dimitri lumelski © photography
Nov 01
by dan lumelski in Blog, Travel 0 comments tags: distagon 25mm, matterhorn, Sony a7r, Zeiss, zermatt

Zermatt and Matterhorn in Late October

It is hard to stay away from the mountains for a long time. They draw you in and call for you. We try to hold out until the winter season sometimes, but we love mountains any season. Be it heavy snow storm or harsh summer sun, mountains have us wrapped around their thick rocky fingers. And so, it was time to get off our butts again.   Two weeks ago I had a couple of days off and took the family to Switzerland to see the Matterhorn. We have been talking about visiting Matterhorn for a while, but other plans got in the way. I packed my camera and a few lenses, including the newly acquired Zeiss Distagon T* 25mm f/2.8 C/Y (review HERE). Jenn packed her and Abi's bags. And off we went on Friday morning.   Let me tell you - it is not easy to get to Zermatt. First you fly to Zurich, then you need to drive for 3.5 hours (including a 20min auto-train ride), you park , get on another train and finally arrive at Zermatt. All this travel is worth it! Because Matterhorn is just as majestic and huge as you expect it to […]
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Sep 23
by dan lumelski in Blog, Travel 0 comments tags: 35mm, moscow, rico, summarit-m

Moscow Autumn Days

A few weeks back we went to visit my family in Moscow. Which is exciting on its own, but it was also my brother's birthday, first time for Jenn and Abigail visiting Moscow, and my second visit to my birth city since we left in early 90s. For those who don't know much about Russia visiting there, even to such a developed city as Moscow, can be a bit of a culture shock. It is a very different mentality, different traditions and different sense of humour. Even to me Russia seems a foreign country, I can only imagine how unsettling it can be for a tourist. But surprisingly on this visit everything, from passport control and to service in restaurants, was great. We spent several days roaming the streets, visiting some of the famous monuments and eating very tasty food. The weather was fantastic, sunny and not too warm. And early fall sun was low enough to make for a great light throughout the day. Unfortunately, I only took my favourite walk about lens when we headed to see the city center - 35mm Summarit-M. It was a mistake and I struggled to get a nice closeup on Kremlin, but I […]
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Aug 22
by dan lumelski in Blog, Travel 0 comments tags: albigna, alps, cv15, Sony a7r, vicosoprano, Voigtlander

Swiss Alps in Pastel (somewhere around Vicosoprano)

One of my closest friends moved to Zurich a few years back. He is just as in love with the mountains and outdoors as I am, the difference is that he lives in a country where mountains are right outside your doors. We went skiing together in Switzerland several times and we've been talking for a while about heading into the mountains in the summer. So last weekend the stars have finally aligned and we were headed south from Zurich towards the Italian border, in a small rented BMW, packed camping gear, food and of course cameras. Pasha was packing his Nikon, and I had my a7R with two Leica lenses (35mm Summarit and 90mm Cron) and Voigtlander 15mm VM. We only had two days, so we planned a nice alpine trek around Albigna glacier lake and dam on the first day, climbing above 2,700m, and a more relaxed route around lake Sil on the second day.   The weather in Switzerland has been very unreliable in the last few weeks and we had to change the dates of our trip once - it's not fun to camp in the rain and taking photos can be tricky as well. But […]
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Aug 01
by dan lumelski in Blog, Travel 0 comments tags: 35mm, b&w, blue mountain, flower, frog, minister d, summarit-m, vc15, Yashica

Ontario Summers

I love Ontario summers. The sun is warm, the nature is abundant, there is pollen in the air, the grasses are tall in the fields and the trees are full of leaves. You get out of the city into the nature and summer calmness fills you. Get in a hammock, relax, sip on a cool drink, read a book, take some photos? There is plenty of opportunity for outdoor photography. Last month we were in Toronto for couple of weeks to visit Jenn's parents, and went up to Blue Mountain for a weekend. We stayed at Club Intrawest, they have a nice property at Blue Mountain. It's a bit dated, but very well landscaped - got a cottage/country feel to it. We had a wonderful time, very relaxing. I had my a7R and three lenses on me that weekend - Voigtlander 15mm, 35mm Summarit-M and Sony Zeiss FE 55 f/1.8.     I am still on the fence about the CV15 (the Voigtlander). It's a sweet little lens, but images it produces require a lot of post-processing. I might sell it once Sony Zeiss FE 16-35 f/4 is out. Or maybe not... This was shot at ISO100, f/11, 1/8sec with a 6-stop […]
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Jul 22
by dan lumelski in Blog, Travel 0 comments tags: aerial, grand cayman

Flight over Grand Cayman

...to avoid confusion, image above is Miami Keys on the way to GrandCayman. On the trip to Grand Cayman, I brought the usual kit: Sony A7R, Sony FE 55mm f/1.8, Summarit-M 35mm, and Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5. One of the ideas I had got into my head before we left London is that I must try getting some arial photos while we are on the island, you know crystal blue water and green coastline kind. It's important to point out that I have never attempted arial photography before. I don't know how it's done and had no idea what challenges there might be... Originally the plan was to get a helicopter ride. However friendly staff at the Ritz told me that the only commercial helicopter on the island is currently out of commission, but I can try my luck with the local flight club. After chatting to someone at the club I found out that there is one flight instructor who doesn't mind taking tourist for a flight over the island, got his number, and booked a flight for the next morning. The next morning, really pumped up for the flight, I headed out to the field. I met the pilot […]
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Jul 20
by dan lumelski in Blog, Travel 0 comments tags: afternoon tea, grand cayman, ritz

The Ritz, Grand Cayman

Ritz is one of those rare hotels where extraordinary service is not over cumbersome. The staff are genuinely friendly, polite and very helpful. Everyone goes out of their way to make your stay relaxing and pleasant, and they do it in a “not-in-your-face”way. The hotel has great indoor and outdoor amenities. The beach front is very well maintained, and it is serviced. The staff will setup your lounger, bring you towels, drinks, food, and anything else you might need. You will find similar service at the pool and if you are traveling with babies or young kids you will be offered complimentary life vests, waterproof diapers, extra shade, pack-and-plays, and floats. If you prefer active pastime, the water sports crew will offer you snorkels, fins, standup paddle boards, sail boats and more - again, everything is complimentary for the guests. The Food Foodies will not be disappointed with menu selection and quality at the Ritz. The restaurants serve some fantastic dishes and they cater very well for those with special dietary needs. I won't go into detail about each of the restaurants, it's a personal preference, but my wife and I absolutely loved Bar Jack for its comfort food, sunsets […]
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Mar 23
by admin in Travel 0 comments

Sao Paolo with L&J

Dan & I arrived tired into Sao Paulo after our long night bus from Florianopolis & took a taxi to Pousada Zilah where we were staying in Sao for our 1 nt. We were booked into a nice 4 bed room which had a great layout for the 4 of us. Since our room wasn’t ready when we arrived nice and early Dan & I splurged on the great breakfast at the Pousada cafe and positioned ourselves near the front window so that we could watch for Linds & Joe’s arrival. We had wifi there as well so we could see that their flight had arrived, but we had heard people a couple days earlier talking about how long the lines were at the International airport so we figured we might be waiting a while. After a couple of hours I was getting really anxious & looking at every taxi that came close to our Pousada – which was a lot since there was a taxi stand right past the Pousada. Dan even thought that it might be funny to trick me a couple of times and tell me he saw them when I wasn’t looking out the window – […]
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Mar 20
by admin in Travel 0 comments

The Many Foods of Brazil

Who knew Brazilians were so into healthy food! Acai is from Brazil – which I’m sure if I had looked I could have found out, but along with lots of other new healthy/superfoods around now I didn’t really bother to find out more. But Acai is from Brazil, and they’ve got it everywhere! You can even get a bowl of pureed Acai with some bananas & granola on top for breakfast OR a big bowl of cold Acai on the beach served like frozen yogurt! It’s not the tastiest fruit around, but it’s nice to have something healthy to eat! There are also lots of black beans here which I love – but just never really bothered to make myself at home - but I’m in luck here! It seems everyone is serving them along with rice! I’ve also read that there is a large Japanese population which is migrated to Sao Paulo & there seems to be sushi everywhere here. We haven’t had a chance to try any yet, but will definitely be having it for dinner in the next couple of days! They are also catching shrimps here everywhere – haven’t had those yet, but heard great things […]
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Mar 20
by admin in Travel 0 comments

Floripa

Florianopolis is a long peninsula that runs parallel to the coast of southern brazil. The city of Florianopolis lies on both sides of the connecting bridge, but the rest of the peninsula is jungle, beautiful beaches and fishing villages. The first night we stayed in town of Lagoa, located in the middle of the peninsula on an internal lagoon. Lagoa is a party town, so our plan was to stay there for one night and move to one of the beach places the next day. We arrived late and went to sleep shortly. The next day Jenn was not feeling well. After the breakfast she threw up once... then once more... She was feeling really bad and miserable. When she had nothing else to throw up I ran to the pharmacy and got her special pills that stop vomiting. After she took one she seemed to feel a bit better so we decided that it's time to move to our next hostel - a small place in a village called Barra de Lagoa. To get there we had to take a taxi, so we took our bags and headed out. After two minutes of walking, the taxi stop was five […]
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Mar 12
by admin in Travel 0 comments tags: punta del diablo, south america, travel, uruguay

Punta del Diablo – Farewells

Let's make something clear - if you are Canadian you need a visa to enter Brazil. And not a stamp that you pay for, like in Chile or Argentina, but a visa you need to apply for in advance. Somehow, this detail escaped my wife's beautiful head and we found ourselves wondering about the visa (Thank you Lindsay for the heads up!) on the afternoon of the day when we were supposed to travel from Uruguay to Brazil. Needless to say that I was not impressed, but I think considering my usual irritability at unplanned delays and mis-haps I took the news pretty well and told Jenn that I didn't intend to lose 125 dollars of bus tickets and a night's accommodation in Floripa, and that she can stay in Uruguay to sort out her visa while I travel as planned and we will meet one day later. Another option on the table was to sneak Jenn across the border without stopping at the passport control, but that option had many pitfalls and although the only Brazilian person in our hostel (a VERY gay guy called Ricardo) said "oh, you'll be fine!" - we weren't reassured and were worried what […]
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