Photo (and Poetry) Blog | Mihaela Limberea Photography | Mihaela Limberea

Macro World

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:53:29 +0200

Since our Swiss garden is pretty small, so are the photo opportunities as we have considerably fewer flowers now. And no butterflies yet - we have bought some lavender plants, but it'll be some time until they bloom and hopefully attract insects. We don't have any bulb flowers either, we'll plant those in the fall for next spring.

In the meantime, I turned to macro photography, lying on the ground for the sake of perspective (and hope nobody took a picture of ME, lying on my belly with the head at a curious angle and my derrière in the air; hilarious, really, I'd say if it were about someone else).

A portion of our terrace is covered with reddish peebles, between which grow succulents. It's really beautiful, with the green of the plants against the red peebles.

All photos taken using Canon EOS 5D Mark III and Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro.

Ranunculus and Muehlenbeckia

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:21:37 +0200

Ranunculus and muehlenbeckia at the Laufen Castle. I will post new photos taken at castle and the Rhine Falls (Rheinfall) soon.

The New Garden

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:59:30 +0200

Gardening season - at last! The garden we have here in Switzerland is much smaller than the one we left behind in Sweden, but a garden it is, nonetheless. And for Swiss conditions, it's not bad at all. Because the country is pretty small and most of it consists of mountains, terrains are really gold and hard to come by. They are pretty small, houses built very close together and with minimal gardens. Ours is a new development and the distance between houses is considerable larger than usual here, the garden too. Which is why we decided for this house, among others.

Minette, who's almost one year old now, loves it too and keeps a protective eye on it from the vantage point on top of the hill where the stone cat doubles as garden guard while Minette is out on patrol.

In Switzerland you want to be on top of the hill, for the view.

Pink bougainvillea that reminds me of Australia - I miss it so much!

And suddenly, the spring!

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 17:38:55 +0200

And suddenly, the spring!

Rising Moon II

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 21:12:57 +0200

Rising Moon

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 14:59:23 +0200

Lovely sky colours yesterday evening, with the moon slowly raising.

Swiss Spring (II)

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:34:23 +0200

Serves me right to complain about Swiss weather (see my last post)! After that louzy weather last weekend the spring decided to put an apparition in Kanton Zürich at last!

Not too bad, considering I shot all these photos during a thirty minutes lunch break with three lenses.

Shot with Canon EOS 5D Mark III and Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro and Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II.

Swiss spring

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 15:09:32 +0200

Swiss spring: snow and fog. Yesterday morning was depressing, we got up and couldn't believe our eyes. Snow again! I was so looking forward to go out to take some photos that I went out in that weather anyway.

It was chilly and wet and the photo shooting was a quick affair this time.

View over Winterthur from Oberwinterthur, one can hardly see the city because of the fog.

Best of Australia: Part Three

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 12:09:10 +0200

As promised, here comes "Best of Australia: Part Three", featuring the Sydney Chinese Garden.

The Chinese Garden of Friendship is situated in the Darling Harbour, close to the Chinatown. The garden is modeled on the typical gardens of the Ming Dynasty. Above - the Dragon Wall.

A lizard in the garden, not at all shy to pose.

One can rent traditional Chinese costumes, as the two girls above did. They looked beautiful in those costumes, and spent the afternoon taking pictures of themselves in different spots in the garden.

Entering the garden is like stepping back in time in the quiet solitude of Chinese architecture.

You can spend a relaxing afternoon in the garden with a good book, sipping the heavenly jasmine tea served in a traditional Chinese Teahouse overlooking the lake and watching the sparrows that are on the lookout for crumbs.

The garden was designed by Sydney's Chinese sister city Guangzhou and opened in 1988 as part of the Sydney's bicentennial celebrations. It was named Garden of Friendship symbolizing the bond established between China and Australia.

It's spring!

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:56:26 +0200

Sammlung Oskar Reinhart am Römerholz

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 15:03:07 +0200

Spring at last! We are lucky enough to live very close to a large green area, in the middle of the woods more or less, but also with easy access to a few restaurants and cafés and museums. Today was far too gorgeous to spend it indoors, so even though we went to the Oskar Reinhart Collection Am Römerholz, we stayed outside in the gardens.

The Oskar Reinhart Collection "Am Römerholz" in Winterthur consists of some very fine European art, mostly French 19th century paintings. The collection is now in public ownership, but still housed in the collector's residence, in a purpose-built picture gallery. Oskar Reinhart (1885-1965) came from a family of wealthy Swiss merchants, but retired from the family business at 39 to devote himself entirely to his growing art collection. He donated his collection and the villa housing it to the Swiss confederation, which opened it tot he public in 1970.

"Am Römerholz" was built from 1915 to 1918 on a hillside at the edge of the woods for a Winterthur industrialist. Oskar Reinhart bought the villa in 1924.

Thoreau on seeing

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:47:00 +0200

Longing for spring ...

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:57:22 +0200

I feel very uninspired these days. True, no spring yet, but there are lot of other things to photograph. However, for whatever reason, I'm not interested in those many things I could do, but in those I cannot do i.e. spring!

So here come two flower shots - sunshine indoors!

Almost Spring

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:49:40 +0200

The weather forecast for today was "SUN" and I was looking forward to go out on a photo walk after the chilly weather these last weeks. Alas! The sun did come out eventually, but the polar winds that accompanied it made sure it was a pretty short walk. Nobody seemed to be happy to be outdoors.

Winterthur Old Town (Alt Stadt)

Tulips

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 17:23:10 +0100

If no spring outside, I'll create the spring inside.

OK - this is no tulip :-).

Best of Australia: Part Two

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:36:32 +0100

As promised, here comes Best of Australia Part Two, with pictures from Sydney Darling Harbour and Central Business District (CBD).

Above: Darling Harbour at sunset.

Darling Harbour is one of the adjacent harbours to the city centre of Sydney, but also a large recreational and pedestrian precinct situated on the outskirts of the Sydney Central Business District (CBD).

There are a lot of shops and restaurants in the area, as well as other tourist point of interest such as the Sydney Entertainment Centre, the Chinese Garden (will feature a series of photos from that garden in a separate blog post), the Australian National Maritime Museum, the LG IMAX Theatre, Sydney Wildlife World and Sydney Aquarium (these last two will be featured in a future post).

Darling Harbour is named after Lieutenant-General Ralph Darling, who was Governor of New South Wales from 1825 to 1831, and was originally part of of the commercial port of Sydney.

The area had become derelict by mid-80s, and it was then redeveloped as a pedestrian and tourist precinct. The Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, also located in Darling Harbour, was a venue of the 2000 Summer Olympic Games.

Easter Preparations

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:02:26 +0100

It's hard to believe it's Easter soon, what with snow outside and chilly weather! I didn't even arrange any spring flowers at the entrance as I usually do. It's simply too cold. I did that throughout our house, mostly because I long for spring rather because of any real Easter feelings. Please, stop this weather NOW!

Longing for spring ...

Pearce on Creativity

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 22:00:17 +0100

Pearce on creativity.

Goethe on Acting

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:44:27 +0100

Orchid Exhibition

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 09:47:31 +0100

As promised, some more photos from the orchid exhibition.

There are around 25.000 orchid species in the world found in 880 genera. The concrete numbers on such an enormous family is constantly in flux. The numbers of of orchids species equals more than twice the number of bird species, and about four times the number of mammal species. The Orchidaceae family also includes Vanilla (yes, the vanilla in the ice cream) and many commonly cultivated plants such as Phalaenopsis (the orchids usually sold in supermarkets) and Cattleya.

Some of stands hade a very creative display - I liked this one very much.

A Phalaenopsis created for Stadt Winterthur.

These are not orchids but wood anemones (Anemone nemorosa Nashville), an early-spring flowering plant.

The exhibition is huge and one is bound to be tired and hungry at the end - something that some intreprid souls were not late to take advantage of.

Everybody, and I mean everybody, was taking pictures - be it with a DSLR, mobile or a compact.