And again more than a handful of days between posts ;-) But: There’s 2 excuses for it (see PS below). Anyway, I should get back to posting more regularly now (I hope). So last week-end, Steffi surprised me by taking me on a small trip to Barcelona (probably as “revenge” for the Aran-Islands-Trip…). It’s amazing what a few days of sun, warm temperatures and shorts can do :-)
The first of the three days of our visit we spent pretty much just walking around the city and “soaking” it all in. What a beautiful place, with the old city quarter (Barri Gòtic — Gothic Quarter) and all. The above photo was shot in the small courtyard of the Casa de l’Ardiaca, and there are two things that I’d like to talk about.
First of all: The perspective. Looking straight up can give you new angles. So whenever you walk around and don’t really see anything inspiring, try looking straight up and check if there’s anything interesting to find.
Second: Lens flare. To get those nice, star-shaped flares you need control over the aperture. For some physical reason (couldn’t find a good link quickly) the more you close the aperture (i.e. increase the F-number), the more star-like they appear — typically, anything above ƒ/16 works pretty well. Only problem then: You’ll see all the dirt on your lens and sensor, so some spot removal might be required ;-)
For a best-of of the Barcelona trip, check out this album; alternatively, here’s the complete album.
PS: 1) I was in Barcelona, 2) I rebuilt my website. This took a good while but is finished now (I basically migrated the contents of my hand-written website to WordPress, and reworked the theme to accommodate for static pages and the guestbook).
