Happy New Year from Hoi An! May we all have a happy, healthy, peaceful Year of the Dragon. Apricot bushes with their beautiful yellow blossoms are in flower at this time every year. Hoa mai – apricot flowers – are a reminder that Tết has arrived.
I love how the sensor of my Fujifilm X-T30 renders light and color. This late afternoon shot of a ramshackle home that backs into a small tributary of Thu Bon River is a good example. I made slight adjustments to exposure and contrast, but that was it for post-processing. My Nikon D750 would also produce an appealing rendition of the light and color in this scene, but it would be qualitatively different than the X-T30 image presented here. I must start taking both cameras on my photo trips in the days to come, so I can take some comparison shots.
I bought the X-T30 a couple of years ago, and recently have been trying once again to figure out the user-unfriendly, erratic software interface that comes with the camera. Although it is a beautiful piece of equipment, it has proven frustratingly difficult to use this little mirrorless camera, and it has spent a good deal of the time I have owned it sitting in a closet.
A gray day and drizzling rain provided the flat light needed to illuminate the rich, beautifully saturated colors in this arched doorway. The Hue Citadel was the official seat of government and the home of Vietnam’s Nguyen dynasty emperors (1802-1945). It is a huge, sprawling walled area, a wonderful place to explore in any kind of weather.
Although the sun would break through a bit later, Schönbrunn Palace was set off by heavy, brooding clouds when I first arrived on a Sunday morning. As I walked from the nearby subway station to the Palace gate at 7:30 am, I saw virtually no one. Though he is a little hard to make out in the relatively low-res photo for web posting, there is a lone jogger just to the right of the staircase in the photo. In any case, my plan was to take an early morning walk around the Palace grounds and later buy a ticket to go into the Palace. The walk through the beautiful grounds was thoroughly enjoyable, and went just as planned. However, when I went to buy a ticket for the Palace, the earliest I could enter was after 1:30 pm. Typically, I had done zero research or advanced planning for my visit, and thus was not aware there is a limit to the number of visitors inside the facility at any given time, and one has to reserve a time when buying a ticket. I wanted to go inside, but with only three and a half days in Vienna, it just did not make sense to spend pretty much an entire day at the Schönbrunn, so I went in search of brunch and coffee instead.
Schloss Schönbrunn served as the principal summer residence of Austria’s Hapsburg rulers from around the year 1600 until early in the 20th century. Several kilometers from the Hofburg in the center of old Vienna, even today the Schönbrunn and its extensive landscaped grounds are removed from the bustle of contemporary Vienna. The imposing Baroque-style edifice that appears in this photograph was completed in the 1740s during the reign of Hapsburg empress Maria Theresa. Wikipedia informs us that the palace has 1,441 rooms. The Schönbrunn and the grounds are preserved, restored as needed, owned and managed by a limited-liability company, which is, in turn, wholly-owned by the Austrian state (Wikipedia). Although I did not get inside the palace itself, everything I saw outside was immaculate and in excellent condition. Very impressive.
The main gate to Schönbrunn Palace.
And yes, the Schönbrunn has more statues featuring scantily clad classical figures in what appears to be uncomfortable repose.
