Postcards for the Weekend - Night Views

 

 Lujiazui (Lokatse) - financial district of Shanghai, China

 Postcrossing card from China, June 2017

Postcrossing card from Russia, June 2017

Artist: Mori Raito

Conveniently, my two most recently received post crossing cards happen to fit this week's theme - each in its own way...

I've not been able to find any details about the artist Mori Raito, but more images can be found by googling the name.

 

 
Postcards for the Weekend 44: City View (night time)

This week's linky seems not to be up yet, but I'm posting this anyway;
Saturday afternoon European time...

In the Dark (Friday My Town)

One week of November has gone by already, here in Sweden we are back on winter time since two weeks, and darkness is falling earlier with every day…

I went looking for some new winter decoration lights for my balcony; and fell in love with this little tree with white LED bulbs that in the daytime look rather like snowberries. As bare branches somehow look less “christmassy” than spruce garlands, I decided it would be OK to put it up already for Halloween… So I did!

So far we’ve been having mild and rather still autumn weather. I’ve tried to tie the tree tight to the rail – but it remains yet to be seen when proper winter storms set in (as no doubt sooner or later they will) if I’ve done a good enough job of it!

…

Yesterday, while I was tapping away on my computer writing an email, the display on my screen suddenly changed; and resolution, size and font and whatever went bigger and distorted – for no reason at all, as far as I was aware of. I then tried to restart, hoping that would fix it - but was rebuked by the computer, who (strange how personal appliances suddenly get when things like that happen!) told me I was not allowed to do that (implying that even worse things might happen if I did). Apparently It had much more important stuff to deal with than my email.

So I left it alone for a while and went away to do other things. When later on I found it had turned itself off, I tried waking it again, only to find it was still in a grumpy mood – showing the same weird display. I made some attempts at setting it right, but to no avail. At best I managed to get the text back to somewhere close to the right “height”, but everything was kind of flattened out and elongated sideways. Round icons for example weren’t round but oval. So I gave up and went to bed…

This afternoon I gave it another go. Alas no mircale had happened over night. It took me three hours or more of continued trial and error to get the settings back to looking right. For starters, I could not for the life of me remember (nor find) what my screen resolution had been before it went wrong…

Finally it seems I managed to get it right, though. (Note to self in case it happens again: 1600 x 900). Hopefully I’ve learned something about various other settings in the process as well. But I still haven’t got a clue why it played up in the first place! (Anyone else out there who had similar problems with display settings in Windows 10?)

Friday My Town – Darkness

More City Lights

Some of you might remember that back in mid October I posted about A New View in my town. Yesterday that new part of the walk along the riverside was officially inaugurated. The ceremony took place at 4 p.m., which is when darkness falls here this time of year.

Instead of cutting a ribbon, they tied one together…

… as a symbol of the new part of the walk connecting previously existing possibilities to walk along the river.

The plan is that in 2018, it will be possible to walk close to the river all the way through town, for about 2,5 km (~ 1,5 English miles).

In the old days of textile industry, the river was lined with textile mills, and chemicals from the dyeing works used to colour (and pollute) the water in the river. Now, coloured spotlights are used as a reminder of that not-so-pretty history of our town, and the changes it has gone through more recently to become more of a post-industrial centre of commerce and culture. Which, in a way, is kind of how it all began back in pre-industrial times… When the town was founded in the early 1600s, it was as a trading-site!

City Lights

The last weekend in October we set our clocks back to winter time (or “normal” ditto). While I do appreciate getting the lost morning hour back, the flipside of the coin is that instead the afternoons suddenly seem very short. Just now the sun goes to bed around 4:15 pm – and it will get worse before it gets better!

Having a choice, I usually try to do my errands in town while there is still daylight – and avoiding the afternoon rush hours. Yesterday, however, I happened to be out “late” (as in half an hour after sunset), which offered an opportunity for some “night” photography:

Only three weeks to go before there will be Christmas lights in some of the big old trees in the park as well!

The main reason I was out and about in town in the dusk/dark yesterday was another discount shopping night for club members at my favourite clothes shop…

SOOC Sunday: Torchlight Procession

From the lighting of the trees in the Park (see yesterday’s post) there was a torchlight procession to the Town Square…

… and the lighting of the Christmas Tree there:

More photos from the same occasion in my Picture Book.

This post is linked to Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday.

Weekend Reflections: Let There Be Light

While most of November so far has really been quite fine – for November! – yesterday was a typical November day as we often tend to think of it in this part of the world; all grey and misty.

I don’t go out after dark very often these days, and especially not in this kind of weather. When I have a choice, I prefer to go out in the daylight. Yesterday however, I had set my mind on going into town for a special event in the afternoon. So I set out from home around 3.45 pm, which is about the time of sunset here now. (Yesterday, however, it was kind of dark all day!)

The statue in the foreground represents the history of our town and area: a tradesman travelling on foot from place to place selling his goods from a sack. He stands just where the modern shopping street begins.

At 4.30 pm people were gathering down by the river… Quite a few lights reflected in the river already, but this is what we were waiting for:

The official lighting of the Christmas lights in the Park.

I took lots of photos, so no doubt you will be seeing more of these views. ;) Night photography is tricky, but I had brought my gorillapod which helped me to use railings and lampposts and wastebaskets and whatever I could find for support.

Weekend Reflections: Lights in the Dark

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“There are two ways of spreading light:
to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
~ Edith Wharton ~

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More photos from the late night walk in the park last weekend (compare the recent post Slip-Sliding Away Into A New Year).

Near one of the entrances to the park there is a sculpture named “Slit”. (Followers of my previous blog The Island of the Voices might remember it.) If you click on the image below, a link will take you to a photo of  the whole sculpture in daylight.

The polished black surface inside the hole mirrors the view of the gazebos on the other side. Now with all the snow and ice, and in the dark, I was not able to bend down and actually look through the hole… and even less look through the hole through the camera eye… so I just held the camera down and let it do the job for me, hoping for the best!

Not only can you look at the gazebos through the stone sculpture, you can also look at the illuminated trees through the gazebos!

The lights reflected in the ice on the river.

Standing beneath one of the illuminated trees, looking up.

Monica (a.k.a DawnTreader)

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See more reflection photos at
Weekend Reflections # 68