re barely visible in the web-sized version here. They’re a reminder that nature finds a way, no matter what we do to tame it!
A long exposure photo of the Yeni Camii in Istanbul, with the entrance to a small shopping mall in the foreground. Steps lead down, under a busy road, and vendors have set up shops down there selling all sorts of goods.
The Yeni Camii is also known as the “New Mosque”, even though it was completed between 1660 and 1665. It was originally named the Valide Sultan Mosque.
I wonder if that’s a drone flying overhead, over the mosque? I certainly didn’t see it while I was taking this photo.
In a city of tourists, you can’t have enough suitcases, and that’s true of Istanbul. Tourists everywhere in the old city, and numerous places to buy clothes, goods, trinkets and souvenirs. You’ll be needing another suitcase to bring it all home with you!
I don’t share links very often, but here are a few you’ll appreciate if you edit in Adobe Lightroom (Classic or app):
An orange cat snacking on some kibble in Istanbul. Some people like to say orange cats aren’t very smart, but if you can make yourself so adorable people will feed you, then who’s the smart one?
Yes, I do have a few more photos of cats in Istanbul. Not many, mind, so enjoy them while they last!
A cat on Çamlıca Hill was very affectionate and controlled everything he saw. With a meow, he caught our attention and walked back and forth, granting us permission to rub him until he got bored and wandered away.
Better to have an orange kitty as king than an orange man.
This is part of the Asian side of Istanbul in Turkey. My first time in Asia too, even if I only ventured a few kilometres in!
Our guide said they’re trying to encourage more people to live on this side of the city, but from what I could see, it stretched on almost to distant hills and I wondered how big a city could be.
Cats? I’ve loads of cat photos. I think they’ll need their own “Cats of Istanbul” tag on here!
Laura Alves was a Portuguese actress who was born in Lisbon in 1921. She passed away in 1986. Read more about her on Wikipedia.
Aperture
ƒ/2.8
Camera
ILCE-7M3
Focal length
24mm
ISO
1000
Shutter speed
1/500s
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