MEView :: Galleries :: Pictures Of The Week (Oct. 2004 - Feb. 2005)

MEView :: Galleries :: Pictures Of The Week (Oct. 2004 - Feb. 2005)

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Gull catching a fish

The days get longer again and the frozen parts of the rivers get smaller and smaller. The gulls that I watched fishing met around the rim of one of the last major frozen parts of an arm of the Mississippi river around Davenport, Iowa. There were very many birds flying around with their large brothers, the eagles. Both species were looking for fish and since the gulls are way smaller than the kings of birds it was a bit like watching planes and helicopters. When a gull saw a fish and decided to go for it, it almost instantly stopped in flight and dashed into the waters to catch the fish and then started off again with the fish in its beak before the other gulls can become competition and fight over the prey. At this point I took advantage of the 5fps the camera allows to get shots of the whole action process. Even though the wingtips of the bird are clipped, I find this picture particularly interesting because it has many symmetrical elements and still makes you know that the bird will start off in a split second. There's always a "wow" in nature.

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Shirt ready for ironing

Living as a single has major downsides. One of the most annoying ones is that oneself needs to iron from time to time. After pushing this task away for as long as possible, it finally caught me this weekend--no shirts left. So after washing I hung up some shirts for drying in my bathroom. When picking them up I found that the patterns on this specific shirt looked pretty interesting when lighted from the side. I grabbed the camera and took some shots pushing the beginning of the ironing a little farther away. I find this picture particularly interesting because of the buttons, lines and nice patterns. The eye can wander around pretty much.

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Ice needles on trees on a foggy cold day

Actually I had hoped for that the meteorologists wouldn't be wrong again with their forecast for today--but they were. First of all it was not a bit cloudy--it was foggy. And it was darn cold because of the fog. I got outside anyway and then I saw these wonderful ice needles on trees and bushes where they were forming very interesting patterns. A closer look revealed that the ice needles not only grew in one direction except for when they grew on branches that were exposed to stronger winds (like in this picture). Winter can be nice.

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The Marbles

I was playing a marbles-on-woodboard version of solitaire that I brought back from Brazil a few years ago when I caught how beautiful these marbles really looked. Winter time often leads to some experimenting with a macro lens--so I set up the camera and tried different angles and light varieties to get the shot I had on my mind. After a while I saw that reflections of me and the camera and the flash were in all of the pictures I had taken so far due to the shiny surface of the marbles. So I covered the board with a gold reflector and used black velvet to cover the open spaces left and right of the camera to get rid of unwanted reflections. For the illumination I set up a flash in a way that it would shine through the (semi-transparent) reflector. I chose the aperture almost wide open for a soft foreground and a soft background and let the camera do the rest. Who needs computers and raytracing-algorithms for pictures like this?

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The shiny thread

When I was taking pictures of a green ribbon I didn't realize that there was a thread at the end of it. When I saw the first images taken with two flashes I saw the potential of the object and finally took this picture with the extra shiny thread. Looks pretty unusual to me and gave me a lot of fun while taking pictures. And: No--I was not aware of shooting at ISO1600. I simply forgot to set the sensitivity back to normal after I did some indoor shots without flash, but there is virtually no visible noise in the picture.

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Bald eagle overlooking the river

Together with some fellow photographers I came as close as about 30 yards away from this eagle before it decided to fly away and join another eagle flying above us. It is wonderful to see these large birds that close without being in a zoo. The right image is a 45% crop of the original on the left.

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Last Sunset

This is one of the last sunsets of the year 2004. The image was taken in Davenport, Iowa, along the Mississippi River right before Lock&Dam #15. This is actually the only area where the river flows directly to the west rather than to the south.

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Merry Christmas 2004

As you can see, Santa Claus found a new and more sophisticated vehicle to bring the presents in the holy night. Too bad I didn't catch him with the load--I would really like to know where he had put all the toys in that little helicopter. Well, maybe next year...
I took this very rare picture when he left from Quad Cities International Airport in Moline, Illinois.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year 2005 to all of you!

(due to bandwidth reasons the pictures below are low-res, highly compressed JPEGs--for large hi-res images please click on either one of the pictures)


Chicago at night from Adler Planetarium	Chicago at night from John Hancock Building

The lights that illuminate a major city at night ever attracted people and I am for sure no exception. The magic of seing the masses of lights of a big city and realizing that all these lights together make the sky glow is a fascinating play that happens there every night. It doesn't even matter which city it is, the fascination is complete when one reaches spots where one has such wonderful views of the skyline or over the city.
In Chicago one popular spot for having a great view of the skyline is Adler Planetarium. It's located at the end of a pier that reaches out into Lake Michigan. At night there are just enough street lights out there to find the way down to Lake Michigan and to set up tripod and camera. The view of the skyline is totally undisturbed and absolutely breathtaking. On the right side of the first picture one can see John Hancock Building with its two antennas. To increase the experience I highly recommend to get on top of one of the skyscrapers the city offers. I visited The Hancock Observatory on top of John Hancock Building to have the view from above. Wow, that awsome view is for sure worth the $10! In the background of the second picture one can see Sears Tower on the right side and the lights of the pier that leads to Adler Planetarium on the left side.

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Unknown sign in Cluj-Napoca

What the heck does this sign stand for?
I was walking through the streets of the city of Cluj-Napoca in Romania when I saw this interesting sign on a wall. Nobody could explain what it stands for. The only hint was that no cars were parking about 5m to the right and 5m to the left of the sign. So is it about parking restrictions? Another idea is that the sign would show a symbolized old camera meaning that it is not allowed to photograph--but what? The street? The house? The sign? Someone else came up with the idea that it might have to do something with X-Rays that might have been used behind the walls and that it's a warning sign for the people passing by. Hmmm... So what does it really mean? I still don't know

2005-06-13: I finally found someone who found out what the sign stands for! It marks the end of a photography-prohibited-zone. Thanks, Cristina.

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Fall in Braunschweig

The view out of my kitchen window can be very nice even on a sad, slightly foggy, overcast, kind of wet sunday morning in fall. These colorful patterns nicely reflect the way nature deals with this matter: even though it's somewhat dull around, there's still enough color to make the viewer smile a little bit.

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Between Flights

I was in between flights at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and I had to get to the C-concourse of Terminal 1. Since I had plenty of time I was able to stop and take pictures of the tunnel and the people passing by in a hurry. This tunnel always fascinates me with its little light show and the unusual curves on both sides, but usually I am in a hurry --just like everybody else-- and so I don't take the time to enjoy the colorful scenery on both sides of the moving walkways. I played around with different lenses and exposure settings and got some interesting shots, but this image was one that I had planned to take for quite a while. I wanted to capture the impressions when one passes the tunnel. I chose a long exposure and shot wide open to capture the movement of the people while maintaining their anonymousity. No faces, no time.

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Rock Detail, Okervalley

This is a detail of a major rock sitting in the bed of the Oker creek. When I saw this part of it through the viewfinder I was reminded to images of whales. I finally composed it a bit tighter to make it more abstract and yet interesting.

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Fading Rose

She left for home and left these flowers to stay with me as a memory. After a while the roses fade away, but the memory will stay.
I took the picture in very soft natural light that also helped me having a low contrast situation. I set the depth of field so that the rose stands out a bit.

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Wildwater-Kayaking, Okervalley

In fall the area of the valley of the Oker creek was attracting me for years with its colorful trees and the chance of morning fog. The creek is also frequently used by people who like to do wildwater kayaking and the mountains around are pretty well visited by hikers and climbers on sunny weekends throughout the year. It was fall, and a sunny weekend was predicted with night temperatures around freezing--that means there's a very good chance of morning fog. So I got up early enough to be there in time, but--absolutely no fog at all in the valley. Taking pictures of the beautiful scenery in fall colors was made rather impossible because of the men and women doing their wildwater sports and quite a few spectators standing alongside the creek. So I chose to take a few shots of the brave guys taking the challenge to kayak through the rocks. Great! I never actually took the time to watch them. Quite a challenging thing to do. I especially like this shot because of the specific moment that I was able to capture.
P.S. When I came back the next day I got my fog and the pictures I planned to take...

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Selfportrait--Playing with Shadows

This picture was taken in my home office. The evening before I had set up the screen in order to have a slideshow. I just wanted to put it away when I saw the interesting shadows of the window blinds on the screen. After a while the sun got to a position where the shadow on the screen became really interesting when my glasses bent the light rays in this special way. Looks really cool, doesn't it? So I grabbed the camera to capture the scene--just moments before the sun hid behind a group of clouds.

History of pictures of the week/month:
Pictures Of The Month (Jan. 2011 - current)
Pictures Of The Month (Jan. 2010 - Dec. 2010)
Pictures Of The Month (Jan. 2009 - Dec. 2009)
Pictures Of The Month (Mar. 2008 - Dec. 2008)
Pictures Of The Month (Mar. 2007 - Feb. 2008)
Pictures Of The Week (Mar. 2006 - Feb. 2007)
Pictures Of The Week (Sep. 2005 - Feb. 2006)
Pictures Of The Week (Mar. 2005 - Aug. 2005)
Pictures Of The Week (Oct. 2004 - Feb. 2005)

Copyright © 2004-2005 Michael Engelen, All rights reserved