New Year's Notes from Rila

(To the tune of the Corelli Concerto grosso in D Major, Op. 6, No. 1)

 

The second day of 2012 and the second day of sun in Rila. The balcony is awash in midday light. So is the river. Saturday’s fresh snow, still coming down as we woke up that day, has now melted off the tall trees guarding the river, but remains on the round shaded shrubs like so many white hats.

Photo 1: Snow on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2011

On Monday the midday light streaming onto the balcony through the open spaces in the woodwork had attained a kind of permanence even before I brought out my pink camera and started rearranging the balcony furniture to capture it.

Photos 2 and 3: Midday balcony sun, Jan. 1 and 2, 2012

To my surprise the sun’s presence in the composition is seen not only in the light on the balcony floor and in the shiny flashes from the river, but also in the rays coming through the openings between the wooden slats. I didn’t know that the sun’s rays could actually be visible in a photo without getting an unwanted vertical streak of light. Visible sun rays – isn’t Photoshop for effects like that, I thought?  Only now, writing this, does it occur to me that, if you position yourself the right way in the door to the balcony and squint in the right toward the sun, you can see the rays without a camera lens. Let me get up and try this. Yes, you can.

This is how the sun was hitting the hills east of Rila around 4pm on the 2^nd

Rila hills looking west toward the town: a head-on sun shot

Following the goats home 

(the English portion of the sign for the entrance to Babinska mahala, 

I noticed just now, incorrectly reads “Banska mahala”)

Still trailing the goats through Babinska mahala, a sunset view of the town. 

Yet again a mysterious passing plane has left its white streak in my photo. 

If I photoshopped, it would be the first thing to go…