Threatening clouds approaching the lake

It was a hazy day on the Iseo lake, and dark clouds were approaching the lakeshore.
Sometimes it seems that the haze has the will to embrace everything...

I find these kind of photos easy to take, but hard to "develop". They tend to have few colors, and a lot of grays and shades. Usually my first intent is to try to render the hazy atmosphere of the day, but it doesn't always works... so in this shot I tried a more dramatic interpretation, trying to put emphasis on the line of the hills, the waves, and the approaching clouds.

To do this required a bit of work: balancing the lights and the shadows isn't easy so the final result is achieved thanks to some local filtering: a bit of brightness on the water, a lot of contrast on the sky, a "hard" tone curve, a local emphasis on the right "curling" cloud, some grain and a bit of vignetting to make the central part of the photo stand out.

Critical comments are welcome :-)

Red leaf on yellow fall

I still remember the day I took this shot, it was a rainy day of the 2004 autumn. I was walking with my girlfriend near a park, over a carpet of yellow leaf. Then my eyes caught something different, something red.

I took a step back, I took out my loyal camera, and I grabbed this shot.
I still remember the voice of my girlfriend asking why I was loosing time photographing wet leaves... (but she appreciated the photo afterward :-)

Street light reflection

I was walking on the seashore, and then I saw a light and it's reflection.

So I set up my camera on a rock and shoot a 4 sec photo, here's the result.

I was on holiday in Rovinj, Croatia. It was the 2004, a long time ago :-)

I was using my first digital camera, an Olympus Camedia C-4000.

In more than 4 year of service the C-4000 gave me a lot of beautiful photos :-)

Drapery stalactite like a lamp

A drapery stalactite in the Baredine Cave, Croatia.

In the 2009 summer I visited the Baredine Cave. It's a nice cave,  the deepest pit is 130m depth and there's a high level of humidity.
Due to the low light I was using the continuous shooting mode trying to grab some decent shots, and with a DSLR camera I was a somewhat noisy tourist... During the visit it's been funny hear the guide tell "And now I'm going to shed light on this particular rock for the Paparazzi moment" :-)

(PS: The stalactite of the photo is always-on, the rock he was talking about is another one :-)

Message for the Time!

This paper message is hanging from a tree in the wonderful Heller Garden, Gardone, Italy.
In the higher part of the garden there is a tree full of hanging messages left by visitors.
Of course I left mine too :-)

Cableway to colors!

A rusty cableway in the Waterfall Varone Cave Park near Riva del Garda, Italy.

I was visiting the park Waterfall Varone photographing flowers / plants / caves and, of course, waterfalls... when I saw this beautiful rusty cable.

Taking pictures at F5.6 gave me the right depth of field for the cable, and the background turned into a beautiful kaleidoscope of colors :-)

In the past, this cable is probably served to transport baskets, but today there is a lot of vegetation growing around, and the rust starts to show...