Photography – Page 45 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Brussels – Day 4

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We woke up early to get an uncrowded view of the Mannekin Pis.

Brussels residents and tourists alike love this little pissing boy. His image is used in all manner of tourist trinkets as well as advertising for everything from Coke A Cola to hamburgers at McDonald’s.

We also took advantage of the lack of tourists in the early hours of morning to rub the statue of the mayor of Brussels, Evrard ‘t Serclaes for luck.

In 1356 he was tortured and killed for refusing to hand over the city keys. Now, people rub the statue for good luck, which explains why it is so shiny.

From there we purchased tickets for the train to Bruges. And yes, I’ve seen the movie. But that’s not why we went.

We decided to go to Bruges to revisit our favorite chocolatier, Dumon, which we discovered during our previous visit several years ago.

We were also interested in seeing the Snow and Ice Sculpture Festival.

When we got off the train I was wondering how hard it would be to find the location of the festival. Then we saw the sign which cleared it all up.

What we did not expect, but soon found out was that the festival was held inside a refrigerated tent complex that was cooled down to a cozy -5 degrees Celsius. That’s 23 degrees Fahrenheit for us stubborn non-metric system adopting infidels.

As it was, the outside temperature was only 27 degrees Fahrenheit as we stood in for about 1/2 hour to get into the exhibit.

It was very crowded and the line moved very slowly and toward the end we were quite cold, especially in the footal areas. But what a site to see!

Giant ice doors opened up to a small dark tunnel that lead you into room after room of sculpted ice.

It was spectacular to see, and oh so very very cold.

We got out and caught the bus to Bruges.

Bruges was way more crowded than when we last visited and the market was pretty cheesy. We walked about and even got a little lost.

We did find the Dumon Chocolate Shop and I resisted the urge to defenestrate myself from the bell tower, a la “In Bruges”

When we boarded the train to go back to Brussels someone came on the intercom and said something in French and Dutch that we did not understand. The people in the seat next to us were from Barcelona and explained to Cynthia in Spanish that the train was delayed due to technical problems.

After awhile there was another announcement and everyone started getting off the train. We didn’t need an translator to explain this part.

We followed the crowd to another platform and caught a later, much more crowded train back to Brussels.

Brussels – Day 1

We’ve arrived in Brussels without incident. The plane ride went smooth and we easily sorted getting the train from the airport to Central Station for a mere â‚¬2.80 a piece and and before you know it, we were checking into our hotel which is literally across the street from Central Station.

I was amused to see a coke machine in the train station featuring Manekkin Pis.

It’s cold here. VERY cold. High today was right around freezing. But the sun is out! I’ll take it!

One of our first stops was Leonidas to get some chocolate.

We did a little walking around but were were pretty exhausted so went back to the hotel to take a nap.

After sleeping for a few hours we headed back out. The sun was down and we wanted to see the light show in the Grand Place. It was really something to see. Moving lights set to music.

I’ll post a video later.

I’ll say this, swapping lenses and shooting with a tripod in this cold is not the most fun. But I am determined.

Now it’s off to bed to sleep in earnest. More tomorrow.

Soon, Brussels

Grote Markt (Grand Place), Brussels Belgium.

Grand Place

No, I did not take this photo. I grabbed it from the Winter Wonders Web site.

We leave in a few short days and I find myself hyperventilating with anticipation. We’ve done our preliminary test packing and it looks like we’ll be able to fit most everything into our respective backpacks. This includes my recently acquired Manfrotto super deluxe tripod so I can take extended exposure shots. Travelling light and without checking luggage is HUGE in terms of piece of mind and rapid mobility.

The overseas flight from Atlanta to Brussels is not even half full at this time. I am hoping this translates to some stretching out and maybe some sleep before we get there. If not, we know how to beat the jet-lag by now. You just have to push through that first day.

In terms of camera gear I will, of course, have the Sony Alpha 700. My lens arsenal will consist of the the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 as my primary walk about with the 11-18mm for wide angle shots and the Sigma 30mm f/1.4 for evenings and other low light situations that require me to shoot handheld.

On the fence regarding the Minolta 70-210mm and the Sony fisheye. We’ll see.

The forecast looks good. Cold, but no precipitation.

On the agenda for Brussels:

Mini-Europe because I want to do some fake miniatures of a real miniature. It’s also the location of Atomium which was created for the Expo ’58 (the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair).
The RenÃ© Magritte Museum because, well MAGRITTE!
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences to see some whale skeletons.
Royal Museums of Fine Arts to see ‘The Death of Marat‘ by Jacques-Louis David.
The Belgian Comic Strip Center to see the cartoons!
Delirium Cafe which boasts over 2,000 different beers to choose from.
La Mort Subite for more beer.

And as much more as we can squeeze into the time we’ll be there. We are tentatively planning a side trip to Bruges which is only an hour away by train. There’s an ice sculpting festival going on that I would like to check out.

If we have the energy, we’ll ring in the new year at the Grand Place which I believe will have a fireworks display before heading back to The States on new year’s day.

Blue Jay

Landscape Lighting

I am not the handiest guy around. I can manage the technical stuff, but when it comes to home maintenance and improvement I like to “leave it to the professionals.”

I’ve been wanting some landscape lighting for awhile now. For decorative as well as security purposes. I decided I would go to Lowe’s and check out my options. It took some time to sort it out, but I bought some lights, some cable and a timer enabled power converter and worked all day last Saturday installing it. There’s been a few tweaks over this past week and the above picture is the end result of my efforts. The pic doesn’t do it justice. It’s really something to see in person and I am quite proud of myself.

Perigee Moon

Tonight was a full moon. Not only that, but the moon was at perigee. What that means is that the moon was full at the point it was closest to the Earth in it’s elliptical orbit.

From The Royal Observatory Greenwich

“On average, the Moon is 378,000 km away, and at furthest, it is 399,300 km away from the Earth’s surface. So the full Moon is 6% closer than average, and so 11% brighter than average! (Or, to put it another way, it is 11% bigger & 20% brighter than when the Moon is at its furthest point away from us).”

NASA estimated that the moon could appear up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full moons this year.

What that meant to me was I could try shooting it with my 200mm lens rather than my 300mm lens, which is a little soft fully extended.

The above shot is a 100% crop of the photo I took. Not something that could be printed, but pretty nice for the Web.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Migratory Ruby-crowned Kinglet. I originally thought they were Orange-crowned Warblers, but further research and a reader tip indicates I may have mis-identified them.

You can compare here:
Orange-crowned Warbler
Ruby-crowned Kinglet

The wing-bars seem to be the tell….

They visit our yard each winter and are extremely elusive in terms of getting a photo. Today there were two of them in the front yard and they seemed oblivious to my presence. So oblivious, one nearly landed on my arm while I was shooting the pictures. Even so, they dart around so quickly and erratically they are not easy to photograph.

Snow!

Around 4:00 yesterday afternoon it began to snow here in Houston. A freak weather occurrence, to be sure. It didn’t really “stick” as the ground temperature was too warm for that and frankly, I thought it wouldn’t last too long.

Cynthia called me from the road as she headed home. She said it was definitely snowing out west as she proceeded to the beltway. I wasn’t headed home right away as I had my Wednesday commitment and was hanging back at the office. I was pretty disappointed that I wouldn’t be seeing it for myself.

Prior to heading over to KPFT to do my radio show I met up with Owen for a pint at Rudyard’s. I did see some snow as I drove over, but it was super light.

As Owen and I sat and chatted, the snow started falling harder and harder. It was quite the cozy scene as we sat in the warm pub and watched as our fellow revellers went outside to marvel at what passes for a winter wonderland around these parts. We heard some young lady exclaim “It’s a miracle!” I don’t know about that, but it was pretty cool!

Snow Man

After a few pints Owen and I parted ways so I could get over to the radio station. The snow was kicking up pretty good at this point, and while not treacherous driving in terms of road conditions, you still had to be careful as many drivers were stricken with a case of “deer in the headlights” syndrome as they gawked and the magical white stuff drifting from the sky.

The radio show goes two hours and the studio is pretty sealed up where you can’t see the outside easily so we were somewhat taken aback when we wrapped for the evening and proceeded out to the parking lot…

Snow!

There was enough snow accumulation on my car for phliKtid to write a message on my back window:

Snow!

As I headed home around 10:30 the snow event was mostly over. This morning as I write this, it’s just cold and there are reports of some iced over roads, mostly overpasses and such.

According to the weather forecast, the temperatures will be back in the mid 70’s by this weekend.

Gotta love Texas…