Category: Photography

 

Inspired by David Hobby’s Strobist self-portrait, I decided to try a self-portrait lit from a flash bounced off a white card (read: a sheet of printer paper) on my laptop. I wanted it to be a scholarly portrait, so I found the right coat, put on a tie, waxed up my moustache, and ran back and forth while trying to look composed. It was less than an ideal way to take a self-portrait, and I am going to work out a better solution next time. I only had one flash available when I decided to do this, so I look forward to trying it again with a gridspot on the computer and a hair light to provide separation from the background.

As seen from a very cold, windy, ice-covered parking lot at the end of my street in Toronto. This composite represents full moon to total eclipse.

I am working on a somewhat more ambitious way of presenting the photos taken–if it works, I will publish it here.

Tradition has it that nine saints, missionaries from Syria, introduced Christianity to the then-Axumite kingdom in what is now Northern Ethiopia. This ceiling fresco depicts eight of them.

Aside from its location and access, the most impressive feature of Abune Yemata Guh is the well-preserved set of 15th-century frescoes that adorn all the interior walls. This one, on the ceiling, depicts nine of the apostles.

Abune Yemata Guh (the ‘t’ has a velar plosive quality that cannot be truly rendered in English) chuch is a monolithic (lit. ‘one rock’ — a church quarried from the living stone; in this case a cave-church) with stunning 15th century murals in fantastic condition, perhaps due to the somewhat difficult access (see earlier post). Due to the high contrast range, this picture is composited from 4 different photographs, to preserve detail fom the inside of the door to the well-lit outside.

The next set of photos, of Abune Yemata Guh Church in the Geralta Range of the Province of Tigray, Ethiopia, deserve a bit of a preface, which I will provide here. I apologize for the quality of these images–it was harsh light on the approach to the church, and I promise the story and the images from inside are the good part.

The church is located in some pinnacles in the Geralta Range, approximately on the other side of the prominent cleft. Since the road does not cross a river near the location where this was shot, one has to walk to the base of the pinnacles to continue.

Once you have reached the base of the pinnacles, you have to climb straight up–easy handholds, not particularly technical, but a companion with a knee injury could not make it. Here is a view from the top of one of the (easier) sections of climb.

After climbing in this way for perhaps 100′ of vertical elevation, there is another trail that continues to a place where you must take your shoes off (no shoes in the church!) and, in this case, your socks. After crossing a log over a modest drop, you get to the part that has occassined people abandoning all intention of seeing the insides of the church:

This view is actually from outside the church entrance, looking back towards the trail. Note the bricks about 15′ in front of the place where Fabio’s left hand is. They will be your point of reference in the next shot.

See the bricks, just above the 600′ sheer drop? The cut on the cliff face is the trail. As you probably noticed, it was not actually even, though it was smooth–I would not care to attempt it after a rain.

Fabio Caradonna, an Italian expatriate and grandson of Italians serving in the Fascist occupation of Ethiopia, reads the names of dead at the Italian War Cemetary, near Adigrat, Tigray, Ethiopia.

Debre Damo is a monastery village located on top of a mesa. There is only one way to the top of this mesa, a single rope to a path that leads to the top (other ropes you see are either for safety or for hauling up supplies). Only men are allowed to the top, a rule which extends to only allowing male food animals to be brough up for eating (we saw a couple goats being hauled up as offerings). Another complication of living on top of a mesa is that all the water must come from the river in the valley below, a significant hike with an elevation change of sseveral hundred feet in itself, I think.

The photo is quite busy at this resolution, so here is a crop to showw the guys at the top, some of whome are hauling people and supplies up, but most of whom are simply getting in the way and making a nuisance of themselves (the area at the top of the rope is very narrow, and there is a lot of traffic).

Perhaps this is not the most exciting photograph you have seen, but it is of a most remarkable building–the Sabean temple at Yeha, contemporary with the nearby tower (the oldest standing structure in Ethiopia) and built to an exacting standard, with hand-cut blocks cut so regular that they fit together without mortar, leaving too little room between them to shove a dime. A really splendid piece of craftsmanship.

—–

Incidentally, I found the cable in my camera bag–right where it should have been, had I not empied out all the camera equipment to the shelf where it lives when I am not travelling.