Monomania

The subject of my photos has become somewhat monomanic lately. For good reason, I think. Bear with me and I will soon come back to pictures to present here as well.

First Christmas

This year Christmas was a bit different. Our little boy was just over a week old, so obviously he stole the show, even if he did little more than eat and sleep. :)

Waiting

The view through the hospital window while waiting to know if everything would be ok... After an eternity it was ok.

Published

A little proud that one of my photos was published in the Danish Lolland & Falsters FritidsNyt. The issue is available here. My photo is on page 36 in the issue from week 40 44 2011.

Chopin by Night

Last evening as I passed Łazienki there was a nice full moon just over the Chopin monument. Unfortunately the park closes at sunset and the gates were locked. As I was standing trying to get a nice image through the grills of the gate a guard came from outside. His colleague on the inside opened the gate and let him in. I asked if I could just quickly run over to the statue to take a photo. "No way", barked the guard who was being relieved and attached the padlock. The other guard waited a minute, then opened the gate and said "Just close it when you leave".

I'm a little miffed at over-exposing the moon so severely, but Jupiter is nicely visible at the top of the image.

Yellow city

Warsaw this autumn is truly a yellow city. Not only for the normal yellow leaves of the "golden Polish autumn", but also because of all the signs providing help around constructions sites. With the construction of the new metro-line much of central Warsaw seem to be dug up and driving is even more of a challenge than usually.

A village called Warsaw

Warsaw has these strange areas looking very much like far out in the countryside when in fact it's close to the centre of the capital. This building is a testament to how bad I am exploring my surroundings - it's just a few kilometres from home and I passed the building in the background numerous times. Behind my back is a small field of crops.
A somewhat overworked HDR from the same place can be seen here.

Wooden church in fall

I was visiting Łochów Palace recently. We are arranging a conference there in Noveber so we needed to see the place and plan for the events. On the palace (but it's actually more of a mansion than a palace) grounds they have this wooden church. It was very nicely framed by the yellow autumn leaves.

Warsaw skyline

I took this picture early this year from the Siekierkowski bridge over the river Wisla just south of central Warsaw. Since there are almost no mountains or hills around Warsaw it's hard to find a spot to get a clear view of the skyline.

Balkonger

This is a shot of the balconies of a building in Warsaw. The apartment block is locked in behind a fence and on the parking are only diplomatic cars from Russia. Seems diplomatic life is not always so glamorous, especially if you don't belong to the higher levels of the hierarchy. The building with these balconies lies just next to this abandoned apartment complex rumoured to belong to the Russians. Maybe the rumour is true.

The beach in Warsaw

On the Praga side of the river in Warsaw one can find a few beaches along the Vistula. This is Praska Plaża. It seems like a little oasis in the city, but bathing is probably not recommended.

Tatry

Sunset on the ridge over Przedni Staw in Dolina Pięciu Stawów Polskich (The valley of the five Polish lakes). A collection of a few more of my HDR-images of the Tatry can be seen here.

Fire engine

Today's photo is a fire engine from USA. It was parked in the fire station that I passed every day on the way to my hotel in Cambridge. More photos from Boston/Cambridge here.

Wianki

A collage of women with wreaths (wianki) on the eve of St. John. The wreaths are later thrown in the river by the unmarried girls in the hope that it is picked up by the future husband. Like the Swedish midsommarafton the celebration dates back to pre-Christian times. However, in Poland the church has been more successful than in Sweden to associate the old pagan celebration of the summer solstice with St. John the Baptist. The church was mercifully absent from the celebrations last night though, which centered more around drinking and having fun than being pious.

Girls throwing wreaths in the river in Warsaw.

Wreaths floating down the Vistula.

The park at night

A long exposure at night in the near-by Park Arkadia.

Fountains and people

Yesterday we went to see the newly inaugurated fountains below the royal palace in Warsaw. We were not alone... There has been much talk about the fountains in the last year - how much they cost; how many trees were removed to make space for them; and after the opening - how great the show is. So, every Friday and Saturday there are a number of 20 minute multimedia-shows at the fountains. We came there not expecting such a crowd. From our point of view we could not see anything of the light-show. But I got some good pictures of the crowd photographing the show.
Btw, the show is (of course) on YouTube, and it looks amazing. I need to go and actually see it some day.

Cycling i Warsaw

Even though conditions for bicycling in Warsaw is slowly improving - new bicycle paths are built, recently the rules were changed to make it easier to follow them - every now and then you see these things that are typical of the attitude towards cyclists. We are not really important, and those who plan cyclepaths have no clue about cycling themselves.

The chimneysweep

Today's photo was taken in Kraków about a week ago. I was there for a conference and was sitting in my hotelroom in the evening, working (really!) when I happened to look out and saw this man cleaning the chimneys opposite the hotel. Against the setting sun he was just a silhouette, and I took a couple of pictures when he was working. When he had packed his gear, out of sight from me, he lit a cigarette and walked off. I managed to catch this image. If you want to see him working a photo like that is on Flickr.

Three weeks later

Three weeks after this photo we can really see that spring is here. However, the trees in the previous image were all pruned a couple of days ago - so no leaves here.

Book café

If asked, many Warsovians will name Czuły Barbarzyńca as their favourite book store. However, I think it should be called favourite café instead. During 45 minutes sitting, I did not see a single person actually buying a book. Many browsed, had coffee, cake, talked and left... including me*. So a more accurate description I think is a café that also sells books.

* Although I have the excuse that they don't sell foreign language books.

Balconies

Saw these balconies today while out cycling. Just liked the picture.

Climbing

Today there was a climbing competition at the wall where I normally climb. It was an open competition with 7 routes in grades from 5a to 7c. I fell out at level 6b/c, but took some pictures of the event. Some of them are at my Flickr page.

Spring!

Yesterday was spring equinox, or first day of spring as they say in Poland. In Sweden the start of spring was generally celebrates in the end of April. Today the weather caught up with calendar as well - we had a pleasant 12 degress and sun - far from the wintery 3 with rain and wind we had during the weekend.
These buds are on the tree outside my window. The photo was taken testing my new 1.4x extender for the zoom lens.

The boring people

At the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw I saw this very plain painting. Turns out the artist made a poll where a number of people answered a questionnaire about their art preferences. Then the artist (whose name I unfortunately forgot) made a painting matching those answers. Nice idea - good art - boring painting... but of course in this case the painting itself is not the art.

Most Gdański

A couple of days ago I was out in the evening to take pictures of the tram tracks on Most Gdański, a cool truss bridge across the Vistula in Warsaw. The temperature was about -12°C, but with the strong wind on the river it felt much, much colder. My bicycle gloves, which are fine while moving, were completely inadequate for standing still taking pictures.

However, I was apparently not alone taking photos there, though I didn't even see the guys in the picture above until I came home and looked at the picture on the screen.
I also wanted to test my new tripod by taking some long exposure shots of the illuminated Most Śląsko-Dąbrowski. That turned into a fiasco when I realised how much the bridge was moving due to the heavy trucks, trams and buses...

I had to increase the ISO a lot and time the photo to the trams to manage to get a decent picture.

Ferrofluid

A colleague and I spent some time playing around in the lab with a ferrofluid and a strong neodymium magnet. And a camera, of course. Ferrofluids are supercool and look almost unreal. A few more pictures can be found in my gallery here, and loads of them on Flickr - many a lot better than mine.

With the magnet closer the spikes become smaller and denser. The curve hexagonal pattern of light dots in the lower part comes from light scattered off the tips of out-of-focus spikes. The spikes form a hexagonal pattern on the surface as clearly seen below.

A hexagonal pattern of large spikes.

I didn't have a green lamp, so the colour comes from shining a white lamp through a solution of nickel salt.

Polish quality roads

I often complain about the traffic in Poland, which is dreadful. However, the roads are in similar class. This is not a village road out in the country, but in the centre of the capital. Unfortunately this state of roads is not uncommon after a hard winter. And when spring comes it is patched together and makes a horrible surface for driving or bicycling. No wonder most Warsovian cyclist have mountainbikes, even if the city is flat as a table.

Churches

One thing that is definitely not hard to find in Warsaw is churches. Anywhere in the city you cannot walk for five minutes without stumbling over one. This large church is less than a kilometer away from this monstrosity.

Chemicals through the lens

Another picture from the lab. This time our shelf of solvents seen through a glass flask.

Hot

A sample is beeing annealed in a ceramic boat in a quartz tube furnace. The temperature is 900°C and the colour is (close to) natural blackbody radiation.

The weather has been miserable recently and I haven't felt like taking the camera out for a walk. The next couple of days you'll have to make do with some pictures from the lab.

Krakowskie Przedmiescie

The corner between Krakowskie Przedmiescie and Kozia streets. I like the narrow block where the buildings seem stacked on each other. In the middle building is the nice Yours Gallery.

High key tree

Today when most of the snow has rained away we can be remined of how lovely it looked just a few days ago.

Snowy fields

Today's wintery landscape is taken at almost the same place as the picture here. I took a short walk over the snowy fields to get some nice photos. Not at all properly dressed for the occation the snow filled my shoes and the strong, icy wind tore straight through my clothes.
Bonus image: