the Baltic Sea

Some pictures taken at the Polish seaside:

After the sunset in Łeba

Łeba

Łeba, western beach

The sea in three colours; Łeba

Gdańsk

Seashells on the beach in Gdańsk

Łeba

Łeba

Harbour in Łeba

When the green turns into gold

Warsaw is known as a green town - not only parks, but also many streets are surrounded by trees. It's often a surprise to foreigners to see so many nature within the city. Spring blows up suddenly in May with fresh green which lasts until late summer, but the best is going to happen in late October. I call it the golden weekend, when about one week after first cold nights all the trees turn into gold simultaneously. Then all the leaves fall down until November the first.

This year is different - thanks to sunny weather we had two such weekends, although it's November the 1st we still have a lot of coloured trees in all shades - from wild yellow of maples to the warm brown red of oaks.

More posts with photos of Warsaw:
Making a panorama 
Warsaw - old pictures, new pictures - part 1
Warsaw - old pictures, new pictures - part 2
Streets in bloom

EUROPRIDE 2010

The Europride 2010 festival has ended yesterday in Warsaw! LGBT crowd joined by their supporters marched proudly yesterday on the streets of Warsaw. Here are a few snapshots:

Making a panorama

Making photo panoramas is very useful skill of every photographer. City squares, mountain ranges,lakes - they never fit into one shot.
Some automatic cameras have even this function built-in, but since I'm a user of DSLR I'll focus on more professional method.



This is Mariensztat Market. Mariensztat is a very beautiful part of Warsaw, a bit forgotten, a bit neglected but with nice architecture and almost no tourists, although it's 5 minutes walk from Castle Square (this picture taken on Sunday afternoon, when Old Town was full of people). See it on Google Maps
It's perfect place for a rest, for an action of romantic novel or for...making a photo panorama. Moving people are the worse thing that can happen - they will have different position on the pictures and can make panorama stitching software crazy, or at least spoil the final result with a blurred ghost.

When I started to read about panoramas it turned out that I need a tripod and special head. Well - it's sometimes useful, but not obligatory. I've made a lot of nice panoramas without it, and this one was also done directly from hand.

So the basic recipe for a panorama is:
1. Set your camera in to manual mode and measure the light in the lightest part of the area and set the aperture. Use this setting to make all pictures.
2. Turn autofocus off
3. Make several shots covering the area you want to have on your final picture.
Each next shot should begin in approximately 2/3 before the end of the previous to allow seamless merge. To sum up: neighbour pictures must have common part.
4. Google for "panorama stitching software". I use PTGui. You can download trial version from here.
5. In most cases it's enough to load pictures and relay on the program. Software finds common point in the pictures, adjust them and merges into panorama.
6. Finalize result in any photo editing software. Crop, add some contrast, add some saturation and sharpen.

Of  course this is not a full detailed description, but Internet is full of it it's no sense to repeat it once again because the objective of this post is of course...to encourage you to visit beautiful Mariensztat!

Warsaw - old pictures , new pictures - part 2

Have you seen The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw? It's not far from the Old Town, next to the Saxon Garden. Well, it looks like typical monument...but take a look at the old postcard. What you can see now it's only a part not existing Saxon Palace (built in 17th century, destroyed during World War II). There are plans to rebuild it, probably the reconstruction will start after 2012.

Every hour there's a change of guards, it's good moment to shot some interesting pictures from Warsaw.
More:
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Saxon Palace

More photos of Warsaw:
Warsaw - old pictures, new pictures part 1
Streets in bloom
When the green turns into gold
Making a panorama

3D VR 1905

Three Dimensional Virtual Reality. It sounds very modern, but we have been having it in Warsaw since 1905! It is called FOTOPLASTICON and is still working in the same way as over hundred years ago.

Address: Al. Jerozolimskie 51 see on google maps Open daily except for Tuesdays 10-18, admission 1PLN (appr. 0,25 EUR), free on Sundays.

Now you can walk through the streets of many cities by using Google Maps street view option. Hundred years ago people had the same need of virtual traveling and fotoplasticons were very popular across the world.
Fotoplasticon gives possibility of viewing photographs, made with technology called stereoscopy. Each eye has it's own point of view (close left one, then right one - you'll see that the view is a bit different- in your brain these two pictures are mixed into 3D view).
So for viewing 3D photographs a "double" picture (see the photo above) is needed. It's made with special camera having two lenses. As the distance between lenses is similar to the distance between eyes, watching this double picture gives impression of three dimensions when you see the left picture with the left eye and the right with the right one – you need some kind of binoculars for it.
Exactly the same trick is made for contemporary 3D movies - there are two views and the glasses you wear in the cinema allow to separate "left" and "right" movie and direct it to the proper eye.






Interesting links:
More about fotoplasticon in Warsaw
Stereoscopy

Somewhere in Poland (3) - The Far East

The Far East is about 200km east of Warsaw. I know that in some countries it could be a distance to the nearest supermarket, but here it's a distance to different culture. Some guidebooks call our eastern border "exotic Poland". Only there you'll find a mixture of cultures containing Christian, Orthodox, and Muslim believers.
However, Poland is considered to be catholic country (33 millions of Christian catholics) and churches are significant signs in our landscape, finding a typical church in the Far East it's not so easy.
The Far East is orthodox (half million believers) and in the villages you'll find orthodox churches with characteristic towers with triple crosses. Some people do not even speak Polish there - the mixture of Belorussian and Polish with
characteristic "singing" accent is in use, as the settlers from Belarus had been here before the Poles arrived from the west in XVI century. So speaking polish does not mean 100% success in communication, however, those languages are similar, and after some tries you can get across when asking for a way or just chatting with someone in a village. What's more some inscriptions on shrines, crosses and graves are written in Cyrillic. Young people, that haven't had Russian at school are not
able to read it. Orthodox celebrate they events according to Julian calendar, so everything happens there two weeks later.
You can spend Christmas or Easter in Warsaw, and then two weeks and two hours drive later you'll have it again!
Not only orthodox, but also Muslims have found they place in the east. Two mosques built in XVII century are still in use by descendant of Tatars who were given this grounds four hundred years ago.
The East has his unique quiet atmosphere, even dogs in the villages seem to bark more silent. Wooden houses with characteristic shutters and porches and decorated corners are popular here.
If you accept only tourist attractions mentioned in Lonely Planet - Bialowieski National Park would be a good choice - meeting a bison in the wild it's still possible there. Finally, if you are interested only in clubs and bars sections of the above guide, you have to know that only in the region of Bialowieża grows a grass used for making world famous Żubrówka Vodka (Bison Vodka). Cheers!

Check out more interesting places in Poland:

Somewhere in Poland (2) - 843 km of beaches 

Somewhere in Poland - my favourite bridge 

Somewhere in Poland (4) - Water way to the border

Somewhere in Poland (2) - 843 km of beaches

I like the sea with it's faraway horizon, but I rarely go to the seaside, and never in the summer. I simply do not like this holiday atmosphere - noisy crowds, fastfoods, kitsch souvenirs and smell of fried fish. I'm looking for places when I can contemplate the horizon without seeing it through someone's deckchair. Poland has 843 kilometers of coast line, so it's still possible to find such place. Recently I've camped on a high cliff, 10 km east of Ustka. Wild camping is officially not allowed in Poland but (not officially) it's tolerated (except for national parks), finding a place for tent it's very easy in comparison to Western Europe.

See this place on google maps.

Othere places somewhere in Poland:
Somewhere in Poland - my favourite bridge
Somewhere in Poland (3) -  The Far East
Somewhere in Poland (4) - Water way to the border

Somewhere in Poland - My Favourite Bridge

My favorite bridge is in Tykocin. It's over the Narew River. Steel construction perfectly composes with the road and the white church in the background. In comparison to other truss bridges, this one is significantly lower and does not dominate the foreground. It looks perfectly in the early evening, lighten by warm sunlight.

Tykocin itself is a very good place to stop for a day or two. It's known as a place worth to visit, but there are no crowds. People stop here only for a walk, take some pictures and carry on they journey. In the evening the place completely regains his eastern atmosphere. This town has a perfect balance between doing ant not-doing.
You can go for a walk along cobble streets. You can take some good pictures of wooden architecture. You can visit old synagogue, old jewish cemetery. Or you can sit on the main square and observe as the time passes slowly. The area around the city is worth mentioning too. It's surrounded by endless meadows with labyrinth of roads perfect for cycling, walking and horse riding. Birds and birdwatchers often meet here. It's enough to rise one's head to see a stork nest. Two national parks (Biebrza River NP and Narew River NP) are within one hour drive distance.

How to get: By car (170 km / 3 hours drive from Warsaw). By train / bus: Train to Bialystok, then bus to Tykocin.
See
Tykocin on the Google Maps

Other places somewhere in Poland:
Somewhere in Poland (2) - 843 km of beaches 
Somewhere in Poland (3) -  The Far East
Somewhere in Poland (4) - Water way to the border

Warsaw - old pictures, new pictures - part 1

From time to time I buy on Internet auctions old postcards from Warsaw. Then I take my bike and my camera and I ride to see what has changed. One of the most shocking comparison is Marszalkowska Street. One of main streets of the city was totally destroyed during the war, then rebuilt in ugly communist style. The only common thing on both pictures are the towers of The Church of The Holy Saviour Church in the background.

Other posts with photos of Warsaw:
Streets in bloom
Warsaw - old pictures, new pictures - part 2
Making a panorama
When the green turns into gold

Streets in bloom

Just before spring covers trees with fresh and bright green, streets and corners blossom with colorful flower stands.





More photos from Warsaw:
When the green turns into gold
Warsaw - old pictures, new pictures - part 1
Warsaw - old pictures, new pictures - part 2
Making a panorama

Palm Trees - do they grow in Poland?

Not exactly... Apart from the one in the middle of Warsaw (aritificial to be honest...) we do not have them. So what is the PALM SUNDAY ? Well...
It's very colorful and interesting event taking part each year before Easter. More details in Wikipedia of'course. The next Palm Sunday is on APRIL the 5th 2009.

If you're staying in Warsaw it's not a far drive do Łyse (appr 150 km)
If you're staying in Krakow, you can go to Lipnica Murowana - each year this two places competite for having the highest palm in Poland.


Wyświetl większą mapę



Wyświetl większą mapę
If you don't want to go anywhere, just take your camera and go for a walk - pictures with pepople holding colorful palms will be a good souvenir from your trip! Some of my pictures taken several years ago in Łyse: