Saturday 14 February 2015

Compositions in blue and white

Weather-wise, the appearance of cloudless skies and bright sunshine after a fortnight of February gloom has brought good cheer, and a some rays of optimism. The temperature today rose from -1C at dawn to +9C in the afternoon

Photo recipe: Take a brilliant blue sky, place a circular polarising filter on to your lens (the wider the lens the better), find a white subject, position yourself between the sun and the subject, turn the filter until maximum contrast is obtained, and snap.

Stare at leafless trunks of the slender silver birch trees of Jeziorki. Enlarge the photos, stare at them, and use your will to bring on the spring...




Some suburban blue and white... Across the tracks from Mysiadło, the Little Boxes estate.


And finally - blue and silver. Still my favourite skyscraper in town (although the Cosmopolitan building is very attractive too), Rondo ONZ One. Photo taken yesterday afternoon.


Five weeks until the start of astronomical spring, six weeks until the clocks go forward. Lent starts on Wednesday.

This time three years ago:
Waiting for the change to come

This time four years ago
A wetter Poland?

This time six years ago:
Heavy overnight snow

This time seven years ago:
Changing Jeziorki skyline

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lent starts on Wednesday, Ash Wednesday

Michael Dembinski said...

@ Anonymous:

Yes, of course it is :-)

Thanks for the prompt - duly corrected!

dr Marcin said...

Hi Mike,

Please tell us one thing, coz you're of the great promoters of the Polish challenge within the last 25 yrs. How is that, that in 1975, when the Łazienkowski Bridge has being burn-out it was extinguished just only 7 hours, while yesterday, it took approx. 12 hours to do the same. Though, some of technical and personal means then should be reasonably poorer and worse than those of yesterday. Frankly saying, I'm not sure if a level of progress, development and increase of a wealth of a nation might be only weighted and counted by a number of new square meters constructed in new skyscrapers. Do you support of this point of view.

Michael Dembinski said...

Agreed that firefighting resources left a lot to be desired. However, the key question is: how quickly will the bridge be re-opened. I was impressed by the fact that this morning at 7am the Warsaw Metro had posters all over the place advising passengers how to cross the river.