Utrecht Windows

Two bicycles, facing each other, in front of a red building with a vine

Commercial building in the city center:

I was struck by the beautiful lace curtains and sometimes rather elaborate still-life arrangements in ordinary windows. Unfortunately, I couldn’t photograph one window with porcelain jars because a man was sitting at the table, drinking coffee, behind the window both times I checked (morning and evening). I guess he really liked the view.

Detail of a library window.

Love the red shutters…

Triangular window in my hotel room, with a view of the Dom tower.

Residential buildings in the historic city center

Message in the door of a house. I’m not sure how the letters were fastened to the glass. The passageway was quite dark.

Siena Snapshots

I call this bunch of photos “Siena snapshots” because they’re quick shots taken while walking from the bus station to the Campo and the cathedral. So I don’t have much background and can’t tell you what most of these buildings are. The building above is a small commercial building with an insurance company inside and a hairdressing salon in front. I liked the Romanesque windows.

Upper stories of a palazzo:

Madonna of the alley. I chose to convert it to B/W because it had a more mysterious feel and de-emphasized the trash on the ground.

Statue of Romulus and Remus in a courtyard.

Fifteenth-century Loggia della Mercanzia (thank heavens for Google!):

Painted ceiling of the loggia:

Marble bench in loggia:

Sallustio Bandini, 18th century Tuscan economist and priest, gazes down at tourists in front of the Palazzo Salimbeni (now a bank).

I think I photographed this Romulus and Remus statue in the courtyard of Siena Cathedral.

Accordionist playing Mozart near the cathedral’s south portico:

Bags were quite expensive in Italy. Cheaper to photograph them. 🙂

The Decayed Beauty of Venice

You probably know, without my telling you, that Venice has more problems with dampness in buildings than most parts of the world. The perpetual moisture causes paint to blister, plaster to crack and flake, and wood to rot. Many of the buildings are crumbling before our eyes, but the slow decay creates amazing textures and colours around the windows and doors. I photographed a few windows, grills, and walls while walking along the canals.

Rainy Window Photography

I can’t recall such a rainy February in Israel. Apparently this has been the wettest winter in years. If it’s too rainy where you are to take your camera outdoors, here’s an option.

These photos were taken in the dairy cafeteria at work, after I’d borrowed a friend’s umbrella to take my every-day-no-change-whatsoever-why-am-I-doing-this fig tree photo. I played around with the colours in Adobe Lightroom 3, a birthday present from my husband. Photographs of rain streaming down windows are not difficult but you do need to be comfortable with manual focusing, because auto-focus just won’t get you the results you want. Play with the focus until you get an interesting abstract composition. You don’t want a record of all the smudges and nose prints on the glass! It helps if there’s something interesting on the other side.

On the other hand, just because it’s raining doesn’t mean that you can’t take your big, fancy, expensive DSLR outside. You do need to take some precautions to protect your equipment against moisture and condensation. I have a good, coated UV filter on the front of my lens to protect it from rain, scratches, and other damage. I put the body in a disposable plastic shower cap if it’s really pouring. Otherwise, I hold it under an umbrella or photograph from an alcove or open window. When you bring it inside, give it a wipe so that the body’s dry. Clean the filter with a microfiber cloth.

If you live in a cold area, you need to be careful about condensation forming when you bring your camera indoors. It’s a good idea, while you’re outside, to put your camera in a big ziplock bag and seal it. Then bring it inside and let it come to room temperature inside the bag, so that condensation forms on the outside of the bag, not on your camera body or — worse — inside your lens.

The photos below were taken from a friend’s office. My room faces east and doesn’t get the wind and rain to this extent.