Metéora

Mountaintop Monasteries

Imagine a monastery perched atop a pillar of rock several hundred feet above the valleys below. If you want to visit the monastery, you'll need to be prepared to climb a long series of winding stone staircases.

Monastery of the Holy Trinity - Metéora

Now imagine six such monasteries clustered together in a small area, and you'll have an idea what awaits intrepid tourists at Metéora.

Varlaám Monastery - Metéora

The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Metéora in Northern Greece has a rugged terrain featuring enormous rock outcroppings towering up to 1,800 feet above the surrounding plane.

Towering Rock Formations - Metéora

Hermetic monks began to settle in this area in the late Middle Ages. The challenging terrain discouraged visitors and marauders from disturbing their encampments.

Eventually, the monks began to build monasteries on the peaks of the rock spires. More than twenty monasteries were constructed, but only six remain in existence today.

The Monastery of St. Stephen at Dusk

Metéora is a fascinating destination for any traveler who can manage the stair climbing that's required.

Metéora at Sunset

Camera:    Nikon D800E
Lenses:     Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED
                Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II

Wishing you great light and meaningful moments!

Copyright 2014 Daniel R. South

www.dansouthphoto.com

All Rights Reserved

New York - City In Motion - Guggenheim Museum

Honoring An Architectural Classic

Frank Lloyd Wright's "temple of the spirit" was built in 1959 and became an instant classic of inspired contemporary architecture. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is one of the most elegant and recognizable buildings in all of New York City.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum - New York - City In Motion

Tourists and photographers flock to the Guggenheim. It's stunning in every season. Photograph it once, and you'll want to come back and capture it at some new angle or at a different time of day.

This photo of the Guggenheim is my favorite so far. It's the very first photo that I took for the City In Motion collection, and I think that it was a pretty good start!



Camera:    Nikon D800E
Lens:        Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

Wishing you great light and meaningful moments!

Copyright 2014 Daniel R. South

www.dansouthphoto.com

All Rights Reserved

Red Crosses White Chapel - Santorini

The View from Oia

Words can't describe Oia. So when you go, take lots of photographs. Lots and lots of photographs.

Red Crosses on White Chapel - Santorini

Camera:    Nikon D800E
Lens:        Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G AF-S VRII

Wishing you great light and meaningful moments!

Copyright 2014 Daniel R. South

www.dansouthphoto.com

All Rights Reserved

9/11 Tribute Lights - New York 2014

Commemorating the Thirteenth Anniversary

9/11 Tribute Lights - New York

Dedicated to my former colleague, Richard Rosenthal.

Camera:    Nikon D800E
Lens:        Nikon PC-E 24mm f/3.5

Peace for all mankind

Copyright © 2014 Daniel R. South

www.dansouthphoto.com

All Rights Reserved

Bridegroom Abstract

Creativity in a Flurry of Documentation

September is Wedding Season!

Weddings place a lot of demands on the photographer. Every moment on a wedding day is precious, and if you miss one, it's lost forever.

You have to pay attention and be ready for anything. You need to know your camera inside and out. You need to be able to work fast and make the most of any kind of light.

Artistic shots aren't the priority at a wedding. (Beware the wedding photographer who talks at length about his creative vision.) While you fiddle with some fascinating creative opportunity, you can and will miss unrepeatable situations that the family might want to have documented.

But every now and then we get a few seconds to "play around" with our subjects. 

Bridegroom Abstract

I snapped this heavily cropped image of the groom's corsage while capturing the formal portraits of the wedding party. The shot only took a couple of seconds, and then I got back to the business at hand. 

The image doesn't identify any particular person but rather a role, the dapper gentleman who's just said, "I do!"

Now if you'll excuse me, I don't want to miss anything.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4L IS

Wishing you great light and meaningful moments!

Copyright 2014 Daniel R. South

www.dansouthphoto.com

All Rights Reserved

Jazz Guitarist

Concerto Impromptu

I heard the sound before I saw him, the delicate chords of a jazz guitar ringing out with warmth and clarity, strummed with the precise touch of a gifted player. A player like Robert Conton.

As I rounded the corner I found him playing for a dozen or so onlookers. The guitar was new, purchased minutes before from a music store down the street, but she came alive in Robert's hands as though they had been together for years.

I asked if it would be okay if I took a few photos. Robert nodded and grinned warmly.

Jazz Guitarist Robert Conton in New York

I took about six shots. I didn't want to go crazy and have the click of the shutter disturb the music. I put the camera away and just listened for a while.

The music was beautiful! The tone of Robert's guitar is so rich and full. Complex chords and dreamy melodies flowed effortlessly from his gifted hands. 

There is nothing like music, good music, produced before your eyes and ears by the hands of a musician of the highest caliber. It's like the moment when a woman falls into your arms and gives you her heart. And you want that moment to last forever.

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4L IS

Wishing you great light and meaningful moments!

Copyright 2014 Daniel R. South

www.dansouthphoto.com

All Rights Reserved

Hikers on a California Hillside

A Synergy of Symmetry

The subject of this image is symmetry. 

There's a curving, grassy hillside in the image, but we don't care about the hill, the grass, or the light.

We notice the lone tree at the top of the hill. If we look more closely, we'll see the two hikers making their way along the trail in the lower left of the frame. But we don't care about the tree or the hikers, either.

What we notice instinctively, however, is symmetry.

If we turn the photo upside down, the green hillside would occupy almost exactly the same space that the blue area occupies now. The blue and green areas are almost mirror images of each other. 

Hikers on a California Hillside

Further, when we invert the photo, the tree would be where the hikers were initially, and vice versa. The tree and the hikers effectively switch places if you turn the photo upside down.

The arrangement of the components is more interesting than the components themselves. In other words, the symmetry creates synergy. The whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.

The composition is balanced and, because it's fundamentally simple, easy for the eye to interpret. The green and blue areas create an interlocking pattern not unlike that of the famous Yin and Yang symbols. The view senses their relationship intuitively.

Some viewers have commented on the shape of the tree. What does it look like to you?

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: Canon 24-105 f/4L IS

Wishing you great light and meaningful moments!

Copyright 2014 Daniel R. South

www.dansouthphoto.com

All Rights Reserved

Dilapidated House - Eastern Sierra

Our Compelling Fascination With Decay

An old house crumbles in a cruel and irreversible battle with time. From disrepair to rot to ruin, it decomposes before our eyes, its elements returning to the Earth, inch by inch, splinter by splinter.

How did you end up this way, Old House? Who lived in you, and why did they leave? Why did they stop repairing you? Do they still drive by? Do they remember living comfortably, protected from the elements by your once-viable roof and walls? 

Dilapidated House - Eastern Sierras

We are compelled to look and to wonder. Perhaps this old house, disintegrating into the elements of a remote and unforgiving wilderness, serves as a metaphor for our own inevitable decline.

Of course I wanted to take a photo as I drove by, but I told myself to keep going. I didn't have much time. The drive to San Francisco would take most of the day. I had to keep on schedule. 

But a mile down the road, I made the decision to turn the car around. I couldn't leave this old house forgotten. I needed to make the photograph, to capture the dignity of this lonely, crumbling house while it still stood.

Thank you, Old House, for sheltering a family, for being someone's home, and for capturing our imagination.



Camera:    Nikon D800E
Lens:        Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8G AF-S 

(Shot handheld while leaning over a fence)

Wishing you great light and meaningful moments!

Copyright 2014 Daniel R. South

www.dansouthphoto.com

All Rights Reserved