Traveling in Winter

On November 30, 2018 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Photo Challenge3 Comments

We love traveling at every time of the year and that includes the winter season as well. When it comes to traveling at this time of year there are several considerations. Whether traveling by plane or traveling by car, weather conditions can change quickly and you need to be aware of road conditions. Obviously snow and freezing rain can cause havoc with air travel and it doesn’t even have to be where you are flying out of. Flights being cancelled in one part of the country can lead to flights being delayed or cancelled throughout the rest of the country. It doesn’t have to snow to cause delays, sometimes just the freezing cold can be enough to cause a delay as planes de-ice prior to take off, causing flights to spend extra time on the tarmac. When traveling during the winter, it is even more important to make sure that you don’t choose flights with short layovers that don’t provide any buffer if your flight does take off late. Finally, we all want to pack light these days, but cold temperatures during winter don’t make that as easy as normal. It is important to use layers and perhaps wash clothes during your trip so that don’t have to take a suitcase full of sweaters. Fortunately there are many brands of clothing that provide lightweight clothing that keep you warm without being bulky. We definitely took advantage of clothing made with those materials during our trip to Iceland in February a couple of years ago. Here are a few photos for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge, Cold, that just might have you reaching for a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate.

Frozen River from the Michigan Street Bridge in Chicago

Do Lights Ruin or Enhance Your Photographs?

On November 13, 2018 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Photo Challenge2 Comments

For the most part, we try to avoid getting street lights or other lights in our photographs, especially during the day. Obviously it gets much harder to avoid them as the sun starts to go down and often they are useful to help illuminate the subject of the photograph. The issue, of course, is that you can’t control the amount of light being emitted and sometimes the light grabs your attention more than the focal point of the picture. As we’ve said many times, we’re not professional photographers, but just point and click with varied results. On some occasions we have actively focused on a light because we simply found it to be an interesting subject. We have included several photographs here as examples, but what do you think about taking photos with lights in them?

Fountain Lights in Piazza Navona in Rome

Trying to Take a Picture of a Hummingbird

Getting the Job Done

On November 6, 2018 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Photo Challenge5 Comments

For many reasons, we love to memorialize the inventions and tools that people have used to do their jobs throughout history. With all of today’s computing and machine power, seeing the tools of the past makes you realize how fortunate we truly are these days. We have seen displays of working conditions in a variety of countries and they are all very interesting. We have taken photographs of many of them and looking back at them, it is kind of fascinating that the pictures almost capture a sense of dreariness that must have truly existed at the time. In fact, some of them are almost downright creepy.