This is Poppy studying in her room. Compared with her sister Scarlett's room, which was too untidy to show in a photograph, Poppy's room was surprisingly tidy.
I've converted the photo to monochrome because to me it looks much more atmospheric and characterful than the colour original.
Leica SL2 with Lumix Pro 16-35mm lens at 16mm.
A rather unpleasant winter's day today in Terrigal. I ventured out mid-afternoon with my Q3 43 hoping that it would start drizzling again and I could get some rain shots but the weather did not co-operate. I came home with just this one shot taken at the Surf Cafe. A lone customer looking at his phone with just a few birds for company.
Leica have released a series of Leica Looks on the Leica Fotos app. They can be downloaded onto the SL3, SL3-S, Q3 and Q3 43. This one is called Greg Williams-after an apparently well known British photographer-and I am very impressed. I don't do much monochrome and when I do I've always converted DNG (RAW) files in Silver Efex Pro until now. The tonality of this photo is better than I have ever manged to achieve with Silver Efex. To my mind it is very film like.
I will try the colour versions of Looks next.
iPhone13 photo
The wearer was another very affable passenger on my Douro cruise. He is a retired Corporate lawyer who specialised in mergers and acquisitions. From his long hair and pony tail and numerous tats you would never have guessed. He explained that he always wore a long sleeve shirt to business meetings.
I found him very knowledgeable and good company. and he never rode a Harley.
Leica Q3 43 photo.
On our Douro River cruise, back in June, one of our fellow passengers was an American, a rather eccentic and very affable retired doctor, who played a piano accordion aka a squeeze box. He played it well although the piano accordion is far from being my personal favorite musical instrument. He sat in a corner of the deck and played it for his own pleasure and was very willing to let me take his photo.
Sadly Marvel died last year from a genetic heart condition. It was way too early, she was only 5. I still miss her.
Now I have a new baby, Holly. Well not exactly a baby-more like a small(ish) bear. She's been part of our household for 11 months after we had adopted her from a sanctuary where she had been for 6 months. She's taken a long time to settle in but we are getting there. She still has a difficult relationship with the other cat in the house, Smudge, and she can still be very nervous. But she is big and she is beautiful.
Photo taken this morning with the Leica SL2 using the APO Summicron-SL 1:2/50 ASPH lens.
It's a cold, wet winter's afternoon here today and I've been doing 'housekeeping' on my Lightroom Photos library. I found this photo taken in March 2012 of grandaugher, Ellie and our beautiful Himalayan cat, Phoebe.
The photo has not previously seen the light of day. It was taken with my Leica X1 and I converted the original jpeg file to monochrome using Silver EFX Pro2 software.
Leica X1 photo
I was out in the very cold morning air with my now vintage Leica X1 to catch the sun just about to appear over the horizon at the Haven, Terrigal.
With the sea so calm conditions were ideal for spotting whales as they migrate north in their thousands to warmer waters. I saw a few blows yesterday morning but today it was too cold to linger and look for them.
Leica X1 photo
A panorama of Porto taken from the deck of the ship on our last afternoon in Portugal.
This is a composite of 5 DNG files merged in Lightroom Classic. It was taken with the Leica Q3 43 at ISO100 - 1/400th sec at f5.0 The final full size file is 94.4MB in size and is 24699 x 7849 pixels.
The river was very busy with small boats so I waited until there were none as objects moving across frames confuse panorama merging tools.You cannot succesfully correct them even using AI object removal tools. Boats are particularly tricky because of their wakes.
The extraordinary resolving capability of the lens/sensor combination of the Q3 43 is shown in the bottom photo. This is a big enlargement of a very small part of the panorama-the section of the river bank around the two boarding jetty ramps. The words Turkish Airlines are clearly legible on the sign on the tram.
Bear in mind that the images on the blog are compressed -the originals are noticeably better.
Our last stop on the trip was Barcelona -a city I had never visited before. Our hotel was right in the centre of the city which was just as well as it was too hot for walking far.
The highlight of our time in the city, and I’m sure most visitors to Barcelona, was the visit to the still uncompleted Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. A quite amazing piece of architecture with a really fascinating story.The story of the Basilica is well described by Wikepidia.
The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, otherwise known as Sagrada Família, is a church under construction in the Eximpla district of Barcelona. It is the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world.
Designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi (1852–1926), in 2005 his work on Sagrada Família was added to an existing (1984) UNESCO heritage site "Works of Antoni Gaudí". On 7 November 2010, Pope Benedict XVI consecrated the church and proclaimed it a minor basilica.
On 19 March 1882, construction of Sagrada Família began under architect Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano
In 1883, when Villar resigned, Gaudí took over as chief architect, transforming the project with his architectural and engineering style, combining Gothic and curvilinear Art Noveau forms. Gaudí devoted the remainder of his life to the project, and he is buried in the church's crypt. At the time of his death in 1926, less than a quarter of the project was complete.
Relying solely on private donations, Sagrada Família's construction progressed slowly and was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War. In July 1936, anarchists from the FAI set fire to the crypt and broke their way into the workshop, partially destroying Gaudí's original plans.In 1939, Francesc de Paula Quintana took over site management, which was able to go on with the material that was saved from Gaudí's workshop and that was reconstructed from published plans and photographs. Construction resumed to intermittent progress in the 1950s.
Advancements in technologies such as computer aided design and computerised numerical control (CNC) have since enabled faster progress, and construction passed the midpoint in 2010. In 2014, it was anticipated that the building would be completed by 2026, the centenary of Gaudí's death, but this schedule was threatened by work slowdowns caused by the Covid 19 pandemic. In March 2024, an updated forecast reconfirmed a likely completion of the building in 2026, though the announcement stated that work on sculptures, decorative details and a controversial stairway leading to the main entrance is expected to continue until 2034.
There are two reasons building the Basilica has taken so long. Firstly -as set out in Gaudí's original plans many features were very difficult and even impossible to build. Modern technology has changed that.
Having to rely solely on donations from the outset meant money was always short. This requirement has not changed however the huge number of visitors today has swelled the Basilica's coffers and finance is no longer a problem.
As I approached the Basilica the smartphones were shooting away all round me but I realised that no photo of mine at ground level could ever do the exterior of the Basilica justice. My single effort is below along with a photo of a model showing what the completed building will look like.However I did manage a distant shot from a viewpoint overlooking the city which gives a sense of the size of the Basilica.
As well as being very enjoyable the 15 days in Portugal and Barcelona gave me 30 worthwhile photos. Not as many as from previous trips to Portugal but I’m happy with that number and I know that if I missed something Ros has it on her phone.
