After a year and a half … Ukraine remembers ….
The Maidan – Kyiv, Ukraine
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Monthly Archives: March 2015
Memorial Park, Kiev Ukraine
The Memorial Park of the Great Patriotic War
Over the next couple of months, I will be re-visiting some of the familiar sites in Kiev, Ukraine.. My time here is almost done.
I have one more major trip planned and then my effort gets diverted into getting the paperwork in place, signed and approved for the next assignment… Hopefully Moscow in July..
Happy Travels!
Photography as Art My Fine Art America
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Memorial Park – Chisinau
The Victory Memorial and Eternal Flame Park is about a 20 minute walk from downtown…and well worth it..
It’s a beautiful and spacious park built in memory of those fallen during WWII..
The center monument represents 5 rifles and encloses an :Eternal Flame” guarded by an honor guard..
Relief sculptures ring the grounds
Adjacent is the Memorial Cemetery..
A truly “must see” in any trip to Chisinau…
Happy Travels!
Photography as Art My Fine Art America
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Noteworthy in Chisinau, Moldova
While not a thriving tourist destination yet, there are a few places that are “must see” if you visit this city in Moldova..
The number one, and by far the most well kept, site is the Metropolitan Cathedral “Nativity of the Lord”..
which is located, oddly enough, in the center of Cathedral Park… The original bell tower was demolished in the ’60’s but rebuilt in 1998..
At the main entrance to the the park sits the Arc de Triumf…
The Presidential Palace, towering over the center of the city, is a short walk away…
The main train station is considered by many to be one of the prettier buildings in town.. The guards told us we couldn’t take picture inside..not sure why but, you know how security guards can be..
Like I said before, not a bad place for a weekend get-a-way…
Parks and monuments in Moldova coming soon…
Happy Travels!
Photography as Art My Fine Art Prints
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Selection of Doors – Chisinau
For some reason, I was expecting a greater variety of doors from Chisinau, Moldova…
Maybe it’s because all the Soviet era buildings were inflicted with a huge case of “sameness” … flat one color metal…
The doors from some of the older buildings were interesting, if somewhat weather-beaten.
and there were a lot of signs that people were rebuilding..upgrading..repairing…
Nice city for a weekend get-a-way …. a long way to go to be a tourist magnet.. I couldn’t even find a shot glass ( my staple souvenir from trips)
More on the city later this week…
HAPPY TRAVELS!
Photography as Art My Fine Art America
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Favorite Photo – Munich, Germany
This one was a little tougher.. especially since I am not really drawn to shoot the “iconic landmarks”. I still shoot them to prove I was there but that’s not where my artistic flare has presented itself..
There is something very clean about this photo to me.. Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t need to clone out any trash. The graffiti leading to the mural at the end is colorful and vibrant.. You don’t see a lot of underground tunnels anywhere that are this artful and clean.. Most of the ones I have been through in Europe are about a step up from being a toilet.. a very small step. And you better be watching that step.. 😛
A pleasant surprise
Happy Travels!
Photography as Art My Fine Art America
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Kutaisi – Favorite Photo (Revisited and Why)
Since I started snapping pictures, a LOT of time has passed. I would say somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 years.. Of course, my first camera was not near the quality of the one I use today but I look back and remember that Kodak Instamatic fondly..
What starting me thinking was when I started, and am currently slogging through, deleting 40 -50 thousand photos I have taken over the past 8 to 10 years. As recently as 6 years ago, most of my photos would qualify as simple snapshots. Before that I don’t even count.
No form.. no composition .. no artistry. Heck..why would they have? Just because I had graduated to better cameras didn’t mean my skill level had improved. I just happily clicked away at anything and everything…
I could easily take 300 photos and not have any that I actually liked… not well focused.. center frame composition (I didn’t even know what the rule of 3rds was at the time), exposure off.. what the heck is white balance?
I would look online and see photographs that made mine look like they were still being shot with that instamatic with the 4 shot flash cube.. What the heck was wrong?
The answer is simple.. Knowledge. I needed to learn how to get my camera out of “snapshot mode” – commonly referred to as “auto mode” …. I needed to learn the basic rules of composition… I needed to learn how to properly expose a scene… Oh, and by the way, I learned what white balance is.. 🙂
So I started reading…online articles and magazines and e-books and actual books.. and then I practiced what I read… I still take hundreds of photos but now, I am actually trying to find THE shot..
Like this one
This is one of my absolute favorites from a trip to Kutaisi, Georgia…taken at night on a long exposure… I do post processing now but as minimal as possible.. This one was almost perfect as shot.. white balance was off, as is usually the case with high pressure sodium lamps and there were some small lights in the center of the dark end which had to be cloned out..
This photo was printed on aluminum (32 X 40 inches) and is hanging on the wall in my office at work.
Over the next few weeks I will be posting my favorite photographs from each trip I have taken (or will take) … maybe I will post a few of those “early” photos.. so you can see what I mean.
Maybe not though… lol
Happy Travels!
Photography as Art My Fine Art America
Aren't We All Just Tourists Here? 