Starfish

Showing posts with label Photography. Show all posts

Cuba - Curious, Vibrant, Segregated and Cordial Land. Photo Diary.

I am a highly sensitive and susceptible fellow traveller. No country or city has ever failed to impress me. I do feel wows and awes left and right, as long as I am in a new place. Any place. That being said, Cuba made quite a unique impression on me - ambivalent, with bitter aftertaste, yet so touching and heart-warming.

Tomsk Fairytale Wooden Lace Architecture

I will always stay way too biased about my Siberian hometown Tomsk, because I just love it too much! But when it comes to wooden architecture - Tomsk should undoubtedly become world famous for it! And I will certainly make all the effort to bring this clearly upcoming glory closer. :)

Traveling Notes - Europe Road Trip - Luxembourg, Day3

People like me should be born with a magic kick-in-the-butt sibling, which they would apply continuously and profusely simply to accomplish an average human being’s life agenda. You know, like meeting your significant other, building that major social institution called family, acquiring a few babies, a dog and a cat and maybe a fish tank. And then to nurture all those wonderful things somewhat successfully, by which I mean at the least keeping them fed and alive. At the age of 33 my biggest accomplishment is managing to feed myself and, presumably, my boyfriend, who nonetheless occasionally claims feeling hungry. Why am I sharing this with you? Because today I wrote a post covering the third day of our 6-week Europe road trip. Three months later. Ta-da! Stay with me and in a few years you will know all the juicy details of that thrilling 6-week adventure!

Magic of Fall on Cape Cod

I love photography. I used to be dreaming of incorporating it into what I do for living one day. It didn’t happen thus far but aspirations are still present and I keep on enjoying every decent shot as much as an unskilled amateur can enjoy sudden, spasmodic success.

We spent last weekend on Cape Cod – a place full of majestic nature on one hand and fairytale like on the other. It calls for photography. Besides, Cape gets completely vacant when the season ends and appeals to any hopeless romantic out there longing for seclusion, quietness and maybe a tiny bit of melancholy. You know, the good kind of melancholy. The one you feel looking at the falling red leaves and reading a book by the fireplace or listening to your cat’s purring, snugging the blanket up your chin and tracing snowflakes in the window.

Here’s a few pics I liked and wanted to share.

Windows Stories - Photography Series - Germany, France

A window tells a story... This series gathers pictures of windows and windows details in an attempt to depict different personalities, moods and esthetics of people in Germany and France and their dwellings.

Last summer, traveling in Europe, I got obsessed with the variety, creativity, charm and beauty of windows designs and decorations. Here in the States, in the air conditioned heaven, people rarely keep windows open and I figured that might be the reason they are often neglected, underappreciated and hence look impersonal and alike. In Europe, on the contrary, windows are probably the most intriguing, detailed and ornamented part of buildings designs. They were not necessarily eye candies - there were plenty of weird and creepy ones, seedy and abandoned, but they looked so peculiar and off beat that I could not pass a single one without snapping a shot! Here are just a few of my hundreds of window pictures.

"Miami Colors" Photography Series

Despite the common belief Miami is not always sunny. It can be rainy and gloomy and even sad-looking at times. But even under the cover of clouds Miami is always full of color. It’s bright and bold both in the happening districts and in the abandoned backwaters. I feel very attached to diversified cut-loose Miami now, 10 years past my 10,755 km passage from staid and reserved Tomsk, Russia.

This small series of photographs is an attempt to capture Miami color palette with random (totally nonconceptual) shots on a not-so-hot-and-sunny day.

The architecture, the festivals, the humor – Deutschland ist sehr wunderbar! Day 6 – Germersheim, Germany

Sometimes I think cities are just like people. Some of them are world celebrities, known and spoken of by everybody. They shine and sparkle in their glory. They have no secrets left. Crowds of fans (aka tourists) are their inevitable fate and privacy is long forgotten.

And then there are simple fellows who live their simple lives. Their names are unknown; their ways and paths are left alone. The only visitors are family and friends and tourism is an extraordinary phenomenon treated with sacral reverence.

I for one love those fellow cities. There is room for imagination and fantasy. Tripadvisor is helpless and the internet blushes with embarrassment returning a tiny Wikipedia article as its one and only search result. You are on your own, but isn’t it great? When the world is thoroughly traveled and infected with tourism plague, isn’t it amazing to find places where no tourist has ever set foot and you can pretend to be an explorer on a mission to make new discoveries?

Bonjour, sava, merci, arevuar…or France I love you! // Day 5 – Strasbourg

I am in the Day 5 of the Germany-France road trip and this post will be an attempt to lure you to fall in love with the undeniable charm of Strasbourg.

The city is well known for its sandstone Gothic Cathedral, medieval timber-framed buildings and cobblestone roads. Located right at the border with Germany, it is immersed into the Franco-German culture which is echoed so well in the city’s architecture. As you walk through the city you will catch both French and German bits of conversations.