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Archive for the ‘HDR’ Category

Who can visit Rome and not visit the Colosseum? It is such an iconic monument! It represents everything the old Roman empire represented. The grandeur, the architecture, the awesomeness and of course the gladiators.

Linda and I decided to make our first visit at night and organized our day accordingly. We were not disappointed! This place is just awesome and BIG. We knew it was large of course, but seeing it for the first time, up front gave me a new respect for those Roman builders of the time. The Colosseum was built in 72AD so we’re talking almost 2000 years ago.

We walked all around and got various shots from different angles. I found this one to be the best even though it is a common point of view.

We went back the next day and took a tour inside which was equally awesome, but I’ll show a shot of than in a future post.

About this shot:

Taken with a tripod, three exposures, 2 stops apart. Blended into an HDR using Nik HDR Pro and finished with some toning and contrast settings in Lightroom.

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This was a weekend of reflection and I went through some photos taken during various trips. This was taken at dusk, from the second tier of the Eiffel Tower, taken last year in spring when Linda and I visited Holland and Paris. I like this picture as it is not a shot I would have taken had I been alone. I admit I do not do heights very well at all, but Linda convinced me to go up. While I was petrified, the views are magnificent in the end, I was pleased I went.

This is a view looking towards the North West. That cluster of tall buildings is the main business sector of Paris, called La Defense and is the largest purpose-built business district in Europe. Those gardens are the Jardins du Trocadero and that big structure that curves around the gardens is the Palais de Chaillot. It stands on a hill that used to be the site of a small village. The East and West wings of the structure now house several museums: The Naval Museum, The Museum of Man, the Museum of Architecture and the Museum of French Monuments, none of which we got to see.

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I received several nice comments about a previous post of Cathedral Rock so thought I’d post this shot which was taken from the same spot, using the same log in the foreground.

El Capitan is of course one of THE dominant features in Yosemite. It is a favorite piece of rock for experienced rock climbers. Rising more than 3,000 feet above the Valley floor, it is the largest monolith of granite in the world. During the summer, you can spot climbers making their way up, but you need to look hard and have a pair of binoculars, the rock face is SO large and the climbers are SO small, it is hard to see them with the naked eye.

About the making of this shot:

> Camera: Canon 5d mark 2 – ISO 100
> Lens: EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 17 mm
> 3 bracketed shots, +/- 2 stops
> Initial clean up in Lightroom, exported each exposure as 16 bit TIFF
> Merged to HDR and Tonemapped in Oloneo then exported as 16 Bit TIFF
> Opened in Photoshop CS5 for some additional work including Topaz Adjust and Topaz DeNoise
> Saved as PSD
> Imported back into Lightroom and exported to Zenfolio, Flickr and Facebook

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This beautiful little chapel is the oldest structure in Yosemite Valley and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a representative example of the way early chapels in the Sierra Nevada mountains were constructed.

The chapel is 130 years old and the first services were held there on June 7, 1879.

From a photographer’s point of view, it is a wonderful subject, all year round. This shot was taken in early winter, before any snow, but well after all the fall color. The large tree you see on the right, with the yellowish leaves, turns a bright yellow in fall and makes for some fantastic contrast against the red chapel. Unfortunately, I have not been able to synchronize my trips to Yosemite to coincide with that. Some day I will of course.

I always find it fascinating to learn a bit more about the history behind these old landmarks. It was interesting to learn therefore, that originally this chapel was surrounded by the original village, a cluster of buildings, including a canvas-roofed hotel and by 1900, offices, houses, shops, hotels, photography studios, saloons, and stables lined the wagon road leading to Sentinel Bridge.

Park managers gradually relocated the village to the other side of the river, where Yosemite Village is now. The chapel remained here and now stands all alone among the trees. There are still services held there every week.

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I can’t image there are many things that can be more beautiful than a landscape after freshly fallen snow.

This is a location near South Lake Tahoe. Getting to this location was by pure accident, as we had no idea this even existed. Let me explain.

First of all, it was by on a whim, and by pure chance, that we decided to turn off Interstate 50, a highway that runs along the Southern shores of Lake Tahoe. We had picked a small road that lead us into an area with some vacation homes nestled in a forested area covered in freshly fallen snow. After parking the car and wondering off among the trees, we heard, rather than saw, water rushing. Following the sound, we stumbled upon this scene of almost unimaginable beauty. Furthermore, someone had been there with a snow mobile and had created a track of compressed snow. This allowed us to actually walk up to the creek as the compressed snow prevented us from sinking into the fresh stuff which was at least 2 feet deep.

Needless to say we had a ball wondering around this area and capturing the beauty of it all from every angle possible.

If you have even been in a forest after a snow storm you know how quiet it can be. The snow acts as a thick blanket and absorbs sound, making the surroundings even more magical due to the silence. It’s just you and nature and humbles you in the majesty of it all.

It was one of these days when everything turned out right. We picked the right road to turn off, did the right thing by checking out the sound of rushing water and by luck, someone had created a trail for us to walk on. Yes, it was a good day.

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It’s been a long time since I posted here. All thanks to me moving house. Some advice, and trust me on this, if you ever move house, make sure you do not do that around the Christmas holidays! Anyway, I am now fully moved in and while there is still a lot to do, I have found some time to go process some pictures from various photo shoots.

This is the famous Cathedral Rock, taken from the valley floor. I walked into this meadow to get that fallen tree in the foreground. Hope you like it.

Last year (sounds strange to say that, the new year is barely a week old) Linda and I visited Yosemite several times. This picture was taken in October, when we went to see if we could catch some fall color. Turns out there was not a lot of it to be found at that time, but that didn’t bother us one bit. Yosemite is so beautiful, there is always something nice to shoot, regardless of time of year or weather. As you can see we had fabulous skies and two days of great shooting.

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Staying with the Dutch theme, today’s post is a canal in Amsterdam and some experimental treatment. Hope you like it.

I can’t remember which canal this was, but I’m guessing the Herengracht, or “Lord’s canal” in English. The Herengracht is one of the three inner-most canals in Amsterdam’s semi-circular ring of canals. This one, the Herengracht is the first of the three in the city center and was named after the “Heren Regeerders” who governed the city in the 16th century.

Amsterdam has been called “The Venice of the North” for it has more than 80 miles of canals, about 90 islands and no less than 1500 bridges! The whole area made up of the 3 canals and the district called the Jordaan has been put on the UNESCO World Heritage List. UNESCO of course stands for “United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization” and identifies places of special cultural or physical significance and importance to the common heritage of humanity. As of 2010, 911 sites are listed.

To give you an idea of the sites listed, Wikipedia mentions the Pyramids of Giza, Venice, the Acropolis of Athens, Chichen Itza in Yucatan, Mexico and the Statue of Liberty.

This picture turned out more like an etch than a photograph. This was created first as an HDR and then I used my Aged Photo preset to tone it and finished up by tweaking some sliders in Lightroom to get this result.

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In keeping with the theme of the previous post, here is another row of Dutch houses. These are actually new, but built in the traditional Dutch style – as you can see from the gabled roofs.. These houses can be found in Volendam, an old fishing town north of Amsterdam. It is a great place to visit to get a feel for what life must have been like when fishermen made a living from the Zuiderzee (southern sea), as it was known in the past.

The Zuiderzee was a shallow bay of the North Sea. I say “was” as it was closed off from the sea by a major causeway built between 1927 and 1933. This body of water is now called the Ijsselmeer (Ijssel lake) and is now fresh water as the water from the Ijssel river drains into it (it is pronounced eye-sel).

You can imagine that this must have had a huge impact on the local fishing industry. Many of these towns (like Volendam) still have some fishing activity, but not like it used to be. And the fishing that is done is done out in the North Sea and boats have to go though shipping locks in the causeway.

Volendam is now a heavy “tourist trap” of course, but still has a lot of charm. Locals walk around in old traditional dress and you can buy Dutch “treats” such as smoked eel and herring.

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This is a shot of a row of cute houses seen at the Zaansche Schans, a stereotypical part of Holland with windmills, canals, and these type of old houses.

Also found there is the first store of (my namesake) Albert Hein. Albert Hein is now a large chain of supermarkets found all over the Netherlands.

I just love these old Dutch houses. They just ooze character and atmosphere. Add in a bit of water, the odd boat, flower pots and you have something out of a picture postcard.

Linda an I visited here last May with my sister and her husband, who live in Gouda, another great place to visit for some fabulous shots of an old Dutch town.

I miss Holland (but not the weather) and plan to visit regularly.

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Linda and I went on a photo outing with the Placer Photo Club thanks to an invitation from Mike Schumacher, their president. We went looking for some fall color, but found that a lot of the trees were still green. We did find some Aspens that had turned yellow, but for most of the foliage, we were a bit too early.

However, we had a wonderful time. Met some fellow photographers and after breakfast toured up Hwy 80 towards Truckee and took Hwy 89 north to Henness Pass Rd.

Today’s shot is taken on the shores of Independence Lake. A wonderful secluded lake tucked away in the Sierra Nevada foothills and one that is only accessible via a windy and bumpy dirt road. Not the kind of road you want to be found on in wet weather – unless you have a 4×4 of course in which case it would be a lot of fun!

As you can see, the weather was just beautiful. Warm, blue skies with some clouds. This is an HDR of course, 3 shots taken 2 stops apart and blended in the all new Photomatix 4. This new version of Photomatix has finally addressed the issue of noise, which was mainly the reason I hardly ever used that application. It is now much, MUCH better.

I just love what the HDR process does to the look of those rocks.

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