Belogradchik

  I don't know if you've ever had this experience, when someone tells you about this just sooooo extremely cool and awesome place were you just have to go. Then you go there, full of expectation, waiting to see, to live, something mind blowing, and... Blaah! You just felt disappointed. I've experienced it a couple of times. No, it's not that the places have been bad, it's just that we people have all kinds of tastes, I like this and you like the other thing, and she... so on, and so on... The thing is that nowadays, when someone tells me about a great place and uses a lot of superlatives when describing the destination , I'm a bit of a skeptic. I try not to have too many expectations if I decide to go there. You know, a pessimist won't be disappointed, right? Then an exception, Belogradchik. A friend of ours told about this cool rocky place a couple of years ago. Two weeks ago we finally decided to visit the place. My expectations? A couple of big rocks and that's it . What an awesome, cool place! If you've never been there, you just have to go there. The couple of hours we spent there were just too little to fully explore the 90 km2 of interesting and outstanding rocky landscapes, so I hope that next time we will have more time. So... If you are moving around the northwestern part of Bulgaria, don't miss Belogradchik. But remember, this is just my opinion.

   

Urban exploration

   I don't know why old and abandoned buildings are so cool. Today we entered one, just to make a few photos and it was awesome. The light wasn't maybe the best, actually it was very harsh, so it was a bit of a struggle to make any decent images. Not that an old building wouldn't be cool just as it is, but I just think that adding a person in to the surroundings makes an abandoned place look even cooler. Didn't have a model with me, so I decided to use ugly me instead. The good thing is that I don't need to care about filling model releases and such. Maybe next time when I return, and I will, I will take a model with me.

    

A couple more fall images

  Honestly... I made a theft this week. Twice. I stole some time to get out there, just to enjoy the fall colors, which at the moment are just amazing. On Monday I went to one of my favorite places, made a couple of images of an wooden bridge. In my opinion it lacks a person, but that's something I'm working on. On Wednesday I went to a place nearby, where I haven't gone in maybe three years. It's a fortress ruins from the Thrace era and the place is just fantastic with a very nice view. Two first images from Monday and the third one from Wednesday... So much yellow.

  

Trabant 601

  Somehow my last post disappeared, and I don't have a clue what happened with it. Anyway, I liked the few images made with my phone, so I'll post only the three images without the mumbo jumbo about Instagram and my one image per day plan. Here's the images of a nice DDR made car and my gorgeous favorite model and wife...

Above the clouds you'll find the sun

  Maybe, hopefully not, but probably yes, the last really warm day of the fall. Sunny and clear day, so what could be better than to climb a mountain. Peak Zvezdets was our goal. Lots of cool views, cows, and eventually the last macro photos for this year. A sad thing was that we didn't have a single plastic bag or a basket with us, there were parasol mushrooms everywhere.

Fall, forest and fungi

  Fire salamanders aren't the only signs of fall. Yellow leaves and fungi popping up here and there in the forest tells that the nature is slowly starting to get ready for the upcoming winter. Encouraged by the first salamander for this year, I decided to return to the same place as on Friday. No amphibians this time. I'm pretty sure they were there, but all hiding under stones and logs. But as said, there is so much more to be photographed this time of the year so I wasn't too disappointed. A forest covered in fog and different kinds of fungi was on the menu this time. A few days, max. two weeks and the forests will be full of bright yellow, orange and red, so this was a good training for the upcoming fall spectacle.

  

It's fall, and that means it's a good time for salamanders.

  The fall is here, that's for sure. As we are waiting for the colorful foliage it might be an good idea to go out and look for fire salamanders. That's what I did yesterday, and I even found one. I was hoping for a couple, but what can you do, if it's one then it's one. This poisonous black and yellow fellow was waiting at the base of an birch three. Usually I'm used to move my subjects a bit to make the image, but for this guy it was just a minimal touching that was necessary. The weather was pretty humid, almost raining. mist all around and the ground was wet... just perfect for this type of tailed-amphibians. Hope to find more of these in the coming few days, they are anyway quite beautiful animals, and as a bonus they don't move too fast so they are thankful subjects when the shutter speeds are slow. By the way, one of the images are made with a smartphone, can you guess which one?