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Archive for the ‘HDR’ Category

On our trip through Scotland, we stayed a night at the Achray House Hotel along the North Eastern shore of Loch Earn in Scotland. What a treat! Achray House is a boutique hotel offering a rejuvenating stay to people who want to get away from it all. It’s not a big hotel which is a good thing as the level of service goes up and the owners, Jane and Alan Gibson, have time to meet with you personally. They offer comfortable and spacious rooms (I had the room with that window you can see way on the left of this shot), many of the room have views of the Loch. Too bad we could only stay for one night as the area offers many beautiful sights. I understand that no less than 35 golf courses can be found in the vicinity!

Their dining experience is also top class and we enjoyed some of the local offerings for dinner (I had lamb and my son had venison). After dinner, the owner, Alan and I had a taste of some 6 different single malt Scottish Whiskys as a night cap. What else does one do when in Scotland?!

By the way, to make sure I did not insult the Scottish, I made sure I could spell the word “Whisky” correctly. In looking this up, I found out that the Irish spell it Whiskey while the Scottish spell it Whisky. However, it seems that the jury is still out on how the plural is spelt. Whiskies, Whiskys and Whiskeys are all acceptable it seems. Anyway, I digress . . .

Achray House also offer a fine traditional cooked Scottish breakfast, which is included by the way, personally prepared by Alan. Again, it was delicious and made sure we were well nourished for the day ahead.

Early Morning on Loch Earn

The views of the Loch are simply breathtaking and I got up early the next morning to get some shots of the low hanging clouds clearing the surrounding hills. This view is from the jetty right in front of the hotel. I’ve been to Scotland many times and it is views like this that always stay with me.

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This is Taymouth Castle in Scotland. It stands at the eastern end of Loch Tay, just outside the village of Kenmore.

This castle has some significance to me as I can trace my lineage back to the Campbells of Breadalbane, the Scottish clan that built this castle in the early 19th century. It seated the Campbell Earls and Marquises of Breadalbane for a while.

This heritage may sound strange coming from a guy with such a Dutch name, but my mother is Scottish so I can lay claim to being 50% Scottish. My mother’s grandmother was the illegal daughter of the daughter of the guy who owned this place . . . or something like that, it’s all very mysterious and the details have been lost over time – along with any formal claims to this place of course

If you look closely in this picture, you can see the castle is surrounded by a wire fence. When I was there (August 2010) it was empty and all restoration work on the place had stopped. Apparently, there was a plan to turn this castle into the first 6 or 7-star hotel in the UK, but work stopped in 2006 and the company restoring the place was declared insolvent in 2009. The future fate of this place is still unknown at time of writing.

When looking at this place, which is huge by the way when you are up close, it is hard to imagine what it must be like to own and run it. Mindboggling in fact and I can not even begin to guess at the cost. Anyway, it is good to get lost in dreams about being the “Lord of the Castle” and money “not being an object” – ha!

One good thing though, the grounds have been turned into a golf course which is open to the public. So, while I might not be able to ever live here, I’d like to go back one day and have game of golf . . . .

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Spent a day nosing around the Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park, in the Sierra Nevada foothills in California. You might be interested to know that this is the site of the USA’s very first environmental law, it was issued by the federal government.

Malakoff Diggins was home to the country’s largest hydraulic gold mining operation. Using high pressure jets, huge sections of the country side were literally washed away, in an effort to get at the gold. The subsequent release of the mud, gravel and debris clogged streams and major rivers all the way from these foothills to the San Francisco Bay! Sacramento farmers complained and filed a law suit and in 1884 a law was passed declaring hydraulic mining to be illegal. Today, there is a mighty big “hole” in the cliffs, which has, thankfully, been reclaimed by Mother Nature.

Malakoff Diggins can lay claim to another first. In 1880, electric lights were installed in the mine and the world’s first long distance telephone line was developed to service the mine.

What you see in today’s picture is one of the few buildings left of the old town. It is the main office of the Historic Park.

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I am enjoying the results of converting an HDR image to black and white.

The strong colors and tonal range of an HDR image seem to be a perfect base for B/W conversions. As I have several B/W Lightroom presets on my site for free downloads, it is worthwhile having a play with several of them.

The results you see here stem from the Red Filter Preset. The HDR was processed in my normal fashion, in this case using Photomatix, then blended in Photoshop with the original to tone down noise and get a more realistic look. The coulds in the sky get accentuated in this process which is one of the effects of HDR I really like.

After trying several of my B/W presets, I decided I liked this one best. It presents good blacks and contrast and the sky looks awesome (IMHO).

About this picture

You are looking down onto the Sydney Aquarium, that building in the center with the curved roof (the sign that says “aquarium” sort of gives it away too). It is located on the edge of Sydney’s famous Darling Harbour, a fantastic, cosmopolitan part of the city. Great restaurants, cafes, a park and the location of many activities during the year.

The aquarium too is awesome and is one of the best in the world. They have two underwater walkways through enormous tanks. One is full of giant rays and grey nurse sharks. The other is where you can see seals. They also have a Great Barrier Reef display complete with coral and beautifully colored fish. If you are every in Sydney, make sure you visit this fantastic aquarium.

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Many people think this is the London Bridge, but it’s not. This is the Tower Bridge and is close to the Tower of London from where it gets its name.

The real London Bridge is the next bridge upstream and is quite ordinary as far as bridges go. It also never fell down despite the nursery rhyme.  There is a popular urban legend that, in 1968, Robert McCulloch, the purchaser of the old London Bridge that was later shipped to Lake Havasu City in Arizona, believed that he was in fact buying the Tower Bridge, the one in this picture. This legend was denied by McCulloch.

The story is however fascinating. McCulloch had previously purchased a large section of land along Lake Havasu and opened a chainsaw manufacturing plant there. This was in 1964. Within two years there were three plants with over 400 employees. This was the start of of what is now Lake Havasu City. McCulloch went in search of some unique attraction for his new city and ended up in London. The 1831 London Bridge was gradually sinking into the river Thames and the City of London decided that a new bridge would need to be built. Rather than demolish the existing bridge, they decided to put the historic landmark on the auction block.

The rest is history. McCulloch bid and won the auction. It took three years to complete the project. The bridge was dismantled block-by-block with each block sectioned and numbered. The blocks were shipped through the Panama Canal to Long Beach, California and then trucked 300 miles inland. It was opened in 1971. The opening was attended by the Lord Mayor of London.

Cool story huh? 

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Yoho National Park in British Colombia, Canada lies just West of the more famous Banff National Park. Emerald Lake is the largest of the lakes found in that area and, as you can see, is breathtakingly beautiful.

A friend and I had some time to spend there whilst on our way to Edmonton. We saw some awesome scenery.

In the summer months you can rent canoes here, but in the winter the lake is frozen solid and becomes a popular cross country ski destination.

This area is high on my list of places to return to. Not only to spend more time (we only had one day here), but I’d love to see it in other seasons as well. We chatted to the folk in the boathouse who told us that in fall, when the sun sets lower, many evenings put on a spectacular alpenglow display that sees the tips of the mountains light up in the most fantastic colors. Having seen this scenery, I can imagine what that must look like and makes me want to go back.

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Something quite different today. Treatment-wise that is. This is my free “Aged Photo” preset applied to an HDR. Sort of double up, but I kinda liked the end result. It reminded me of some of the old paintings done by the Dutch Masters. I’m not claiming any of their brilliance here, just pointing out that the “mood” reminds me of their work.

The shot itself was taken in Gouda during a photowalk with Martin, my brother in law.

The city dates back to around 1000 when people first started to harvest peat from the area. Today, Gouda is a lovely picturesque city famous for its cheese and a cookie called the Stroopwafel.

While the city lies inland, it is well connected to the vast Dutch network of waterways and it is no wonder that a harbor was created here as early as the 13th century. That church you see is the Gouwekerk which is relatively new. It adds a nice touch to the scene though.

About the preset. It is the Aged Photo Preset from my free collection. It creates a old feel by desaturating the colors and providing a sepia-like tone. Hope you like it.

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At the end of the Salton View Road in Joshua Tree National Park is a lookout called Keys View. No it has nothing to do with the Florida Keys, they are clear across the country no where near here. In fact there is barely any water here as Joshua Tree National Park is desert. There are two types of desert actually: Mohave Desert in the northern, higher elevation part of the park and Colorado Desert, in the southern, lower elevation parts.

The only body of water in the neighborhood is the Salton Sea, which you can see in this pictures just beyond those mountains. Like Mono Lake, it has a high salinity level. The Salton Sea lies directly on the San Andreas Fault and, like Death Valley, lies below sea level.

Joshua Tree National Park is quite beautiful although hot. My son and I visited here to go do some hikes and take photos and went in May thinking we’d beat the real heat. Well no such luck, it turned out to be the hottest May in years and we got temperatures around 100F (37.8C). It is a dry heat which I find infinitely more bearable than humid heat, but one sure ends up drinking a lot of water!

This shot is my usual HDR shot with 3 bracketed shots and processed in Dynamic Photo HDR followed by some tweaking in Lightroom.

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Sand Harbor is a piece of Lake Tahoe’s North Eastern coastline. There is a sandy beach there, but it is of particular interest to photographers because of the boulders that lie around in the water. They can make for some fantastic photographic subjects.

This shot was taken just about at sunset, which had the sun disappearing over the mountains on my right. It caused these rocks to be bathed in beautiful soft light. I was quite happy with this as I had to scramble down to this area from the road. Not particularly smart when carrying tripods and some expensive gear.

Anyway, I made it without a mishap and got this picture for my efforts.

As usual, it is an HDR comprised of my usual 3 shots. I used Photomatix (with some “gentle” setting to minimize noise), then opened in Photoshop and blended it with a layer that has some Topaz Adjust treatment to it. This all let me get great detail, nice color and minimum noise. The little noise that was there, I got rid of with the new noise reduction tool in Lightroom V3, which I find very good.

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Linda and I managed a quick visit to the Lee Vining area and got to visit Bodie and Mono Lake.

My previous trips to Mono Lake always seemed to coincide with rather uninteresting weather and I never really got the shots I had imagined could be had in this wonderful location. This time however, the weather was much kinder. As you can see from the shot below, there was no wind and there were clouds. I’ll post another shot tomorrow where the clouds are more pronounced, but today’s shot is one of calmness.

The time was about 10 minutes before sunrise (which occurred at 5:37am that day). I have this cool little iPhone app that tells me when dawn starts and when sunrise (and sunset) occurs. So I knew exactly when the sun would appear and I was ready.

This is actually an HDR, comprised of 3 shots. Processed with Dynamic Photo HDR, which produces much more “natural” photos than, say, Photomatix. It also produces a heck of a lot less noise, one of the real problems with Photomatix I find.

While I would have liked to have seen a little more of the clouds, I am happy with this shot. Everything came together for me. The composition, the reflections, the colors and, perhaps most importantly, the overall “mood” of the scene.

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