View of the lower old town, from the upper old town. Tallinn is one of the most perfectly preserved medieval cities in the world – most of it still in day to day use as shops, offices and apartments, with a few buildings converted to museums. Come to think of it, one of the things I loved about my mother’s home town was its museums – almost all very small. Few took even an hour to go through, even at a very leisurely pace. And they were so inexpensive, I went to ones I normally would not have been interested in, like the mine museum – yes a museum dedicated to land mines…
Not sure these rooftops tell much of a story, but given their age and what they have been through and witnessed over the centuries, I am sure they have some tales to tell.
I visited Tallinn aver and over, during summer, winter or autumn, and each time I am there it surprises me with something new. I got never tired by its streets, old buildings, the red roofs, the marvelous vistas from the upper town, its people. Beautiful!
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I am looking forward to going back – hopefully in the next couple of years…
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Love the reds in this image! ♥
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Me too! Thanks.
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Oh wow, this really calls to the Medieval aesthetic within. Such incredible, lasting beauty. I love the way that you have framed this shot, especially with the birds on either side of the steeple. How did you get them to do that?
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When there are birds flying, I start clicking madly and hope for the best. And then I crop and sharpen a bit… I have about 30 shots of these roofs and this is the ONE… (I also did a bit of an Orton effect on it…)
If you love medieval history, Tallinn will knock your socks off. So will Riga, though the USSR bombed the hell out of it during WWII, so much is rebuilt/restored. Much of the countryside is also as it was nearly 1000 years ago – very cool place.
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Qu’est que c’est “Orton effect”?
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It’s a time honoured photographic effect, going back to the days of film… you shoot one very sharp image (on the tripod) and then another, deliberately slightly out of focus. You then layer the two – back in the old days of course, it was done in the darkroom, but now you can easily do it in photoshop. Picasa even has a decent Orton effect filter.
The effect is a mix of soft and sharp – you will notice that in some of my ‘glowing’ flowers – or it can intensify colour like in these roofs – they were this colour red, but rather than saturate them a touch I added a bit more of ‘itself’… No – I’m not going to write a photoshop manual… ha ha…
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Thanks for that. Nice to learn a new technique, not that I’ll ever get around to editing any of my pictures . . .
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