memories of the ancient city of bagan - capital city of the first myanmar kingdom, now home to more than 2500 buddhist monuments built from the 10th to the 14th centuries spread over 40 square kilometers
"a funny thing happened on the way to my potential" - anonymous
Flamingos fighting for a fishing spot.
The greater flamingo is the most widespread species of the flamingos in the world. They live on mudflats and shallow coastal lagoons from Southern Europe to Bangladesh. Flamingo hatchlings are grey and it takes up to three years for their feathers to attain the famous pink colour. "quest iii" is the newest addition to the "sense of water" collection.
"the hardest thing in life to learn is which bridge to cross and which to burn." - david russell
once a place of american trade, prince's dock in glasgow is now a sign of transformation.
once a quiet fishing village tas-sliema grew into the most dynamic town in malta. laying between the capital valletta and tourism centre st julian, sliema has today a bit of both worlds.
"at every sunrise i renounce the doubts of night and greet the new day of a most precious delusion." - czeslaw milosz
Three paratroopers during military demontration in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
"to wish a life without stairs, without hills and mountains is to wish a dim life without the joy of rising with our own efforts!"- mehmet murat ildan
"the caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity." - george carlin
“The butterfly is a flying flower,The flower a tethered butterfly.” ― Ponce Denis Écouchard Lebrun
capturing these little flying creatures can require either a great amount of patience or even a greater amount of luck. most of the time though it takes both. here's the "approach" i succeeded on a rainy day, when the butterflies were a bit to lazy to fly around. however, it still took a good 20 minutes to have it landing on the leaf.
a family of balinese long tailed monkeys in the sacred monkey forest of ubud;
“it is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.” -- thomas jefferson
One day in December I was lucky to be the first person to witness the sunrise in Madeira, from its highest pick - Pico Ruivo, 1862 m. Reaching up before 7 am wasn’t necessarily hard, however, the wind and the low temperatures added a bit of challenge to the climb. This picture was taken shortly before sunrise, when the little tow of Santana (down) was still asleep under a dense cover of clouds, waiting for a new day to start.
one year and one day ago the day started with a battle between sun and clouds; clouds won and it was only two days later that we saw the first rays of sun reaching the southern coast of madeira
"fog can cover anything, anything except itself!" ― mehmet murat ildan
madeira, portugal
Madeiran Chaffinch is endemic to Madeira subspecies of the European Chaffinch. Preferring rather high altitudes, they are common companions of hikers exploring the island.This particular one was part of an extremely friendly group staying near the coffee shop on the "Levada das 25 Fontes" walk. The group of scavangers was living of remains of cakes and sandwiches from the tourist's plates.
"there is a crack a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."
One day in December I was lucky to be the first person to witness the sunrise in Madeira, from its highest pick - Pico Ruivo, 1862 m. Reaching up before 7am wasn’t necessarily hard, however the wind and the low temperatures added a bit of challenge to the climb. This picture was taken shortly before sunrise, when the little village of Santana (down) was still asleep under a dense cover of clouds, awaiting for a new day to start.
"may your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. may your mountains rise into and above the clouds." - edward abbey
"Adieu, ye joys of La Valette!Adieu, sirocco, sun, and sweat!Adieu, thou palace rarely enter'd!Adieu, ye mansions where I've ventured!Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs!(How surely he who mounts you swears!)" -- George Gordon Byron, "Farewell To Malta"
"Give him alms, woman,because there is nothing sadder in life than being blind in Granada".These lines by Francisco de Icaza are inscribed on the walls of Alhambra - one of the most precious jewels of Arabic architecture in the world. The palace built in the 13th century was home to Nasrid dynasty - the last Arab rulers in Iberian peninsula. Later, it served as the royal court of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was here, where they extended their royal endorsement of the infamous expedition to India by Christopher Columbus. In this picture, the Alhambra and the city of Granada are fading in what Bill Clinton once called "the most beautiful sunset in the world".
“I do not know what to call this land upon which I stand. if what is beneath my feet is paradise, then what is the alhambra? heaven?” - lope de vega.
Making a good shot is always about finding a balance between accident and control. It could not be truer in the case of cityscape photography that requires both preparation and favours from the gods of nature. However, sometimes it just happens that you are in the right place at the right time with a camera on your shoulders and the monkey in your head tells you to turn around and look back. That's the story of "in blue".
while the strabourg cathedral with one unfinished tower is the symbol of the old city, église réformée saint-paul is probably the most familiar of the new german strasbourg
built in the 13th century, the ponts couverts is one of the few remnants of the medieval defences of the city of strasbourg. shot on the easter morning during the only minute of sunshine that day.
"elegance does not consist of putting on a new dress" - coco chanel
the small church of san giovanni in ranui in the background of villnöß valley
"never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. then you will see how low it was." - dag hammarskjold
"the road goes ever on and ondown from the door where it began.now far ahead the road has gone,and I must follow, if i can,pursuing it with eager feet,until it joins some larger waywhere many paths and errands meet.and whither then? i cannot say"-- j.r.r. tolkien, "the fellowship of the ring"
long long time ago there was a beauty contest among the alpine valleys. villnösstal (or val di funes) was victorious and wears its magnificent crown of the odle/geisler mountains to this day.
“when you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. that’s what this storm’s all about.” - haruki murakami, kafka on the shore
as the legend says in once upon the time a beautiful water nymph lived in the pristine waters of lago di carezza. a wizard masaré, once heard her singing and fell in love, however, not even his magic was enough to win the nymph. with help from a witch, an elaborate plan was born. masaré was supposed to stretch a rainbow from the lake and disguise as a jewellery salesman, just to be able to approach the nymph.sadly for the wizard, he forgot the salesman cloak and was recognized. the nymph jumped into the lake and was never seen since. angry masaré smashed the rainbow into pieces, which fell into waters of the lake. since then the ladin name of the lake is "lec de ergobando" (rainbow lake).
"surely no child, and few adults, have ever watched a bird in flight without envy." - isaac asimov
"i want to stand as close to the edge as i can without going over. out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center." - kurt vonnegut
“in less than a hundred years, we have found a new way to think of ourselves. from sitting at the center of the universe, we now find ourselves orbiting an average-sized sun, which is just one of millions of stars in our own milky way galaxy”. - stephen hawking
did you know that worker bees visit more than four million blossoms to produce one kilogram of honey? their job is not only tiresome but can also get pretty dirty; just after visiting a few hibiscus blossoms this worker bee got all covered in pollen and could hardly fly; i caught it while trying to unload some of the undesirable cargo;
while many consider malta and other mediterranean islands to be summer destinations, it is winters when they truly reveal themselves"in vallettaa centaur sits at nighton a bastionsfor few minutesthen goes"- emmanuel george cefai, valletta
grand harbour - now a peaceful port in the middle of the middle see - once was a heavily contested military stronghold; during the great siege of malta six thousand knights of st. john and maltese soldiers defended three fortified cities of birgu, senglea against 36 thousand strong ottoman army;
"i have spoken to you of pompeii," said the moon, "that corpse of a city, exposed in the view of living towns. i know another sight still more strange, and this is not the corpse but the specter of a city. whenever the jetty fountains splash into the marble basins, they seem to me to be telling the story of the floating city." - hans christian andersen
"this was venice, the flattering and suspect beauty this city, half fairy tale and half tourist trap, in whose insalubrious air the arts once rankly and voluptuously blossomed, where composers have been inspired to lulling tones of somniferous eroticism." – thomas mann
"if you read a lot, nothing is as great as you’ve imagined. venice is — venice is better." - fran lebowitz
faces of venice carnival i | venice, italy
"when i went to venice, i discovered that my dream had become- incredibly, but quite simply- my address." - marcel proust
"when i seek another word for 'music', i never find any other word than 'venice'." - friedrich nietzsche
"every time i describe a city i am saying something about venice."italo calvino, invisible cities
"the purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." – pablo picasso
the life of the lighthouse of ponta dos capelinhos on the westernmost tip of faial was as adventurous as they get; an eruption of capelinhos volcano just one kilometre away from a lighthouse in 1957-58 destroyed all surrounding buildings and resulted in a rise of the volcanic cone (visible on the right) by more than 200 meters;
blooms of darkness
late spring in frankfurt am main
"i wonder about silence. also about darkness. i love the idea that city lights are a "conspiracy" against higher thoughts." - terry tempest williams
in some regions of zimbabwe and zambia it is said that the meerkats are 'sun angels' sent by the gods to protect villages, straying cattle, and lone tribesmen from the 'moon devil' or werewolf;
butterfly breakfast ii
"beauty ain't always a little, cute colored flower. beauty is anything where people be like, 'damn'." - prodigy
"when a man is tired of london, he is tired of life; for there is in london all that life can afford." - samuel johnson
"remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance." - John Ruskin
"i would define the baroque as that style that deliberately exhausts (or tries to exhaust) its own possibilities, and that borders on self-caricature. the baroque is the final stage in all art, when art flaunts and squanders its resources." - jorge luis borges
"life is like walking through snow: every step shows." - jess lair
"you are not in the mountains. the mountains are in you." - john muir
gran paradiso | aosta valley, italy
"no single mountain ever came to me...so I always go to them." - erik tanghe
"each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death." - arthur schopenhauer
"the difference between a good life and a bad life is how well you walk through the fire" - carl jung
"a crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in." - frederick the great
"listen to silence. it has so much to say." - rumi
"when thou art at rome, do as they do at rome." - miguel de cervantes
"the wisdom of bridges comes from the fact that they know the both sides, they know the both shores!" - mehmet murat ildan
"there are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice and somewhere else the tea is getting cold." - sylvester mccoy
“Mallorca is a place similar to happiness, apt to be blissful in it, apt for the scenario of happiness and I, as many islanders and visitors, have almost never got the weath of happiness that one must carry inside to feel worthy spectator (and not ashamed) of such clarity of beauty.”
"mirrors are there when we are and yet they never give anything back to us but our own image. never, never shall we know what they are when they are alone or what is behind them." — erich maria remarque
"everything takes time. bees have to move very fast to stay still."- david foster wallace,
"the sky is the daily bread of the eyes." - ralph waldo emerson
"clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky." — rabindranath tagore
"it is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors." - oscar wild
"inside the fogs, you think better and thus you see better!" - mehmet murat ildan
"The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over the harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on." - Carl Sandburg
"i wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again." - lewis carroll
"in order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence." – robert lynd
"so lovely was the loneliness of a wild lake." – edgar allan poe
"life isn't a tiptoe through the tulips." -shannon hoon
