Weird populace - Rio Homem

Shifting to fauna and getting close to some of those that populate and give life to a natural spot, I leave the first series of photos taken on the same day. Gerês is very rich, indeed.

  Bocage’s Wall Lizard / Lagartixa de Bocage - Podarcis bocagei

 

 Ant / Formiga - Camponotus lateralis (might be Crematogaster scutellaris but by their behavior, I guess the first one). 

Well… the next one is a bee / abelha! Which species, I don’t know and the photo hasn’t enough detail to accurately identify it. But it was sunset and the colors where truly intense on this lavender. Out of DOF where yellow lirium (from a nearby residential garden).

 

Bee on lavander

North shoreline of River Homem

Terras de Bouro, Portugal

2011, June

P.S.: I am not and do not pretend to personate a biologist. I’m just curious about the weird beings I photograph and attempt the exercise of identifying them.

Upriver Ermida's Waterfalls

This is another magnificent waterfall in Arado River, near Ermida. This time, slightly North to one published before. I was truly immersed in this beautiful spot and getting this front view of a waterfall with wide lens is a memory of how deeply in contact someone can be with Nature there. The detail images are even closer perspectives.

Cascatas de Fecha de Barjas (upriver), Rio Arado

Gerês, Portugal

Fecha de Barjas Waterfalls, Ermida - Detail

This one is in more detail and is a higher view of the previous waterfall. I am still amazed with the flow of water in peak of Summer. With the current drought in Portugal, I won’t expect this again in 2012.

Cascatas de Fecha de Barjas, Ermida, Rio Arado

Gerês,Portugal

Fecha de Barjas Waterfalls, Ermida

As my first publication, I've chosen a moment where everything made sense: a marvelous and untouched spot in the middle of Parque Nacional Peneda Gerês (PNPG), good company and absolutely nothing on the schedule.

Cascatas de Fecha de Barjas, Ermida, Rio Arado

Gerês, Portugal.
2011, August.

Let there be light... and bytes!

I never had a blog. I always believed that the purpose of a blog was to contribute and never felt I had something that people would be interested in. And “showing” is not really my style.

My friend and fellow (free-time) nature photographer Tiago Pereira is in a constant dispute with me about this. “Make a blog” he says, “what for?” I reply. Thank you for being enough annoying!

So, the main point for this (besides of someone else looking* at my work) is actually the exercise of motivating me to take even more photographs and, mainly, working on them. The purpose is to create a drive for me to get better at doing something that I love: Nature Photography and meeting new spots where you can stop your mind and open it just to embrace and admire life.

Finally, in a quick insight, I believe my photographer profile is as follows:

• Photography has always been part of my life and is my way to keep memories alive;
• Photography has been put aside for too many times in my life. Seems that life keeps overburdening me with things that seem to be more important;
• I am a late DSLR starter (photographic stuff is way too expensive): by early 2009, I put aside my old 35mm film camera and went berserk on digital full frame. Miss the chemical scents of the lab, though;
•  Everything is interesting to shoot for me. Finding how you can make an interesting photograph out of anything is a quite a challenging task;
•  I shoot to kill*… I mean, for me, the camera is a sniper rifle, not a machine gun. This might be a habit inherited of shooting film. Expensive 36 round cartridges made me disciplined on pressing the shutter button. Shooting should be, in some bizarre way, an elegant and effective exercise;
•  I keep pressing the “delete” button on camera. Never satisfied. Actually, I might have missed some good opportunities because I was too busy deleting photos in-field;
•  Looking at my storage media, most of my photographs are as they were shot. Somehow, I like the “raw” about RAW-format. Maybe that’s my biggest flaw as photographer;
•  Anyway, my goal, when capturing and editing a digital photograph is a mean to make it represent the subject I’ve seen with my eyes as accurately as possible. Even when pushing the boundaries of reality to create some additional impact, it typically falls short on showing the beauty of some of these spots. A photographic frame is just that: a short representation of a memory in some moment in time. And a shareable memory!

* About copyright: I value a lot the time I invest in things and I do not tolerate someone else taking credit (in any form) from my work. Enough said.

 ** By the way... I'm incapable of killing. I respect life, any form of it. On the other end, I don't respect those (humans) that don't respect and abuse from it.