CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

The Scottish Parliament Building is situated next to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh and is one of those modern structures that divides opinions.  Personally I like it, it is very striking and makes a bold statement about Scotland as a nation. I had a couple of hours to kill on a trip to Edinburgh earlier this year so I went for a walk around Holyrood armed only with my Fujifilm X100 - the original X-Series camera.  Once again the weather was very changeable and I found myself dodgy rain showers, but when the clouds cleared the light on the building was wonderful. This shot was taken at the back of the Parliament as the sunlight hit the strangely shaped windows.  I decided to tilt the camera up and on an angle because the abstract shape of the building suited this type of composition.  The image was converted to monochrome in post production with NIK Silver Efex Pro2 software. This image made it into my 2015 Top 10 because of the subject but also to prove that...

At the northern edge of the old district, on Xijing Street, is  Kezhi Yuan (Kezhi Gardens) . This was our second stop on the tour of Zhujiajiao.  The name Kezhi is made up of the characters 课 (kè) which means "to learn" and 植 (zhí) which means "to plant". It consists of three parts - the main hall, the garden and an artificial hill area. The most iconic landmark of the gardens is a five story building with a pavilion on its roof - the tallest structure in old Zhujiajiao.  T he history of this garden dates back to 1912, when Ma Wenqing built it, drawing inspiration from a mixture of Chinese and European influences. The construction took 15 years and 300 000 silver taels, equivalent to 12000 kg of silver.  The wars and revolutions of the following half century brought much destruction to the garden and its buildings, and in 1956 additional old structures where torn down to make room for teaching buildings of the Zhujiajiao Middle School that had come to...

Downtown Austin is a vibrant place with bars, music, hotels and lots more to see and do.  The city is changing with new buildings being constructed in and around the older architecture that dates back to the 19th Century.  This eclectic mix of old and new gives Austin its charm. On the day I flew back to the UK I had a few hours before I needed to head to the airport after checking out of the hotel so I took the camera for a walk around Austin.  I first visited the Capitol Building and then strolled around taking in the sights. Here are some of the images I took on the Fujifilm X-T1 with either the XF10-24mm f4 or XF90mm f2 lenses before I flew back to the UK. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you...

At the top of Congress Avenue, which runs from the bridge over the Colorado River and up the hill, stands the Texas State Capitol, home of the Governor of Texas and the State Legislature.  I visited the Capitol in 2014 but this was after the sun had set and the building was lit by floodlighting ( CLICK HERE to view the 2014 blog). Building started in February 1882 and was completed on the 21 April 1888 - which was the 52nd anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto , where the Texan army defeated the Mexicans and gave Texas its independence in 1836. The Texas State Capitol is 308 feet / 94m tall making it the sixth tallest State Capitol and taller than the building in Washington.  The building is clad in Red Sunset Granite giving the Texas State Capitol a distinctive red colouration and subsequently many of the buildings in downtown Austin were also constructed using the same red coloured stone.   On top of the central dome sits the 'Goddess of Liberty' hol...