Thinking of (and envying) all the dear blogging friends who are attending The Hive, the first European blog conference in Berlin this weekend.
Once Jack Lang, a French politician, said “Paris is always Paris and Berlin is never Berlin!“. So true!
Camera: Canon PowerShot G5
Location: Berlin, Germany
Last weekend, while looking for a piece of paper I haven’ found yet, I opened one of my several tin boxes and found these two photos I had completely forgotten about.
They were both taken last summer (cough cough) in Donegal.
You can see the rest of the roll here.
Camera: DianaF+
Film: Lomography CN 100
Location: Donegal, Ireland
I’m thinking of adding a new category.
This new category, named Slowly but surely, would be perfect for all the photos I’ve meant to share here for a long time (as today’s post) or the ones I keep finding (this time not in a drawer but in a tin box).
Donnafugata’s castle, which dates back to 17th century, is set in the rolling south-eastern Sicilian countryside among rocks and giant carob and olive trees. If you have ever watched Inspector Montalbano series, the place might look familiar to you being the boss Sinagra’s residence.
The castle boasts 122 rooms but only the first floor is open to visitors.
Though the gardens showed clear signs of heat exhaustion (it was the end of October when I visited after all), it was nice walking and exploring all the different buildings.
The castle’s name, which is Arabic in origin, is misleading. It does not refer, in fact, to a woman fleeing some tyrannical husband or father (Donnafugata in Italian means kidnapped woman) but refers to the water fountain that the Arabs found on the site and that was named Ayn as Jafat (meaning Fountain of Health). The name in Sicilian dialect became Ronnafuata first and Donnafugata later on. However, someone still insists that Queen Blanche of Navarre ran away from a loveless marriage and was later imprisoned here.
Which version of the story do you prefer to believe?
Camera: Canon EOS 550D
Location: Donnafugata (Ragusa), Italy
I have to admit that when a couple of weeks ago I decided it was time I went out again with my Voigtländer Vitoret the weather was not promising at all, so I shouldn’t have loaded the camera with a ISO 100 film (… an expired film, if that wasn’t bad enough).
I kept shooting despite the dark sky and persistent drizzle (I was in a park so I took shelter under the trees) but when rain started to pour (see photo on the right!) I gave up hope: I had the wrong camera at the wrong time! Therefore you can imagine my surprise when I got the roll developed and saw that, in spite of everything, the place turned out to be right!
Now I have the proof that pink trees (and flowers) never disappoint! I love their muted colours in the photos below and I believe rain helped intensifying them.
![pink trees merrion square In spite of [or thanks to] the rain](http://www.antorra.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/pink_trees_merrion_square.jpg "Pink trees in Merrion Square, Dublin")
Camera: Voigtländer Vitoret DR
Film: Fujifilm Portra 100, Expired
Location: Merrion Square, Dublin
Last Sunday, to celebrate World Pinhole Day*, I went to Collins Barracks with my DianaF+ that can go pinhole whenever I decide to remove the lens.
Originally an army barracks, the buildings are now home of the National Museum of Decorative Arts and History. The site, built in 1704 on the orders of Queen Anne, remained a barracks for British troops until 1922 when it was taken over by the Irish Army and re-named after Irish revolutionary leader Michael Collins.
The central square is a magnificent space surrounded by the large blocks of the barracks. Because I could not shoot hand-holding the camera** and because I didn’t have a tripod with me, I balanced the camera on a table and that’s the reason you see some chairs in the corner.
Then I turned my attention to the inside of the two arcaded colonnades but… cough cough… I placed the camera on a wonky chair and this is the reason the two photos below are so blurred.
Back home I decided to take a self-portrait but I forgot to wind the film so… this is the result!
Camera: DianaF+
Film: Lomography Black & White Negative 100
Location: Collins Barracks, Dublin
*Follow this link to see which one of the photos above I submitted to the Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day web site. What do you think? Do you agree with my choice?
** [Only for those who wonder about which shutter speed I used] I read on the camera’s manual that with ISO 400 film I would have needed 30 seconds in the shade. Because I was using a ISO 100 film and the day was cloudy (and that’s an understatement) I kept the shutter open for 50 seconds on average.
