BH Neely's Photography

Gullies, Hindu Kush, Afghanistan

On a flight to the Panjshir Valley, we passed over the southern edge of the Hindu Kush. That rectangle on the left is someone's homestead or field, rather dramatically disrupted by the formation of a new gully. I would guess the road in the upper right will have to be rebuilt after the spring floods...assuming we get enough snow this winter for there to be spring floods.

Perlite Cliffs, Sarakiniko, Milos, Greece

One of my favorite landscapes on the planet is the volcanic perlite that formed these cliffs about 90,000 years ago. This photo is from a sunrise shoot that I did with both my Hasselblad 501CM and my Nikon D200. It was pure joy to be out on the beach before anyone else and to be able to study the cliffs while I was shooting. This was one of the film shots, if it matters to you. It was Ilford PanF, developed in Microphen.

Son Kul Jailoo, Kyrgyzstan

It's 6:30 am, on July 4. At sunset the night before, a shepherd with a Kamaz truck pulled my beautiful 4x4 out of the swamp that I had driven it into. Along with a small army of shepherds I had spent the day trying to dig and coax it out of the greasy clay. We spent hours pulling with man power and with horse power to no avail. Now, though, in the peace of early morning, it's resting quietly next to the yurt we rented for the night. We slept in the milk-curing yurt owned by one of the shepherds who'd helped, so we had butter and sour cream and yogurt and kymiz (fermented horse milk) to inform our dreams. Cattle rubbed on the walls of the yurt and on the truck all night. I loved that truck. I miss that truck. I recently learned that it still lives in Kazakhstan, and that the gas cap I lost was finally replaced.

Shot with a Hasselblad 501CM on Bergger 200 film, probably developed in Agfa Rodinal.

Camouflage, Imeroviglio, Santorini, Greece

I was going through some Santorini pictures to make a gallery at www.facebook.com/bhneely for a friend, when I came across a series of four or five shots of this same meadowy lot. I could not figure out what the hell I was thinking, because all the shots have the same composition and exposure. It took a minute to find what was so important.

In a related note, do you know why tabby cats are orange, black and white? Now you do.

White Cliff, Sarakiniko, Milos, Greece

  Look at all the layers of eruptions that were set down. Pebbly perlite at the bottom, smooth white chalk, more pebbly stone...like layers of cake with smooth white frosting. Landscapes like this move me like no man-made objects can.

Several photos from a sunrise shoot I did at Sarakiniko have been added to my Geology album at www.facebook.com/bhneely.

Archaeological Site, Stobi, Republic of Macedonia

What I like with this is the painstaking reconstruction of 2nd C CE electrical lines at the edge of the site.
My apologies to those who visited this the first couple of days it was up. The town is called Stobi.

Archway, Zakynthos, Greece

  Geology fascinates me. It's one of the subjects I didn't study in college that I wish I had. The beauty of rock formations is nearly as pure as it can be, and every time you look at a cliff face, you're traveling in time. Millions of years ago, this cliff was solid. Probably seemed like it would never move. But now it has this hole big enough to drive a boat through and to see the next island to the north.

I've only just begun putting it together, but please visit my geology-themed album on Facebook.

An Atheist's Photo of a Monastery, Meteora, Greece

Although for many people, the monasteries are the big draw to Meteora, for me it's the cliffs themselves. Sixty million years ago, this was a lake bed. The lake drained in a cataclysm, and over the ensuing 60,000,000 years, wind and rain and rivers scoured the incredible layer of sediment, until we arrive at today's view.
Look, for just a moment, at how many layers of sand and rock and boulder and silt there are in that cliff! Your viewpoint is from several hundred feet below the lake's floor...think about how long that took to lay down before the drainage occurred. The crumbling wall of a monastery that's a couple hundred years old pales in comparison.

Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Solar System, Milky Way

Beauty like this makes it easy to see why the ancients ascribed special powers to the heavens, and why modern people want so badly for there to be a god. So beautiful, it almost (but not quite) has to mean something.

Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy

The moon, Venus and Jupiter were in a nifty alignment on Dec. 1. I heard in passing that they won't all be aligned this closely for another 50 years or so. Do you see how shaky the picture is? Even with a tripod, the vibration from the traffic below and my finger on the shutter button (with the mirror locked up) were too much. There's nothing quite as slow, clunky and vibration-prone as a 500 mm f/8 mirror lens. But when I can get a shot like this, I don't  mind. There's a less-jittery shot coming in a couple days, but I like this one for the view of the dark side of the moon (which makes me want to sing).

I think I need to plant a forest

Uh, yeah. So my carbon footprint suddenly became like a Hobbit's footprint. We took a ferry across the Saronic Gulf to Aegina, and this is the smoke that poured out of our ship before we even left port.

Slag. That's all.

She didn't find pottery in the few minutes I was talking to her, but she did find a bit of iron slag. Combined with the 260,000 other bits that have been found so far, it will help researchers clarify further their knowledge of Greek history.

Digging into the past

This archaeologist, originally from Poland, but now studying in Ontario, is going through a pile of dirt and rocks that is 1500 years old to find pottery sherds and anything else that might lead to some information regarding what life in Athens was like just after the Ottoman Empire took over the Byzantine Empire.

Yes, "sherd:"  "fragments of pottery vessels found on sites and in refuse deposits where pottery-making peoples have lived" (Merriam-Webster online).

One problem with digital

I've enhanced the dark tones of this shot to show you the great hazard of digital photography. Dust. Dust. Dust. Now, dust can be a problem with film, but this is ridiculous. If this were a piece of film, I could wipe it clean or rewash and dry it. But since this is on my sensor, there's not much I can do, other than spend $30 or more on a cleaning kit and clean the sensor. Or spend $75 on professional cleaning. Oh yeah, digital is definitely cheaper than film...as long as you don't count the cost of cameras, accessories and peripherals.