BH Neely's Photography

Fire Starter, Megalo Papingo, Greece

Who needs tinder and small branches? This was right next to our table in the taverna.

Papigo (or Papingo), Greece

Amongst the things I never imagined I'd see in Greece are mountains with this much snow. It isn't glacial, though it sort of has that look. This will all be gone in a couple weeks, but throughout the winter, the higher mountains of central and northern Greece are covered.
But what this is really about is power lines. You probably can't see it in this small version, but if you saw an 8x10 or 16x20, you'd realize that the mountain is out of focus, making the power lines the subject of the photo.

Athinas Street, Athens, Greece

It's like a Chubby & Tubby store exploded onto the sidewalk.

Window Reflection, Athens, Greece

I recently took a photo walk along Athinas Street between Monastiraki and the Central Market. It's an area that I love, because it's a purely working neighborhood in Athens, but it's so close to and between so many tourist areas that real life and tourist life mingle. Sort of. Other than a couple hotels, there are no touristy amenities. If you want a coffee, you're going to a local kafenio. You can also buy a chainsaw, weed whacker, buckets of paint, fishing line, clothes, concert tickets, side of lamb or rope for your boat. You'll have trouble, however, finding stamps, postcards and pictures of Pan.

For this shot, I took a couple pictures of the line of traffic snaking back between the buildings, and I suddenly realized that passing cars were reflecting the building behind me. The photo turned out to be less dramatic than I had hoped, but it gives a sense of what I saw.

Wine Glasses, Athens, Greece

I've told you before about how a lot of my very part-time job involves standing around waiting, and, being a photographer, I fill that time with photography. I keep trying to work out a way to get the layout of food and dishes and other setup materials into the paid shots, but it never quite works out. At this event, I got a nice shot of the table of shrimp...with a woman's mouth wide open, shoving a shrimp in. A great shot, but since my job is to take flattering photos, not exactly appropriate.

Trees, Meteora, Greece

Another from Meteora. The rocks there are perfect for a photo like this, because they're hard, yet because you can see the motion of the ancient water that scoured the cliffs into the sea/lake bottom, they have a soft, organic look that complements the trees nicely.
Yes, I really do think about things like that while I'm shooting. I especially like traveling millions or billions of years back through Earth's history as I work in a canyon or gorge or mountain range.

Meteora, Greece (reprise)

I posted a color version of this one back in October 2008 or so. I wasn't very happy with it. There's a lot of haze that makes the colors insipid - nothing like the beauty I felt when I saw it with my eyes. I'm working on a new section for www.bpsphoto.com that will create portfolios of images that weren't good enough for the main portfolios, but are very good representatives of what they are. The first such section will be Meteora. I shot nearly 300 photos there one evening and morning, and it seems a damn shame not to give them (well, 15 to 20 of them) a section. And since I've decided that I'll only put black & white photos on that site, I get to rework a bunch of pictures. This is one of the first I decided to rework, and I'm very glad that I get to go back and revisit that shoot.

Acropolis in a Saharan Sandstorm, Athens, Greece

A few times a year we get these odd sandstorms that manage to lift some very, very fine dust from the Sahara all the across the Mediterranean. Such was the case on Friday. They reduce visibility, the wind can be pretty impressive, and this fine dust coats everything. It's not as bad a dust storm in a place where the dust originates, as in the western US or Kazakhstan, or I imagine the Sahara, but I'm impressed by this dust that has traveled across something like 500 miles of open water.

Flowers, Studio, Athens, Greece

One last shot of the flowers. I discovered that a bathtub makes a fairly decent pure white background when necessary...as long as you can shoot from straight above.

Flowers, Studio, Athens, Greece

Same shot, different focal point. I think I like this one a little better. But what I really love is my Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens. This thing is a work of beauty, making it easy to focus on a ridiculously small area. Unfortunately, my eyesight sucks, and I sometimes have trouble focusing. But when it works, I get gorgeous shots like this one.

Flowers, Studio, Athens, Greece

I seriously can't believe how much I'm enjoying working with flowers.