Jupiter above the crowd

There was a light festival at Wilanów Royal Palace this weekend. Tons of people visited to see the palace illuminated by a fine light show to music. I wonder how many noticed Jupiter watching just above the show?

Music evening

In the evening people gathered at the square in the old town to listen to an orchestra playing. Some more of my images from Mexico can be found here.

Moon and smoke

Had a walk today in the evening and stopped like frozen (could have been literary seeing that it was almost -15°C) to watch how the smoke from the coal powerplant Siekierki was beautifully backlit by the full moon. Unfortunately I did not have my camera, and the phone picture above does not to it justice.

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.

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.

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.