Elementum Photography Journeys

Dordrecht, the Netherlands

Laura Alisic — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 04:35:47 +0000

Dordrecht is a city in the Netherlands that originates from the 12th century. The city knew great riches in the Golden Age due to trade, and it shows. Fortunately many of the historic buildings have been well maintained in the old center, and it is a pleasure to walk around. Beautiful old streets, quaint cafes, patricians’ houses that have been precariously tilting for centuries. A famous landmark is one of the churches, the Great Church or Our Dear Lady Church, built around the 13th century. I decided to see if I could find several motives in that church which could be cropped in a square form. A useful exercise forcing creativity and experimentation, I should do this more!

“Church Detail I”
Dordrecht, the Netherlands
ISO 800, 90 mm, 1/4 s at f/8.0

“Church Detail II”
Dordrecht, the Netherlands
ISO 800, 84 mm, 1/25 s at f/5.0

“Church Detail III”
Dordrecht, the Netherlands
ISO 800, 55 mm, 0.3 s at f/5.0

And then of course I couldn’t withhold this image from you: this is as Dutch as it gets. A centuries old street with a waterway in front, a postmodern building in the high background, and a discarded bicycle in the water. Classic.

“Dutch Juxtaposition”
Dordrecht, the Netherlands
ISO 100, 55 mm, 1/25 s at f/5.0

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Venice Beach in the Rain

Laura Alisic — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 04:33:05 +0000

Beach photography in Southern California is often recording only good weather. This time I wanted to do something different: capture the mood of a rainstorm, and work with the colors of the sea as they change with the weather. This shoot was done on Venice Beach near and on the pier, mid-May between 5:30 and 6:30 am. The sea had this incredible hue of deep green-blue, right before sunrise.

“Pier at Dawn I”
Venice Beach, California
ISO 100, 23 mm, 30 s at f/22

“Pier at Dawn II”
Venice Beach, California
ISO 100, 25 mm, 80 s at f/22

I also wanted to experiment with a more abstract, minimalist, black and white approach to long-exposure shots of the sea water. It took some waiting for the sea weed to have the right orientation, as it was rocking back and forth in the waves hitting the beach.

“Sea Weed I”
Venice Beach, California
ISO 100, 20 mm, 42 s at f/22

“Sea Weed II”
Venice Beach, California
ISO 100, 23 mm, 37 s at f/22

It was raining fairly heavily at the beginning of the shoot, but the weather cleared a bit towards the end, changing the mood of the scene entirely. The pier was coming to life, the first fishermen of the day arriving just after sunrise.

“Pier at Dawn V”
Venice Beach, California
ISO 100, 18 mm, 1/30 s at f/6.3

“Venice Beach Fishermen I”
Venice Beach, California
ISO 100, 50 mm, 1/25 s at f/6.3

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6th Street Bridge

Laura Alisic — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:28:02 +0000

Downtown Los Angeles has many attractive features to photograph at night – and the 6th Street Bridge is a famous one. For various reasons: it has a view onto the high-rises of Downtown, it crosses the railroad tracks, and its structure is quite photogenic and bold. And as it turned out, the bridge has a slight curvature to it, which made shooting light trails very interesting. After playing around a bit with that, buses really were the best to use because they have some lights higher up, allowing for a more interesting play of curves.

“6th Street Bridge Series II”
Los Angeles, California
ISO 100, 18 mm, 6.0 s at f/10

“6th Street Bridge Series IV”
Los Angeles, California
ISO 100, 21 mm, 6.0 s at f/6.3

“6th Street Bridge Series VI”
Los Angeles, California
ISO 100, 24 mm, 6.0 s at f/6.3

Railway tracks always have something sinister in the dark. This was also the case here, where most of the yard was sitting in glooming darkness, with the only light reflecting off of the shiny rails themselves.

“Downtown Railway Tracks II”
Los Angeles, California
ISO 100, 55 mm, 3.2 s at f/4.0

This photo actually shows the 6th Street bridge itself, with an industrial sense of beauty and strength. I was having a hard time finding a composition that worked, because the confines of the bridge as well as the fairly heavy traffic limits the ability to move around such a large object.

“6th Street Bridge Curves I”
Los Angeles, California
ISO 100, 10 mm, 10 s at f/4.5

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Ruins of Past Glory

Laura Alisic — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 04:43:53 +0000

Ruins of past glory – still glorious. These magnificent remnants are usually located in the sweetest of green lawns; the contrast appears to enhance their exertion of power and strength. The photographs below are taken in various places in Ireland.

“Ruins of Trim”
Trim, Ireland
ISO 100, 10 mm, 1/125 s at f/5.6

An saillant detail is that this ruin in Trim was used in the filming of the movie ‘Braveheart’. When walking into a pub in Trim, I noticed a plaque showing a photograph of the state of the site during or after the movie. One giant mud pool… It must have cost the town tremendous energy to restore that incredibly perfect green lawn around it!

“Irish Cross II”
Ireland
ISO 100, 171 mm, 1/60 s at f/5.6

“Ruins of Fore I”
Fore, Ireland
ISO 100, 18 mm, 1/250 s at f/5.6

“Ruins of Fore II”
Fore, Ireland
ISO 100, 24 mm, 1/400 s at f/5.6

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Study of Fishing Rope – Black and White Version

Laura Alisic — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 05:37:05 +0000

A few posts earlier I showed a study of fishing rope in color. An interesting aspect of the material becomes more obvious in black and white: textures. Worn out by use and weather, rope has an amazing complexity of fibers, which is more pronounced when color is taken out of the equation.

“Fishing Rope Study I”
Ireland
ISO 100, 154 mm, 1/60 s at f/5.6

“Fishing Rope Study II”
Ireland
ISO 100, 171 mm, 1/80 s at f/5.6

“Fishing Rope Study IV”
Ireland
ISO 100, 116 mm, 1/30 s at f/5.6

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Irish Fishing Harbor

Laura Alisic — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 22:37:22 +0000

A very common sight on the Irish coast are small fishing harbors, very quiet during daytime. They provide very interesting photography settings, with strange objects creating even stranger juxtapositions, such as these two abstracts.

“Harbor Abstract I”
Ireland
ISO 100, 163 mm, 1/60 s at f/5.6

“Harbor Abstract II”
Ireland
ISO 100, 250 mm, 1/40 s at f/5.6

The fishing boats themselves, when in the harbor, often show a lot of character with weathered and rusting equipment, and sometimes bright colors of buoys.

“Pulley In The Sun”
Isle of Aran, Ireland
ISO 100, 146 mm, 1/80 s at f/5.6

“Red Buoys”
Ireland
ISO 200, 250 mm, 1/50 s at f/5.6

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Cliffs, grass, and stone walls

Laura Alisic — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 07:23:47 +0000

I think the view that most people have of Ireland is green hills with rain. Well, there turns out to be a lot of both there. We have also seen beautiful lush forests, barren rock, giant lakes, and of course, sheep. Many many many of those. In this post there are a few photographs which might fit in the stereotyical view – gorgeous sights nonetheless. The first one is of the Cliffs of Moher, possibly one of the most popular tourist spots on Ireland’s west coast. Even in the off season it was fairly crowded, and I had trouble composing a shot with no people in it.

“Cliffs of Moher”
Ireland
ISO 100, 39 mm, 1/125 s at f/5.6

“Clouds Over the Ocean”
Ireland
ISO 100, 10 mm, 1/500 s at f/5.6

And yes, the grassy hills have this incredibly vibrant color green.

“Fence in Green”
Ireland
ISO 100, 55 mm, 1/200 s at f/5.6

The last photograph in this post is one that I experimented a lot with. The weather was dreary, the skies grey with low-hanging clouds over a fjord with no tourist to be seen. Rather than imposing on it an expression of darkness, I wanted to show it in a more ethereal state, some of the fjord’s features hidden in the sea fog.

“Fjord in the Fog”
Ireland
ISO 200, 84 mm, 1/100 s at f/5.6

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Study of Fishing Rope

Laura Alisic — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 06:00:22 +0000

This summer, I went on a road trip through Ireland for about a week. We rented a car, and drove from Dublin towards Shannon, from there along the western coast to the north, Sligo, and from there back to Dublin. This post and the next few will cover some of the topics I photographed along the way. One of the things I greatly enjoyed about this trip, aside from the vast emptiness and ruggedness of the landscape, are the many quaint and quiet fishing villages. Each of these has a harbor with a multitude of interesting objects to photograph. Especially the fishing gear was fascinating, the colors enhanced after one of many rain showers.

“Fishing Rope Study I”
Ireland
ISO 100, 154 mm, 1/60 s at f/5.6

“Fishing Rope Study II”
Ireland
ISO 100, 171 mm, 1/80 s at f/5.6

“Fishing Rope Study IV”
Ireland
ISO 100, 116 mm, 1/30 s at f/5.6

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Website updated

Laura Alisic — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 07:45:40 +0000

Finally! My website has been updated with photographs of my trip to Zagreb, Croatia this summer. You can see them now in the album with recent work. You can also take a look at the studies of ‘market of colors‘ and ‘windows into a city‘. A few other photographs of this trip can be found in the albums architecture of europe, street photography, and portraits.

Also I started a project called ‘urban fabric‘, in which I try to capture street sights which are perceived unseen and unimportant, and turn them into something more interesting. So far, most of them are taken along Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Work in progress, which I hope to turn into a photo book at some point. Leave a comment to this post to let me know what you think….

Currently I am in the process of finishing up with series of photographs I took in Ireland, and will post these soon, so check back regularly!

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Zagreb: Windows Into A City

Laura Alisic — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 02:46:00 +0000

Something I have become more interested in and focused on is creating series of photographs, rather than singles. So in Zagreb I wanted to pick a theme and explore that in depth: windows. Especially old ones with crumbling paint, broken glass, and fading colors. Although to some this may seem like defeated glory, to me it speaks of character, and nuances in color.

“Door Study”
Zagreb, Croatia
ISO 100, 40 mm, 1/125 s at f/5.0

“Window Study II”
Zagreb, Croatia
ISO 100, 55 mm, 1/200 s at f/5.6

“Window Study IV”
Zagreb, Croatia
ISO 100, 79 mm, 1/50 s at f/4.5

The next photograph does not portray the same ‘old’ atmosphere, but the stairs and windows form an interesting compostion: almost minimalistic.

“Window And Stairs”
Zagreb, Croatia
ISO 100, 10 mm, 1/160 s at f/4.5

These two shots are different in their postprocessing, but looked so peculiar that I wanted to include them anyway.

“Wall Elements I”
Zagreb, Croatia
ISO 100, 135 mm, 1/80 s at f/5.0

“Wall Elements II”
Zagreb, Croatia
ISO 100, 179 mm, 1/80 s at f/5.6

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