Taipei - Mountaintop Trail Temple

The little temple by the side of the road in the last posting was typical.  Even in the remotest regions you'll see them - some large, some teeny tiny - either alongside or even across a trail, like this one, where a traveler literally has to walk through the property.  At times there will be someone watching over the place, but mostly not.

The photo below was behind me as I snapped the above image.  The stove-looking thing is a place to burn (fake) money for the use of those who have passed on...

Taipei - Mountaintop Trail Road

A few postings ago I mentioned Mountaintop Park, which was a short distance from our digs there in Taipei.  Hiking the trail going up there was a great way to get some quick exercise.  It took about 45 minutes to go all the way to the top, and the path had a lot of variety.  The photo here represents a fairly typical portion of the "trail".

Taipei 101 Street Performers

We ran into these guys as we were wondering around the neighborhood of Taipei 101.  Street performers do their thing in most every city, and it's interesting to see especially how the teams operate, sometimes with a sound engineer, hat passer, and others besides the performers themselves.

The guy on the left had a companion in a blue outfit nearby doing the same thing, which was stand on a pedestal and react when someone put money in a basket.  Probably the best I've ever seen of anything similar is posted here.  But the two colorful dudes in Taipei did a passable job.

The man on the right was a bit more unusual.  There was no cup or basket to collect money...he just played for the benefit of the passers-by.  Learned that he is a professor of mathematics in a nearby university and does this just for the joy of sharing.

Taipei Temple - Incense / The Day I Saw Concorde

As noted earlier, there is a fair-sized temple a short distance away from where we were staying in Taipei this past October.  Though I captured a number of postcard-style photos, which I find boring, this is a bit different, and the only one I will be posting from that site (apart from the three flowers just featured).  Applying the unsharp mask made the smoke curls really pop out against the red background in the upper left, similar to the look in another posting from an earlier trip.
_______________

The Day I Saw Concorde

Listened to another episode of the Airline Pilot Guy today while walking on the treadmill in the gym.  From the earliest age I've always had a passion for aviation, and in fact took lessons in a Cessna 150 as a teenager (until the funds were re-prioritized).  Even today I'll look up almost every time I hear an engine overhead.

But nothing compares to what I saw when looking up one day in Mexico City.  I was visiting down there in 1980 (while living further up north, in the state of Coahuila), and heard a roar from the direction of the international airport.  What caught my attention was the sound of the roar - it was different from the usual airliner we were accustom to...louder, sharper.  My jaw dropped when I saw what it was - the real deal, the Concorde, still very low as it thundered in a climbing arc back toward Europe.  The sight struck me as if I'd seen the President walking down the street!  At the time, of course, flights overland in the U.S. were banned so it was never seen there other than in the news and magazine articles.  Very impressive.

Taiwan - Temple Flower #2

This would be a more traditional flower photo (compared to yesterday's posting).  There were a couple of repairs that needed to be made to the leaves, but otherwise pretty solid.

Taiwan - Plastic Rose

After initially preparing this pic for posting, there was something I just didn't like about it.  Too plain, too dark, not enough contrast...couldn't pin it down.  So for grins I started playing with the filter gallery in Photoshop and stumbled upon this effect, called "plastic wrap".

And only then did did I realize that the picture was simply too flat.  This accidentally-discovered filter effect in Photoshop gave it the three-dimensionality that I'd been looking for...

Taiwan - Temple Flower #1

I'm in a flower mood today so here we go.  This and the next two posts were all captured at a fair-sized temple a short walk from where we were staying there in Taipei.  After these I'll post some shots of the temple itself, though it was not one of my better shoots in that environment.

Taipei Zoo - Log Rat

This one is being posted not because I thought it was great but because others commented on how cute this little bugger is.  Must agree with them, but my eyes are drawn more to the leaves growing on the left side of the "log"...probably because of the color.

On the technical side, it's highly cropped in but passable.  I'm getting a little better at instinctively aiming for the eyes, focusing-wise, but still had to apply the unsharp mask (50% at 4.0px) to make them appear more clear.

Taipei Zoo - Brown Monkey

This fairly cropped-in shot is of one of Taipei Zoo's smaller monkey species.  My gosh, there are so many!  More than 360 types of monkeys the world over, all looking quite different from one another and possessing varying levels of intelligence.  Small as he is, this one has a contemplative if not sad visage.  What is he thinking about?  What does he make of all these larger primates walking around with the shiny objects pointing at him all the time?

Technically this photo had to be finessed a bit.  The eyes are so dark they were brightened, with a touch of sharpening...

Taipei Zoo - Monkey Negotiation

Often, photographing monkeys is about capturing behavior more than aesthetics.  Monkey B, on the right, was in the process of taking a bite of something when Monkey A grabbed his wrist and literally used his rival's hand to stuff his own mouth.  It all happened before Monkey B even knew what was going on.

In the photo below it looks as though Monkey B is at least trying to negotiate before he loses out altogether on his next chance for food...