The words “stupid” and “silly” cropped up in my comments and guest book recently. I supposed I was asking for it. Of course, I immediately apologised for the inherent imbecility of my posts and promised to upload some intelligent images ASAP. Following on from Thursday’s post [photoblog.com], when I lamented the late arrival of poppies, I went to test my new PnS walkabout camera on the hill around the Acropolis, a short, sunny walk away.
Yahoo weather is a persistent pessimist, predicting it would probably piss down tomorrow and, as I was running out of alliterations, I thought I’d try my luck there. Advancing awkwardly across Athens, swerving past swarming Saturday shoppers, I realised, alas, that more temperate climes of the Acropolis (read: “pollution”) hadn’t pushed the poppies more protuberantly. (This is the problem with alliteration; it’s very hard to stop.)
This year’s flowers are a little late, so I found the above and have made up the shortfall with some of last year’s. I hope their quality and intelligence make up for the stupidity of the photographer and the paucity of flowers. I’ve also included a shot of the Erechtheion, a temple the ancient Greeks dedicated to the god Viagra.
Tech notes:
Some of last year’s shots were taken with a lens baby (sorry, Yellodog). One was with a 24-70 L and the others with today’s new toy, an LX3. All the images were shot in RAW. There was little post-processing involved, although I’ve discovered another hazard when using a Point-and-Shoot without a viewfinder: it’s easy to include someone’s bum in the picture. Quite inadvertently, of course.
As the title says, “smart flowers; dumb photographer”.
Poppies on the sides of the Acropolis, March 2008. Slight colour corrected for the web.
More of last year's poppies from the Acropolis, slightly over colour-corrected (they weren't orange)
Even more of last year's poppies, seen through a lens baby, with the right amount of colour correction
This year's flowers and the Propylaea with the Erechtheion, the temple dedicated to the ancient Greek god, Viagra, slightly hidden.
This year's earliest poppies - and somebody's bum. No colour correction because I was using sRGB
This year's other flowers. Don't know name because I'm a city slicker and failed biology at school. Well, that's my excuse anyway and I'm sticking to it.
the second one is gorgeous.. how did u manage to make only the top blur.. it appears to be a motion blur, but then how is just the top blurred...care to explain?