This is the tower view from Robinson Preserve in Bradenton Florida. It's on a trial about a half mile from the parking lot and a good place to get some perspective on the land. In a way this is a poor mans drone shot without the drone. These are inland marshes and salt flats that attract all manner of wildlife. The waterway on the right is a popular place to kayak and further up are mangrove tunnels to be explored. For this composition I deliberately ignored the rule of thirds because I felt the sky is just as compelling as the ground, they hold the balance in equal measure as a kind of yin and yang. I've starting doing that sometimes when using a wide angle lens, here I shot at 14mm. Normally I am alone here and the last one to leave the park, but just as I ascended the tower about twenty people approached along the trail and ascended the stairs of the tower alongside me. It's a big tower so it can hold a lot of people. Turns out they were on a guided tour of the park to observe it at dusk and evening. With all the nocturnal animals I'm sure there would be some interesting sounds as well.
North Vancouver is across the harbor from Vancouver. It's actually a separate city with its own city hall. There are a lot of ways to get over there but the easiest is to take a ten minute ferry across the bay. I did that once and then walked up the streets from the water. They don't look that steep from here but by the time I got to the top I was huffin and puffin like a Choo Choo train. When I turned around I had the opposite vista of Vancouver on the South side of the bay. Either way you look at it it's a nice view. I used my telephoto lens fully extended for this so the field of view is rather narrow. I could have done a panorama and it would have extended to the left with more tall buildings dwarfed by the mountain peaks and ski resorts. Skiing? No problem, hop in a bus, it's right there in town. That's just downright awesome. I showed this image to some people in Florida to see if they could tell where it was. Everyone thought it was in Europe somewhere. I think most people don't know what Vancouver really looks like except what they might remember from watching the Olympics. I'm the same way and when I first saw this in person I was hooked. Still am.
This is the Casa Batlló Stairwell in Barcelona. This house is a work of priceless design by the famed architect and designer Antoni Gaudi. I took this while climbing the stairs to the roof. It's a narrow courtyard of sorts with the house surrounding this central core. As I recall there were about five flights to the roof so on my way up I had plenty of opportunities to stop and gawk at the design. This is a very big house, I could live comfortably on just one floor, even less. But if I did own the whole place I'd be sending texts to the kitchen to order meals, that would save a bunch of trips up and down the stairs. Then of course I'd need a Stair-master to get some exercise. I never said I was brilliant, if it was my house I really would have more money than brains. I took a ton of pictures throughout the house, it's unlike anything I've ever seen. Actually everyone takes pictures inside. There's a nautical theme going on and it reminds me of a ship, or maybe something out of Jules Vern novel. When I Google other photos of this a few of them have an under water effect. Perhaps that was intended. In any case, here is a link to a search of stairwell photos from the house on Google: https://goo.gl/JW1jqj
