1475 - I Came So Far For Beauty

2010-10-29

I’m on the train back from Vienna to Carinthia, and at least on the mountains that I crossed around sunset, there was hardly a trace of snow left. To the contrary: it was the most beautiful autumn landscape with the most perfect evening sky above. Of course I couldn’t take an image from out of the train, but I thoroughly the view.

But let’s not talk about today. It’s Friday and this is the post for yesterday. I took some images of flowers and this is a composite of two exposures. One had the better background, one the sharper flower. I don’t really understand how the background could have been different, I hardly moved at all. The golden sparks in the background may be lights, filtered through the leaves, I have no idea, but I definitely like the effect.

The Song of the Day is “Came So Far For Beauty” from Leonard Cohen’s 1979 album “Recent Songs”. I’ve bought some Cohen albums recently, and although the title is maybe a tad far-fetched, I thought I just have to point you one more time in his direction 😄

Here’s the song on YouTube.

There are 2 comments

Flo   (2010-11-05)

Andreas, you've shot images from the train before - but I guess they were made while the train had stopped at a station. So next time you see something beautiful in the landscape, try for a creative blur - you may be happily surprised at the result.

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andreas   (2010-11-09)

Flo, the problem with images from the train are the reflections. Modern trains lack the curtains the compartments had it earlier times, thus even when you turn off the lights, there are always the lights from the corridor. You can't dim them down, so forget about any images taken through a train's windows at dusk. But even when it's reasonably bright outside, there are still reflections from inside lights. Our mind is pretty effective at canceling them out, but the camera can't, and so the reflections invariably show up in your images. One way to get around that, is to hold the lens flush to the glass. This obviously avoids reflections, but the price is the total loss of any choice of perspective. But then, yes, I probably should do that sometimes and just see what happens. Thanks for the inspiration!

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