Photography – Page 7 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Fireworks

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There are nightly fireworks displays that occur around 1:30 am each day. We decided to take a nap and get up and go see one.

After waking up we found a nice little Italian restaurant and had dinner with a bottle of one of the local wines. It was quite tasty.

After dinner we headed out to see the fireworks.

A large group of people gathered on one of the bridges that goes over the dry riverbed very near the hotel so we staked out a spot about an hour in advance.

Cynthia wanted photographic evidence that she was actually out after midnight.

Cynthia after dark

There was a very cool group of drummers getting the crowd worked up

drummers drumming

As it turned out, it was a good thing we got there early as the fireworks started abut 20 minutes ahead of schedule.

ooooh, pretty

Walking back there was a near miss as someone from down in the riverbed was lobbing fireworks up on to the sidewalk from down below. Not just the splody kind. They were like bottle rockets only bigger…and flying randomly. It was actually a bit frightening.

Folklore Parade

The Folklore Parade is an event that shows off the rich cultural heritage of Valencia. Lots of traditional costumes and pageantry.

The parade was supposed to start at 10:30 pm. It ended up starting close to 11:30. The crowds were massive and we ended up staking out a spot where the lighting was not so good but still had a great view of the event.

Only a few shots as processing these images on the MSI Wind is challenging

Ninot Exhibition

A few samples of the ninots from the exhibition. Each one is about the size of a person and is only a small part of the entire fallas, of which there are nearly 300 scattered about the city after the planta which is today.

Cynthia was, as those who know might imagine, quite delighted to find a giraffe ninot…

This gives you an idea of the workmanship that goes into these things.

Hard to imagine that these will all be burned at the end of the festival.

East Side Represent

Houston - East Side

John Nova Lomax invited me to go on one of his Sole Of Houston walks. This time he was hitting the east side. The plan was to just sort of meander out to 75th Street and then head north to Canal and then head back to town. It was VERY interesting. We started about 9:30 am and finished about 4:30 pm. We covered a LOT of ground. You can read the story here: Sole Of Houston: East Side Story — Trains, Tequila, Dogs & Grief. There’s several more of my photos in the posting.

Proud New Father

The new baby has arrived. Lensbaby that is.

Lensbaby

The above image may look like one of my Photoshop fake miniatures, but what you see is what came right out of the camera. The Lensbaby is a poor mans tilt/shift lens. And yes, I know the Lensbaby is NOT a true tilt/shift lens, but it’s also not $1500 to $2000 and happens to be available for the Sony/Minolta mount.

The Lensbaby is a manual focus lens that lets you focus on your subject and then utilizing the ball and socket design, move what they call the “sweet spot” of focus anywhere in the frame so that your subject is clear and everything that surrounds it is blurry.

My Sony Alpha 700 will shoot with this lens in aperture priority mode which helps with the light metering. Actual aperture is controlled by magnetic aperture discs that go in the lens

The Magnetic Aperture Set with the magnetic wand aperture removal tool and custom storage case ships with the lens. The discs allow apertures of f/2 (no aperture disk installed), 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16, and 22

Lensbaby

I’m struggling with the manual focus but the lens challenges me to take my time and think about what I am doing. It’s light weight and rugged so it’s easy to add to the photo kit, just in case you see something that lends itself to this style of photography.

Stop Making All That Racket!

Sapsucker or Woodpecker?

I was in my home office this morning and heard this guy outside. He was pecking to beat the band. I believe him to be a sapsucker as spotted previously but I could be mistaken. More likely a Downy Woodpecker which seems more common. He’s very high up in the neighbor’s tree, but the SAL-70300G did a fine job in the bright, early morning sun.

Elissa

The Tall Ship Elissa

The Elissa

Watching All The Gulls Go By

Contrast

Bokeh

Under The Radar

Ruffled

Wingspan