Uploads from justeline

Silent Lucidity

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 07:36:36 -0700

justeline posted a photo:

Limni village, Evoia Island, Greece

Spring 2011

The Dark Traveler

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 10:33:25 -0700

justeline posted a photo:

Left alone to disintegrate on a windblown, misty beach in Peloponnese, Dimitrios proved to be every bit as enchanting as in my dreams. Haunting and haunted, broken but not yet dead, it still stands upright, a ghostly mirage condemned to travel forever through misty mornings, fiery sunsets and sunrises, through rain and thunderstorms, gloomy skies and starry nights, through time but never through space, never leaving the place that's been eating it away for almost 30 years now.

Autumn Interlude

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 10:17:18 -0700

justeline posted a photo:

Sometimes you are lucky enough to find yourself in front of a scene that includes almost all of your obsessions; a beautifully built stone bridge, a double waterfall and a raging river running beneath it... copper-leafed trees framing it all...

And yet, after you have spent some time at that place, looking at it from all possible angles, trying to capture that wonderful puzzle, you realize you have fallen in love with just one piece of it.

Sometimes you find that one particular piece of the puzzle is much more important than the whole picture...

Palaiokaria, Trikala, Greece
November 2010

Semiramis

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 10:28:00 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

According to legend, Semiramis was the daughter of the sea-goddess Derketo of Ascalon and a mortal. Her mother, Derketo abandoned her at birth and drowned herself. The child was fed by doves until she was found and brought up by Simmas, the royal shepherd.

Sounds ironic that this ship, named after her, seems to have met Derketo in her watery grave, rusting quietly to oblivion on a rocky beach in Andros Island.

... or maybe not so quietly. We kept her company for 4 mornings and afternoons waiting for a break in the sky and had the chance to hear her moaning as she settled deeper into the sea. Imagining the thunderous noise of her impact upon the rocks on the day her journey ended was unavoidable. As is her fate.

Andros Island, Greece
December 2010

Suspended in Light

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 14:06:32 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

The Metéora (Greek: Μετέωρα, "suspended rocks", "suspended in the air" or "in the heavens above") is one of the largest and most important complexes of Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Greece, second only to Mount Athos. The six monasteries are built on natural sandstone rock pillars, at the northwestern edge of the Plain of Thessaly near the Pineios river and Pindus Mountains, in central Greece.

… a low mist was the kind of weather I had hoped for even before we set off for that surreal place. But after having spent 4 afternoons and 4 mornings at the same chosen spot, having to deal with light but annoying showers for the most part, after witnessing rainbows materialize in all the wrong spots (over my companion's head), after watching a wonderful cloud formation changing colors over the wrong spot (the road), I went to bed on our last night there having already put this place in my “to re-visit” list and I would have gladly stayed in bed on the following morning, dreaming about this shot rather than be mocked by the weather once again. Fortunately my companion wasn’t ready to give up and it was on that fifth morning that the rising sun worked its magic and created the low mist I was hoping for.

Meteora, Greece
November 2010

Prelude to Autumn

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:13:34 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

Palaiokaria, Trikala, Greece
November 2010

Misty Lands

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 10:19:48 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

Emerald green with a touch of autumn...

Voidomatis River, Greece
Autumn 2009

The Dark Traveller II

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 06:42:30 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

Left alone to disintegrate on a windblown, misty beach in Peloponnese, the shipwreck of Dimitrios proved to be every bit as enchanting as in my dreams. Haunting and haunted, broken but not yet dead, it still stands upright, a ghostly mirage condemned to travel forever through misty mornings, fiery sunsets and sunrises, through rain and thunderstorms, gloomy skies and starry nights, through time but never through space, never leaving the place that's been eating it away for almost 30 years now.

December 2009

Prisoners of the Dusk

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 06:52:52 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

The fortress of Methoni in Greece, shot from a loophole of the Castle on a windy afternoon which gave its place to an intensely colorful sunset. When we finished shooting we returned to the main gate only to find out that we had been securely locked inside (hence the title). It took us a considerable amount of time and phone calls to escape but at least we were left with a story to tell!

Underneath the Veil

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 06:42:24 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

Underneath the veil of the mist, somewhere in Epirus, Greece.

Bridges to Babylon

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:12:03 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

Misty morning at Kokorou's bridge

Epirus, Greece
Spring 2009

The Song of the Sirens

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 08:03:46 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

In Greek mythology, Sirens were part human, part bird. They lived on a rocky island in the middle of the sea, possibly near Italy. They sang melodies so beautiful that sailors passing by couldn't resist getting closer to them. Following their song, the sailors would steer their ships towards them or jump in the water to get closer. Either way, it always ended in disaster on the rocks. That is why the island where they lived was full of shipwrecks.
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That was just to explain the title. The more down to earth facts say that the tanker Africa fell into a storm on a night of December 2003. The strong winds and powerful waves made sure that it was its last pass from the island of Milos. And frankly, standing there on an August morning with the wind trying to sweep us off our feet and the waves crashing all around us, constantly spraying us with seawater, this second version seemed much more plausible. But then again, looking back at the memory of that day through the filter of nostalgia I could swear there was a haunting song hidden in the howling of the wind…

Sarakiniko Bay, Milos Island, Greece
Summer 2009

Chasing Light

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 10:42:22 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

Alpenglow at the peak of Astraka towering above us at 2436m.

Tymfi mountain, Epirus, Greece
June 2010

Ad Astra

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 14:52:23 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

ad astra (/ad a⋅stra/)= to the stars

That’s just me. Sometimes things happen all around me, seasons change, the world moves on, people move on or out around me and I just stay static, clueless and ignorant. Sometimes I open my eyes and move along. Sometimes I even find myself in the lead even if I was too slow to take the first step. I’m afraid of changes. But they have always turned out for the best.

One thing I realized during those hours while we sat there looking at the light of the stars, that light from the past, was the definition of contentment: watching at the shooting stars I could think of nothing to wish for. Everything I needed was right there with me, everything that really mattered was already true…
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About the Shot:

Star trail photography done with the “stacking multiple exposures” method. 30 four minute shots stacked in "lighten" layer mode over a base shot where the foreground was illuminated with a flashlight.

I took two alternative base shots, one without me and one in which I posed for 2 of the 4 minutes of the exposure (longest 2 minutes of my life!), which explains why my knee –being backlit- looks semi-transparent.

Equilibrium

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:51:01 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

Besides its heroic history Mesologi is a town with huge photographic interest. Its salt lake, salt plains, characteristic boats and the fishermen's huts right into the water make it a place you could spend countless mornings and dusks, basking in its beauty.

What I liked about this hut is that the pier leading to it was completely detached from the land. I chose to go for a long exposure on this one cause I wanted the reflection perfectly formed and completely unbroken to give the illusion of a construction balanced in mid air, floating in space and time.

Fishermen's Blues

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:46:49 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

Klima is a little picturesque village in Milos Island, consisted of just a handful of fishermen’s homes lined up upon the shore. It acquires life only during summer while for the rest of the year it becomes a ghost village, its once full of life homes used only to store boats. As the friendly villagers told us, when autumn comes they remove all furniture from the ground floors, seal the houses, put up wave breakers to protect them from the menace of the winter’s storms and the waves crashing on their doors and sometimes through them and pray to find them as they left them.

This cataclysmic winter image seemed like the workings of a wild imagination though on that summer afternoon we arrived at the village and quietly sat on the cement pier waiting for the setting sun to paint the already colorful houses. It looked like a little piece of heaven, the huge doors wide open, large companies sitting around the tables eating, drinking, laughing and singing, children rushing in and out of the houses, in and out of the sea. The laughter and songs came all the way to the spot where we set our cameras up.

Dragon Dreams

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:15:36 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

Drakolimni (= Dragon lake) is the name of several alpine or sub-alpine lakes in northwestern Greece Epirus periphery. According to local folktales the lakes used to be inhabited by dragons that fought each other by throwing pines and rocks and thus created the peculiar landscape and gave their names to the lakes. Drakolimni of Tymfi resides at an altitude of 2100m above sea level, on the mountain range of Tymfi and is inhabited by a species of alpine newt, called drakakia by the locals. According to local sources, the newts' resemblance to small dragons gives the lake its distinctive name.

…and this was my most difficult capture to get. Not to capture, but to reach that sliver of paradise we had to go through a kind of hell. To set things straight, when I say WE I mean WE. Most people traveling light, with only their clothes in their backpacks or with no backpacks at all reach that place in 5 hours of fairly easy uphill track (or even less, we met people that jogged that track just for fun). Well, let me give you the version of two mildly to seriously out of shape and heavily packed photographers carrying with them all of their photographic equipment (to talk with numbers that’s translated to 25 kilos for male photographer *KirlianCamera and 15 kilos for female photographer me –that’s just a little less than one third of my weight)...

Alarm clock set at 7.30 am, arrival at the nearest village at 9.00am. We saddle up and start walking. First half hour is a mere torture to me as what starts as a merely annoying pain at my right shoulder becomes a stab real fast. I keep fumbling and messing with my backback straps, tightening some and loosening up some until I find a comfortable combination at last. We carry on panting laboriously, tongues lolling out of our mouths; we do innumerable stops to catch our breath and I use each of these stops to munch enthusiastically through our supplies of food not because I’m hungry but because I want to lighten up my burden. Fortunately at some point the carbohydrates I have consumed kick in and I feel much better, find a reasonable pace and 6 hours later we reach the refuge and collapse on the front porch unable to shoo away the horses that come to greet us, sniff, lick and nibble at our bags. After a hot drink and a tasty dinner we sleep like logs.

That was not the end, the lake still lay ahead of us and we set off to explore it and time ourselves on the next morning. Stop clock verdict: 2 hours. Which means that since we want a sunrise at the land of the dragons we wake up at 3.30am, leave by 4.00 am, snow sparkling like diamond dust under our headlights, moon shining behind the peak of Astraka, mildly worried about wolves and bears waiting for their nicely wrapped up in isothermal clothes take-away breakfast. We reach the lake in our usual, unbecoming fashion (panting laboriously, tongues hanging out of our mouths etc etc) just in time to catch the first light touching the peaks before it was snuffed out by a heavy cloud right behind us.

Do I dare do it again? H E L L, Y E S!!!

Beneath a Still Sky

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 08:15:51 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

Beneath that still sky lies The Rock of Monemvasia, and its medieval fortress. Some refer to it as "the Gibraltar of the East" or "The Rock".

I’ve always thought of the place as enchanting and mythical, especially when I first visited it as a kid. It looked to me as the medieval counterpart of Atlantis for some reason and its name sounded even more enchanting, like some sort of a magical incantation.

Odd as it may seem, when I look at this photo I realize that the best part of that morning in December 2009 was not the sunrise itself. And it was a lovely sunrise spent perched precariously on the rocks, watching that huge cloud that stood over The Rock for a long time, changing its shape from a caterpillar, to a snail, to a sea turtle (yes, the sky wasn’t so still after all, and that cloud was a big show off!). Still the best part of that day was the subsequent walk through the narrow cobblestone paths of the castle, and the slippery climb trying to reach the highest point of it with the company of a friendly mongrel dog who quickly took the lead and sniffed its way to the top thus showing us the way. And the even better part of it was that cup of coffee we had in one of the cafes there, basking in the sun and enjoying the terrific view.

ID

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 08:10:04 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

Me in action!

When the Sun Goes Down

nobody@flickr.com (justeline) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 12:15:24 -0800

justeline posted a photo:

Sarakiniko Bay, Milos Island, Greece

Summer 2009