Sofia, Central train station:

Svoge and around:

I like Spring, the awakening Nature, the flowers, the bright green grass, the rails…

It’s so nice to be with friends, on an adventure! :-) I hope to have more time this year to be away from the Big city and closer to Nature!

See his portfolio here:

www.frenchguys.com/gallery/

I myself, being an amateur photographer, have tried numerous times to make beautiful macro photos of flowers and such, but this nice defocus I see in the example of Erik, made with a Canon 5D, shows clearly how far away are small digital cameras from the professional DSLRs…

This flower, by Erik, I liked very much, so I am using a resized copy of it here, with link & credits; I hope this is not a problem… :-)

Imagine my surprise, when a few minutes ago I received a comment коментар (in the Bulgarian version of my blog) from the author himself:)))

In his comment, Patrick gave me a link to another photo of the same volcano.

Here it is:

The short explanatory text below is also worth reading:

I decided to head for Ecuador, driven by my love of mountains and an insatiable urge to travel. I got more than I bargained for when I arrived, because I discovered that the Tungurahua volcano, located around 80 miles south of the country’s capital Quito, was about to erupt and was spewing dense smoke and lava. I approached it from the west, which was said to be the good weather side, since the clouds generally roll in from the east amazonas.

The road I was on ended at Puela, a little town at the western slopes of the volcano. Night fell and the clouds dissipated and I found myself staying up all night to observe and to take pictures. I’m quite a fan of astronomy and so I realised that the star cluster M45 (pleiades) was about to appear in the night sky on this moonless night, and that it would emerge more or less behind the crater.

That’s exactly what happened, I took my picture using a Canon D20 and 70-200mm combination, with an exposure time of around 20 seconds. It was a difficult shot to take, thanks to the humidity and the fact that ash was falling fairly liberally around me: my camera is now worth half its price!

The next morning I started my walk along the flanks of the volcano to reach Banos: there had been a road, but much of it had been destroyed by lava flows. The villages I passed were semi-deserted and the vegetation was covered with ash: all the time what really scared me about the volcano was that it was so quiet… no explosions, and my fear was that something was building up. Time, I told myself, to get out of here!

The following night the villages of Bilbao and Penipe suffered heavy damage and those of Chilibu, Chogloctuz and Palitagua got wiped out.

An interesting story. Now, after I’ve read it, I look with a bit different eye on the two photos from that volcano… :-)

* * *

It’s amazing, how technology now allows us in a completely different way to communicate, and to meet (in a direct or in-direct way), with people from the other side of the world:)

A popular slogan by Nokia should be (instead of: “Nokia. Connecting People.”):

Internet. Connecting people^(tm)

Or how could I learn then about Patrick Taschler? :-)

PS Here’s Patrick Taschler’s portfolio (in a bit strange for me Flash format): www.patricktaschler.com

I remained speechless, when I saw today’s photo:

Follow the link and see the photo in larger size, and also read the explanation:

Volcano Tungurahua erupted spectacularly last year. Pictured above, molten rock so hot it glows visibly pours down the sides of the 5,000-meter high Tungurahua, while a cloud of dark ash is seen being ejected toward the left. Wispy white clouds flow around the lava-lit peak, while a star-lit sky shines in the distance. The above image was captured last year as ash fell around the adventurous photographer. Located in Ecuador, Tungurahua has become active roughly every 90 years since for the last 1,300 years. Volcano Tungurahua has started erupting again this year and continues erupting at a lower level even today.

— This is what I call a brave photographer! He was brave enough to put his camera and himself near an erupting volcano! :-)

Wow!

Now I realise, it’s a pity we didn’t know anything about it before. Here’s the story:

January 1st, 2007, was a very calm day. A few hours ago Bulgaria was officially accepted as a member of the EU. A special lightshow at exactly 12:00 am this day was visible all over the capital. So, after New Year’s eve which came with lots of noise & light, me and my wife took a good sleep till noon, and then deciced to walk around the city a little.

At around 5 p.m., we were on Vitosha street, when suddenly we felt some unusual animation in front of us. There were lots of people coming and going and reaching for their digital cameras. The trams around stopped.

As we continued to walk and draw closer to the possible center of the event, the crowd densed. And then… Some strange people in white and with scary masks on their faces appeared before our eyes.

The light of the day was dimming away already, but anyway I tried to take some reporter shots with our trusty old Pentax Optio S40. Here they are (clicking on the thumbnail will reveal the picture in real size):

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What impressed me the most was he incredible nimbleness with which the men on long stilts, all clad in white and black (I called them ghosts for myself;-) were moving along the street – some of them making gigantic strides and others jumping and even moving on four long “legs” (using their arms and legs simultaneously) – unfortunately my small camera was unable to catch this – on image number two, though, you can see a “ghost” moving so fast that it looks more like a white cloud than a real figure:-)

All curious that we were, what is this all about, who are these people, and where they go on their ship singing and playing and jumping and running around and bringing some strange red and white lights with them, we decided to continue our walk and soon returned to our home. It was cold, so going home appeared as the best option.

We didn’t hear anything about Malabar till this day. I have learned a little more from their official website – but unfotunately, it appears that we missed quite a show this evening – this French troupe gave a performance near NDK a little after their noisy appearance on Vitosha street.

No official media, apparently, has covered their performance in full this day, so I wanted to contribute a little and tell you about how we met them for the first time (and I hope, not the last!) and show you a couple of imperfect images:-)

I guess, next time I’ll be more careful when reading posters on the street:-/