Björn Moerman PHOTOGRAPHY

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Alentejo, the forgotten part of Portugal

End of March, I spend a week in Portugal; 2 days of shooting in Lisbon followed by a 1000 km photography trek around Alentejo.

Probably one of the least known areas of Portugal, Alentejo is largely an agricultural area.

Since about 50% of the worlds cork production is harvested in Portugal, the area is literally dominated by thousands of cork oaks.

These trees which live up to 200 years, need to be minimum 25 to 30 years before they can be harvested for the first time. Subsequent harvests then happen only every 9 to 12 years. The more reddish trunks are the ones that have been harvested more recent. To keep track, the year of the last cutting of the cork, is painted on the trunk; e.g. 8 for 2008, etc...

Beside the cork production, the area also has vast numbers of olive trees. Some of these are hundreds of years old with one particular one near Lisbon, being classified as being 2850 years!

Even though Alentejo covers a third of the countries total area, it only holds 7% of the population. I guess the image above tells it all!

Close to the Spanish border, we visited the city of Elvas, where I photographed the Amoreira Aqueduct. This architectural wonder, with towers rising more than 30 meters, was started in 1498 and was finally finished 124 years later.

There are plenty of photographic opportunities along this 8 km long structure, which rightly has become a National monument.

Part of Alentejo is also a huge breeding ground for thousands of White Storks. While most of these birds used to be migrating to West Africa for the winter, some of them are now staying in Portugal all year round.

Over the years, there has been a huge effort by the electricity companies to make electricity pylons safer for Stork nests.

A culinary delight is the "Black Pork", a speciality of the region...

Towards the end of the trip, we paid a visit to the wild coastline of Alentejo. Porto Covo, 170 km South of Lisbon, proved perfect for some long exposure photography.

When I first started planning the trip, I had visions of wide open colourful spaces with a single tree. Pretty much like the image above.

Even though the weather did not fully cooperate, the weeklong trip to Alentejo and Lisbon was another interesting travel photography adventure.

Remember; " The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist only sees what he has come to see" - G.K Chesterton

BJORN

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Pic(k) of the week 16: Controlling the skies

As some of the readers might know, I've been brought up amongst aircraft and spend a large time of my teenager years at the small grass airfield of Moorsele, Belgium.

A recent interview about my 25 years of flying, can be found here. Sorry, it's only in Dutch.

Whenever I'm visiting my home country Belgium, I always try to pay a quick visit to my aviation roots and that's exactly what I did earlier this month.

2013 Pic(k) of the week 16: Controlling the skies

The image above is of the Moorsele Air Traffic Control tower, which hasn't been used in years. I'm not really sure when this steel structure was build, but I do clearly remember I was playing with my airport friends in the late seventies in and around the building! Out of fear that at some stage this rusty structure will be broken down, I keep on making new images. I guess I'm scared to loose an old friend...

Image details:

FujiFilm Sexy-1 (X-E1) with Fujinon XF 18-55 lens

ISO 200, 35mm, f4, 1/550s

RAW conversion with Lightroom 4.4

Desaturated the image on purpose to give it a bit of a vintage look

Some years ago, the guys at the Belgian aviation blog Apron 6, have released the following video about Moorsele airfield.

Lastly, " Nothing is ever really been lost, as long as you remember it" - L.M> Montgomery

BJORN

Friday, April 12, 2013

Pic(k) of the week 15: Headless Stork taking-off?

First of all apologies for the somewhat late Pic(k) of the week... I normally try to do my weekly post on Wednesday but unfortunately have been too busy at work lately...

As explained in my previous post, I did spend some time in Portugal end of last month. An overview of the touring around Alentejo, is scheduled for the end of next week.

2013 Pic(k) of the week 15: Headless Storch taking-off

It was in Alentjeo, that I photographed this Stork taking-off from its nest, on top of an old lighting pole. Because of the lack of wind, the 2 meter wingspan White Stork, had to dive to the ground in order to generate enough lift to stay airborne. In this process, its head was almost completely hidden behind the enormous wings.

Image details:

Nikon D800, 70-200 2.8 VR2

ISO 800, 200mm, f3.5, 1/8000s

RAW development in Lightroom 4.4

Tonal contrast optimisation with Nik ColorEfex 4

One of the advantages of using the ultra high resolution Nikon D800 (36million px), one can easily crop the image and still get a good resolution image. That is exactly what I've done in the one above.

Remember,"Flying is learning how to throw you at the ground and miss" - Douglas Adams.

Wherever you are, have a great weekend!

BJORN