Photo Favourites

The other day we went for a walk in the countryside and while I was standing next to a rock looking at some flowers, I saw to my amazement an ant on the stem, and it was guiding the aphids, basically farming them like a shephard with its flock.

A quick read of Wikipedia tells me that the ants protect the aphids and milk them using their feelers, and when the aphids reproduce, the ants will take their eggs back to the ant hive and look after them, then carry the young aphids back to the plants to start the process again.

The other day we decided to take a drive down one of the little side streets that leads out of Ronda, just to see where it would take us.

You can imagine our joy when it actually took us down to the bottom of the gorge and a bit further away than you normally get from the Puente Nuevo so that we could get this photo of the cliffs from some really weird angles.

It just goes to show how deceptive flat ground isn't. When you walk around the old town of Ronda you don't really notice the slope, but standing down at the bottom of the gorge looking up it is so noticeable.

I thought this was funny, it was a really quick snapshot taken at Grazalema in the main car park and whoever did the translation obviously knew how to use a dictionary but probably can't speak a word of English.

Basically the Spaniards understand "Bajo multa de" as a small fine of 60€ if you park here on a Tuesday when the local street market is on. In fact the word multa is also a joke, go into any tapas bar and if you've had a great time and a bit of a laugh and a joke with the staff you might ask for the multa instead of the cuenta when you're ready to pay your bill, which is kinda the same as asking "what's the damage?" like we would in English if we're having a bit of fun.

Maybe I should think about becoming a translator instead of a designer.

Expressing myself in words isn't easy to do, I can never seem to get my point across as well as other people I know, so I'm always really delighted when I get a great photo that tells a story on its own.

I great photo is one that needs no introduction, it's title doesn't need to be too witty or clever, the viewer simply needs to sit back and enjoy the scene. This photo of a Spanish Wall is my tribute to tranquilo, an oddly named expression of Spanish lifestyle since they are in fact anything but.

Landscape photos aren't really my strongest skill, I lack the patience to set up my tripod and get everything perfect. I much prefer taking close-up photos of flowers and insects, or street scenes with people, but any photographer who aspires to going professional one day needs to perfect all styles, so on this occasion I did setup my tripod, and waited patiently for both the tourists to exit stage left and the clouds to move just enough to give me some light.

I have found a great online tutorial for improving landscape photos if you're interested, over at the digital photography school.

This little Berliner was persistant, he kept beating all the other sparrows to the fries that we threw down. The sparrows in Berlin have learned that people are food providers but they won't get too close.

This is one of my favourite photos, a red Tuk Tuk taken while vacationing in Sri Lanka. These little machines zip around at 50km's per hour, their horn is heard everywhere, and the smell from a Tuk Tuk exhaust is unbearable. They're a two stroke lawn mower kind of engine and positively reek.

On the other hand, the Tuk Tuk is a much more affordable form of transport than a car, and most Sri Lankans live on the poverty line so I suppose I can't blame them for using Tuk Tuk's, maybe the western world needs to work on a cleaner greener version and donate the blueprints and engineering expertise to Asian countries to help them improve the environmental impact of these machines.