Winter Solstice Sunrise on Mesa de Acusa

I liked this stage of the sunrise the most — the cone of shadow under Roque Bentayga was spectacular

An excursion to greet the first rays of the sun on the day of winter solstice is organized by the Cabildo of Gran Canaria every year. Well, this year there were two, on two consecutive days, coz, let’s face it, the difference in the position of the sun and timing is non-perceivable and we are no druids anyway.
We already tried to attend one of those three years ago. The bus picked us up later than it was promised, the driver took a long way to Acusa plus he seemed to be afraid of the dark or something. All these combined, we arrived to the Mesa de Acusa, a plateau in the upper part of the Acusa village, when the sun had already risen, to the general embarrassment of all.
This time was different. We started on time; the bus was small, so it could take a faster route via the smaller roads, and the driver was excellent. We arrived well before the sunrise and had a lot of time to freeze our bits off and to listen to a very good explanation from the Cabildo guide .
Of course, to observe the beautiful sunrise over the rock formations Roque Bentayga and iconic Roque Nublo you don’t need to be there on the day of solstice, but on that day and around it it’s well known where the Roques project their shadows (see map below). Plus, of course, I like a bit of ritual now and then.
Not overmuch, though.

Inagua in winter and spring

View inland from Degollada de las Brujas

Reserva natural integral de Inagua (strict nature reserve Inagua) is a protected pine forest in the southwest part of Gran Canaria. Technically, it consists of three different forests - Inagua (confusing, innit?), Ojeda and Pajonales, but they are merged together anyway. The whole reserve is shared between three municipalities (Tejeda, La Aldea and Mogan). Almost all of the trees that grow there are Canarian Pines (Pinus canariensis). Canarian pine is interesting - it has such a thick bark that trees can survive forest fires, that is why it is now planted elsewhere in the wildfire-prone places. 

It reminds me that I have seen new shoots coming directly out of burnt trunks where the last forest fire happened. Maybe the next blog entry will be dedicated to how the site recovers).

Coming down from Montana de Inagua. We look like The Company from the Lord of the Rings.

on snow, disrupted travel and isolation on white

along with thousands of other travelers in Europe we didn't travel anywhere. So we are probably not really qualify to be called travelers at all.

We were supposed to fly to Fuerteventura on Sunday morning (very early morning, so favoured by cheap airlines). We didn't, because the evening before a lot (I mean A LOT) or snow fallen and settled on the ground. It was very respectable amount of snow for single snowfall, even if I apply russian standard to it.

Anyways. On Sunday, while the snow was still fresh, I went out with my camera, and got pictures of a few trees, isolated on white background, small twigs and all. And just wanted to stress again how easy it is if the original lighting is right - be it natural milky-white sky or studio setup.

I am pretty sure I first saw a variant of this technique described by Laurin Rinder on shutterstock forum. He wrote something like "just call up Levels dialogue in photoshop, take a white pipette and click on background". And it works perfectly well if background was white and uniformly lit.

A goodish while ago wrote up a slight variation on this here - that works nicely even is there are dirty patches on the background.

I continue to use more or less the same technique now when conditions are right. I call up Levels dialogue, and start dragging the white point (upwards arrow on the right of the diagram), while holding Alt key (for PC) visually controlling the results. Sometimes it works just like that, sometimes I need to play with a few layers, but it works very nicely. Hope it helps if someone is still struggling with isolation.