CAPTURE NEW HORIZONS

Today we visited Edinburgh for Sunday Brunch at David Bann Restaurant and then took a stroll around the Royal Mile and George Street.   While taking in the view at St Giles Cathedral on The Royal Mile I spotted the statue of the Duke of Buccleuch being silhouetted against the broken clouds and strong sunshine while in the background a backlit Saltire flew in the morning breeze from the top of Parliament House , the home of the Scottish Parliament until 1707. I took the shot on the Fujifilm X-Pro2 and the XF56mm f1.2. For more information on the statue of the Duke of Buccleuch CLICK HERE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...

While I was walking up Congress Avenue in Austin Texas I came across a bronze life size statue of a woman firing a cannon.  The plaque next to the statue told the story of Angelina Eberly, the saviour of Austin. In December 1842, President Sam Houston ordered the secret removal of the archives of the Texas Republic to safekeeping in  Washington-on-the-Brazos . Mrs. Eberly, realizing that the symbols of national government were being removed from the city, fired a six-pound  cannon  into the General Land Office Building, arousing the town to what they considered theft. The ensuing conflict became known as the  Archive War , which was won by the Austinites, preserving Austin as capital of Texas and keeper of the archives. The statue of Angelina Eberly firing off her cannon was erected at the very spot this historic event took place: Sixth and Congress in downtown Austin, TX. The sculptor of the Angelina Eberly statue is Pat Oliphant, the most w...

For the past few days I have been putting the Fujifilm X-T10 through its paces at the Red Bull Ring in Austria and on Thursday I had the opportunity to use the new camera fitted with the superb XF16mm f1.4R WR to capture some images of the 10 metre high Red Bull statue that sits on the hill overlooking the circuit. I had one slight problem in that I forgot that the Lightroom 5.7 that I have on my PC laptop doesn't recognise the RAF files from the X-T10 (my iMac back at the office has LR6.0 and this does read the RAF files from the X-T10).   This presented me with a small issue, but as I always shoot RAW + JPEG I used the JPEG images and stored the RAW files for when I return to the UK on Monday. The good news is the JPEG output from the X-T10 is superb and I was able to produce these three mono images in Silver EFEX Pro2 direct from the colour JPEGs. The 16mm f1.4 continues to impress with the field of view and the quality of the images recorded by the X-T10 using this ...

This is one of my favourite shots from last weeks visit to Paris.  I was walking down the  Champs-Élysées  in the bright winter sunshine, which was low in the sky behind the Grand Palais and caused a lot of flare around the statue of President Charles de Gaulle. Using the Fujifilm X100 I took several shots of the scene, underexposing slightly to saturate the colours of the blue sky and the Tricolour flying behind the bronze quadrica, one of four by Georges Recipon waging depicts Immortality prevailing over Time. CLICK HERE for more on the Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées Image taken on a Fujifilm Finepix X100 with a fixed 23mm f2 lens ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. -----------------------------------------------------...

David Hume (1711-1776) was a Scottish historian, philosopher, economist, diplomat and essayist and has been regarded  as the greatest philosopher who has ever written in the English language. In 1995 a 9 foot bronze statue was completed by sculptor Sandy Stoddart and is situated in front of the High Court Building on Edinburgh's Royal Mile. The prominent big toe of the huge statue has become a touchstone for philosophy students, children and tourists hoping some of Hume's wisdom will rub off on them. In 2006 The Scotsman newspaper ran a story on this new tradition HERE and interviews Sandy Stoddart about this.  He said:  "The great thing is that it's so ironic that David Hume, who is the patron saint of all the atheists, should now have his toe adored."  While in Edinburgh yesterday we stopped to admire the statue and take a couple of shots of the toe on the Fujifilm X-T1 and 56mm f1.2 lens.   Did I join in the tradition?  Of course I ...

Located near to Louvre and the Jardin des Tuileries, Jeanne d'Arc is a gilded bronze sculpture of the Maid of Orleans by Emmanuel Frémiet. The sculptor took as his model Aimée Girod who was also from Domrémy, Joan of Arc's village in Lorraine and the statue was inaugurated in 1874.  The statue in on a stone plinth on an island at the intersection to a busy road junction.  This makes getting a good shot of Jeanne d'Arc astride her charger a challenge, especially with a fixed lens camera like the Fujifilm X100 I was using.  However I did manage to get a couple of good shots from below the statue without getting run over. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY VISITING THE ADVERTISERS ON THIS PAGE By clicking on the adverts you are helping support this blog - thank you. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------...

The Kelpies are two 30 metre high statues by Glaswegian sculpture Andy Scott and are visible to travelers on the M9 motorway near Falkirk, which connects Stirling and Edinburgh.  The statues are constructed of structural steel with a stainless steel outer skin.   This stainless steel skin reflects the light of the day, and the night, and makes for an amazing sight in all weathers.  The Kelpies were officially opened to the public on the 21st April this year and we decided to take a trip out to see them. The Kelpies stand next to a new extension to the Forth and Clyde Canal in The Helix, a new parkland project built to connect 16 communities in the Falkirk Council Area, Scotland. The sculptures form a gateway at the eastern entrance to the Forth and Clyde canal, and the new canal extension built as part of The Helix land transformation project.  The Kelpies name reflected the mythological transforming beasts possessing the strength and endurance of 10 h...

In the centre of Pont Neuf, in the Square du Vert-Galant, stands a bronze statue of King Henri III astride a horse.  Henri III was responsible for the building of Pont Neuf (New Bridge) and laid the first stone in 1578.  Henri died before the bridge was completed in 1607 when it was opened by his successor Henri IV. The statue is actually an exact replica of the original that was melted down during the French Revolution.  The bronze statue was replaced after the fall of Napoleon in 1818. CLICK HERE for more information on Pont Neuf and King Henri III Images taken on the Fujifilm X-Pro1 and Fujinon 35mm f1.4R -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE GOOGLE ADVERTS It doesn't cost you anything to click on an advert but we get a small fee for every click thru from Google and this helps support this blog - thank you for helping ...

Situated above the Jardins du Trocodero outside the Palais de Chaillot is a 21-foot bronze Apollo with lyre (or Apollon musagète) by sculptor Henri Bouchard. The shot was taken from below the massive statue on the 14mm f2.8 wide angle lens to get the lines of the building behind the statue to shoot away towards the sky.  The image was then converted to black and white in Silver Efex Pro 2.   CLICK HERE for information on the Jardins du Trocadero Image taken with a Fujifilm X-Pro1 and Fujinon 14mm f2.8 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE GOOGLE ADVERTS It doesn't cost you anything to click on an advert but we get a small fee for every click thru from Google and this helps support this blog - thank you for helping ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ALL I...

Marshal Ferdinand Foch, GCB, OM, DSO (2 October 1851 – 20 March 1929) was a French soldier, military theorist, and an Allied Generalissimo during the First World War. There is a statue to the Marshal of France who accepted the German surrender in 1918 on the opposite side of the road to the Trocadero in Paris and depicts Foch riding on his horse atop a large stone column inscribed with the words 'FOCH 1851-1929 Marechal de France, de Grande Bretagne et de Pologne'.  Ferdinand Foch was accorded the honour of becoming a Field Marshal in the British Army and also in the Polish Army after the First World War. CLICK HERE to read more information on Marshal Foch -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE SUPPORT THIS BLOG BY CLICKING THE GOOGLE ADVERTS It doesn't cost you anything to click on an advert but we get a small fee for every click thru from Google and this helps s...

 There are many statues in Paris but near the Grand Palais there are two of the most important statesmen of the 20th century immortalised in bronze.  The first is the bronze statue of Charles de Gaulle, depicted in his French General's uniform in  August 1944 when he led the parade down the Champs Elysee when Paris was liberated from four years of German occupation.   It took until the year 2000 for the former general and President of the French Republic to have a statue in the city that owed him so much for leading the fight to liberate France.  However this was because De Gaulle didn't want a statue rather than a sign of disrepect by the French people.  The De Gaulle family lifted the ban and the resulting monument stands proud outside the Grand Palais looking out over the Champs Elysee. The second statue is situated 200 metres away on the otherside of the road close to the Pont Alexander III on the ...