Travelling Light – Photographing Light
I recently splashed out on a Samyang 7.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye lens, I say splashed out but really compared with a fisheye for a full frame sensor camera it was an absolute bargain. It’s a manual focus lens and you have to set the aperture on the lens rather than with the camera so in addition to the fact that it is a fisheye, which in itself is new territory for me, it is all a bit of a learning curve.
It appears that communism is alive and well in the Portuguese town of São Brás de Alportel – indeed it is still a major force on the political scene particularly in rural parts of Portugal.
The Portugese town of São Brás de Alportel was a settlement in Roman times and later inhabited by the Moors.
Fuerteventura’s former capital Betancuria lies in a picturesque valley next to a dried up stream which flowed up until the 16th century. The village is named after Jean de Béthencourt, who founded the town in 1404 with Gadifer de La Salle. It was the original capital of the Kingdom of the Canary Islands, and later capital of Fuerteventura.
The G9 has no Panoramic mode – this of course matters not one jot since Lightroom is superb at stitching images together – as indeed are numerous other applications.
On a ridge above the village of La Oliva about 100m or so apart sit two dissused but intact Canarian Windmills – they should make good photographic subjects – but here’s the thing, they are tricky subjects – finding a good place to stand is just alot harder than it looks particularly if you want to capture both in the same image, so much so that I have yet to master that image. In the meantime here is the best I have managed of just one of the mills. This is a contra-jour image captured as five bracketed images and processed as an HDR image with the sacred Tindaya Mountain as a backdrop.
The little village of Tindaya sits at the foot of the Montaña de Tindaya in north-west Fuerteventura. It was considered a sacred place by the pre-Spanish local population, and is also known as the Sacred Mountain today. At the heart of the village lies the immaculately maintained church of Ermita Nuestra Senora de la Caridad. It makes a nice photographic subject with the sacred mountain as a backdrop.
The church of Nuestra Señora de Regla in Pájara town has interesting sculptures of sun pattern, snakes, panther and birds above the main entrance. It is thought by some specialists to show Aztec influence.
Continue reading “The Church of Nuestra Señora de Regla – Pajara”
Casa de los Coroneles is a stately home in the northern province of La Oliva on the island of Fuerteventura. It was once the seat of the island’s colonel and now is the location of an art gallery.
A trip down to Bexhill on Sea today to give the G9 a run out.
The De La Warr Pavilion is an Art Deco grade 1 listed building buit in 1935 – it makes a fine photographic subject.
A Good Place to Stand 