Layer Sandwich

There's a lot I've forgotten from my high school photography class (a lot more than I remember, I'd wager...), but one thing I do remember is the unit we did on negative sandwiches. Since digital was still rather expensive, we worked exclusively with film photography (yes, I know that sentence made me sound like I am reminiscing about the good ol' days when dirt was invented). The idea is to load two negatives into the enlarger and simultaneously create an exposure of both images.

The task is harder than it sounds, though--some photos work better than others: the contrast, how busy the background is, location of the subject in each photo, and a range of other factors determine whether you end up with a really cool image, or just a blob of indistinguishable nonsense. I seem to recall wasting rather a lot of expensive photo paper working to create a decent negative sandwich.

Much as I enjoy developing my own film, one of the beautiful things about digital photography is that I can create hundreds of terrible negative sandwiches without paying through the nose for my experiments. So, using layers in GIMP, I decided to throw together a few negative sandwiches--or perhaps layer sandwiches is more appropriate for digital? I've spared you the worst of them, but I think a few came out pretty well. Below are a few of the creations, as well as the original layered images. Some of these I think came out well. Others I think are examples of poor attempts.

As always, feedback is appreciated. I'd love to get your thoughts!

 

An angel statue from the Berliner Dom with the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe layered over it

View from under the arches of the Eiffel Tower, with view of the city from on top of the Tower layered on top

Building on a corner in Montemartre, Paris with a view of the city from Sacre Coeur layered on top 

View of a mountain in Alaska with an image of the state flower, Forget-Me-Nots, layered on top.

A City So Nice I Visited Twice

In the summer of 2016 (winter in Cape Town), I had an opportunity to make a very short (2 day) excursion to Cape Town, South Africa, and I absolutely jumped at the opportunity. I'm so glad that I did, too, because Cape Town is such an amazing city!

I was disappointed that I was only able to spend 2 days there, but lucky for me another opportunity came along in the fall of 2017. And, after falling in love with Cape Town on my first visit, I couldn't wait to see some of the sights I had missed on the last trip. There's so much to love in Cape Town, but I'll highlight just a few of the more picturesque aspects below.

Cape Town offers spectacular views from atop Table Mountain, one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the world:

There are beautiful vineyards where you can drink locally produced wine and look at at the beautiful countryside:

And, of course, there are amazing opportunities to see wildlife: 

But I'll save the photos of penguins for another post. That's right. Penguins!

Take My Breath Away

In keeping with the grand tradition of this sporadically updated blog, I'll start by saying thank you for sticking with me despite my infrequent posts. The photography blog is always the first thing to go when things get busy at work, I'm afraid. I've learned my lesson about saying I'll try to post more often, but I'll at least keep a promise I made back in January of 2016 (yikes!)--to share some photos from my trip to India.

India was on my travel bucket list for a very long time, and in 2015 I finally got the opportunity to visit. To say that India is stunning doesn't really even begin to cover the experience of travelling in India. During 2 weeks of sightseeing, I managed to take 16.8GB of photos because I simply could not put my camera down. I lost of count of how many UNESCO World Heritage Sights we visited by the end of the trip. Below are just a few images of our trip. 

Delhi, India

Jaipur, India

Jaipur, India

Jaipur, India

Delhi, India

I have to say, while there were so many incredible sights in India, I can understand why the Taj Mahal tends to get top billing. The Taj is surrounded by a wall, so you can't see it as you are approaching the street. It is only after passing through one of the entrances that you see it perfectly framed in an archway and glowing softly in the light. Truly and literally, it took my breath away to catch my first glimpse of the Taj Mahal. It does not disappoint. 

Agra, India

It's hard to say for sure, but I think the image below might be my favorite shot from the trip. 

Agra, India