After the rain

I appreciate especially a walk after the rain at the seafront. The shore is almost deserted, the air is clear and the light beautiful. It is easy to like the rain when it is so rare, only around 60 days like this one, with always a pale sun projecting his weak rays between two clouds and two downpours, an alternace of grays and hilights.

After the rain

After the rain the shore is almost deserted, it is a perfect time to stroll along the seafront.

winter tree

The winter comes late in Izmir, and doesn’t last long. Since mid December we have had some colder nights, especially last week with even one night a zero Celsius! What an indelicacy! The rare deciduous trees lost almost all their leaves by now and seem raising their branches praying for the spring to come.

The Tree and the thinker

A shot may have thousands of messages or none at all. Depends for a part from the reader.

My preferred tree

This is not the first post having this tree in a principal or secondary role. Let me explain the reason. In the early 90s this very place was just in the sea, than the council filled new land to allow a 6 lane road to draw traffic from the center and a large promenade for walkers and bikers to enjoy the shoreline in safety. Obviously the few trees there are not very old and I do not know why this one is planted there: only a poor meter or so of soil behind, block of granite and marble (yes we use marble to fill the land) to surround its feet and salty water just a meter beyond. The tree struggle to gain some height but stay far behind his cousins grown on high ground. That's life: one can only do whith the cards we get when the game begin, no mean to complain!
http://etiennecalamescapes.blogspot.com/2011/09/tree.html http://etiennecalamessays.blogspot.com/

The tree

Some pictures, before you take it you know you will process it in BW shades. Once one have to make his choice before to load the camera with a roll of colour or panchro film, except for the lucky and courageous carrying 7 glasses and 2 or 3 bodies :) . Today it seems easier since one just have to shot and shot again. Still we have to make a choice, here it is.

You probably already met "the tree" in other of my photographs, alone in the very shoreline I just can keep picturing it.

Palm Leaves

Palm Leaves

Olive Grove

The Sunset's rays warm the olive groves in the valley of Kemalpaşa.

Ecorce

Ecorce

Clouds on the bay

The Izmir City's shore is about 40 km long. This shot is taken close to the north end of the seafront and shows the Crowne Plaza Hotel's tower, situated almost at the south-east end. The weather has dramatic colourless shades on this day therefore the choice of a black&white rendering.

The Izmir heights are green and covered with trees, this old oak marks the a small hill top while I wonder where the old path and the electric wire may lead.

Gediz

The Gediz River's bed traces a short and narrow valley between the plains of Manisa and Menemen. Shortly after crossing the city the lazy curves drawn among the geometric fields deliver its waters to the Aegean Sea. The increasing road and railway traffic in the narrow valley may well rubber off the trace of hundreds years of a limited and green agriculture. The lonely secular olive tree on the mountain slope, the no-less no-lonely secular oak giving its shadow to the well are witness of a green past while the scare in the bush traced by the trucks witnesses the roadworks, glossing power cables bringing energy to the sites.