I'm home! Which means I can upload some photos from the last trip. They are all over at the trip's Sosauce album but I thought I'd share the HDR photos in a separate post.
My first attempts were hand crafted using gimp, but thanks to helpful comments I downloaded various bits of software, and all the images below are made with EnfuseGUI.app.
To be honest, I'm really enjoying playing with this kind of photography, even if my efforts below are a bit bland. The software seems to render a lot of the surfaces into a single tone, which makes them seem very flat and plastic. And the saturation seems to suffer too. However, I'm not going to shell out on expensive software just yet...
A fountain in Haifa. I set the iso low to get a long exposure (for a blurred fountain), even with the camera pointed right into the sun.
Haifa at night. Lights shone directly into the camera, but just of shot, creating the hazy sides.
Haifa port. The bright lights, reflections and interesting shapes make for good HDR shots.
The pool deck of the Royal Princess.
The Dead Sea. The sky was a lot bluer in the normal exposed photo. Also, for those who don't know the Dead Sea is shrinking, I took this photo at the 1994 shoreline.
The Dead Sea again. Note the shadowy people.
The Dome from the Mount of Olives. Again, he sky should be deeper blue here.
A wider view. The blurred edges to the tree look interesting, but not in a good way.
The inside of the the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I'd have framed this shot better, but people were walking through all the time. This is the only HDR photo I've taken indoors and the effect is quite pleasing.
I like your photos Luke. Here are a few of the ones I've taken that I like, none of them are as nice as some of the amazing pictures posted already.
The crater at Mt. St. Helens last summer.
Offshore in the Gulf of Mexico
At work in Louisiana
This would be the picture that has gotten me published in a German men's magazine, a us DVD, a Swedish newspaper and a Manhattan Monthly. Ira Renert's house out in Long Island.
Awesome pictures, though odd thing I must point out - In the first picture, it looks like that guy is urinating a stream of molten iron. You can't unsee it.
Awesome pictures, though odd thing I must point out - In the first picture, it looks like that guy is urinating a stream of molten iron. You can't unsee it.
This is exactly what I thought. It gives "balls of steel" a whole new meaning.
Awesome pictures, though odd thing I must point out - In the first picture, it looks like that guy is urinating a stream of molten iron. You can't unsee it.
Dammit, I'm not alone. Hardcore bladder that dude has.
I have a show tonight. Two shows, in fact. They should be pretty good, as it is the first time I've performed on a large stage on a cruise ship since May. However, last night I drank too much and I'm a bit hung over.
Here's a photo of two lizards fighting. Yes, more lizard photos, but I found this subject endlessly entertaining in Aruba.
Also, I'm not sure yesterday's photo worked at all. It didn't show up in my google reader anyway. Here it is again:
Taking wildlife photos is usually a job for long zoom lenses. For a lot of these shots I've used a 70-300mm. But when wildlife isn't very wild, and actually rather tame, I can use my wide angle lens instead. This shot took a loooong time to get just right, but I'm very happy with the result:
Bonus non-lizard photo. Welcome, Mr. Hermit Crab. This was also a very tricky shot to get, as that crab does one thing when it emerges from its shell: RUN! Thankfully the shell is a handy handle. I simply picked the crab up and placed it back in a good location, over and over, until I finally got a shot properly framed and in focus. I had to do it without looking through the viewfinder or the LCD screen, because the camera was right on the sand to get the right angle. The focus isn't perfect, but again, I'm happy with the final image.
Soooo, the first half of my winter work trip is coming to a close. Last night my two shows went very well. I've started adding a "funny" hint about standing ovations in my show, and so far I've had at least partial standing ovations in every show since. This makes me feel good, because I like standing ovations, and the more I get the more work I'll get. It makes me feel bad at the same time though; humans are sooo easy to manipulate! I feel like Kelhus from The Prince of Nothing series.
After my show, instead of packing, I spent a few hours in the officers bar. As I mentioned on twitter, I fell into the roll of DJ and had a lot of fun. The first track I played had everyone cheering and singing and dancing, so I stuck with it. Thankfully people kept cheering at each new song I played, even when I got cheeky and dropped in tracks like All That She Wants by Ace of Base.
After flying in from Miami, and getting to my hotel, I stayed in most of the day because of rain. Come 3:30pm the rain was clearing, I thought I'd head out on a walk, see if I could meet up with some jugglers at Plaza Francia. There was nobody there, so I continued on taking some photos.
I arrived at the huge robotic flower, the one that follows the sun throughout the day. As I've been trying out HDR photography, I thought I'd try to get a good shot. Back when I first read up on HDR, I found many links to Trey Radcliffe's blog, called Stuck In Customs. The first image of his I remember seeing was of this very same landmark, but it was many months ago, so couldn't remember the details.
Here's one shot from today that I like, with the info plaque in the foreground:
Of course I wanted a better shot, so found a better location and angle and style. Click, click, click... and I was done. I went on to take some less obvious photo angles, which I'll share later.
When I got back to the hotel I worked on the HDR and other processing for the interesting photos from the day, and set them to upload. As I did this, I decided to search for "Buenos Aires" on Trey Radcliffe's blog, just to see what he'd done.
I was surprised how similar the two photos turned out...
My photo:
Trey's photo:
I guess there are two reasons they turned out so similar:
1. I subconsciously copied a photo I'd seen once months before. This might have happened because, as I said, this was an early example of HDR (for me). Maybe it stuck with me.
2. Or, more likely, this is just the best angle and location to take a photo of that huge flower. I've been there a few times before, and have walked around it many times, so know the angles already. And today men were setting up tents and Christmas decorations, so my options were limited. I took for this shot, and Trey took his shot, because the foreground is the most interesting, the camera is at the best height, the background has the least building (though we both edited out the same pylon), the angle of the flower is the most interesting... pity I was there just after a rainstorm, and Trey was there in the sun.
And now, a trip down memory lane...
Last year I was in Buenos Aires, I visited the Planetarium. I remembered a photo of some fellow interneteers I'd seen on a forum on the internet, and decided to recreate the photo featuring myself instead, but purely from memory.
Them:
Me:
I got the angle wrong, but the direction and location was pretty much spot on. The similarities between this second set of photos were intentional, but off, while the first set of photos were accidentally similar, and far closer to each other.
Luke: I really like your photos they're all very good.
Some photos I've taken and I like, mostly Yellowstone taken with a reasonable DSLR. The only veiw of the Grand Tetons I've had. Pripyat by way of a point and shoot:
I only took five photos in Montevideo. Two of Bob and Nora, one of the cruise ship, one of some tango dancers, and the photo above. It's a HDR photo, but the tone mapping is, I hope, not overly unrealistic.
Today the ship stopped in Puerto Madryn, Argentina. The only reason it calls at this port is because the area is swarming with sea lions, penguins, whales, dolphins and walruses. I wanted to go on a day-long trip to see some of these animals, but I had to stay on board for a crew boat drill. Once it had finished I didn't have a lot of time, and the only place close enough to see a large collection of wildlife is a place I've visited before. Oh well, I'll be back in a few weeks time, and I plan to get off the ship as early as possible.
In the end I took a long walk along the beach, camera in hand all the way. Here are some photos from today...
A sea lion:
Looking back at the Norwegian Sun, my home for four weeks:
Others walking on the beach:
I took photos of non-ladies on the beach too, but meanwhile:
A bike and a ship:
Working with nets:
This dog followed me for many miles of my walk. Later the dog patrol tried to catch him:
A sea lion on the pier:
As I framed the sea lion for a closeup, it shed a single, tiny, milky tear. So cute!
I got a Canon G10 for my birthday which inevitably leads to.. cat pictures! Edit: Now available in Super-Big-O-Vision! Heading into town with Churba later today so expect more to come.
I hadn't realised there were backwater parts of the US where civilization hasn't progressed to the point of egg on pizza. Truly outrageous. Coincidentally, the bowl in the top left, had prawns in it, and I ate them with my pizza. I know, shocking.
Comments
My first attempts were hand crafted using gimp, but thanks to helpful comments I downloaded various bits of software, and all the images below are made with EnfuseGUI.app.
To be honest, I'm really enjoying playing with this kind of photography, even if my efforts below are a bit bland. The software seems to render a lot of the surfaces into a single tone, which makes them seem very flat and plastic. And the saturation seems to suffer too. However, I'm not going to shell out on expensive software just yet...
Enfuse version of my previous effort:
A fountain in Haifa. I set the iso low to get a long exposure (for a blurred fountain), even with the camera pointed right into the sun.
Haifa at night. Lights shone directly into the camera, but just of shot, creating the hazy sides.
Haifa port. The bright lights, reflections and interesting shapes make for good HDR shots.
The pool deck of the Royal Princess.
The Dead Sea. The sky was a lot bluer in the normal exposed photo. Also, for those who don't know the Dead Sea is shrinking, I took this photo at the 1994 shoreline.
The Dead Sea again. Note the shadowy people.
The Dome from the Mount of Olives. Again, he sky should be deeper blue here.
A wider view. The blurred edges to the tree look interesting, but not in a good way.
The inside of the the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I'd have framed this shot better, but people were walking through all the time. This is the only HDR photo I've taken indoors and the effect is quite pleasing.
I'll post some more general travel photos later.
The crater at Mt. St. Helens last summer.
Offshore in the Gulf of Mexico
At work in Louisiana
This would be the picture that has gotten me published in a German men's magazine, a us DVD, a Swedish newspaper and a Manhattan Monthly. Ira Renert's house out in Long Island.
Here's a photo of two lizards fighting. Yes, more lizard photos, but I found this subject endlessly entertaining in Aruba.
Also, I'm not sure yesterday's photo worked at all. It didn't show up in my google reader anyway. Here it is again:
Taking wildlife photos is usually a job for long zoom lenses. For a lot of these shots I've used a 70-300mm. But when wildlife isn't very wild, and actually rather tame, I can use my wide angle lens instead. This shot took a loooong time to get just right, but I'm very happy with the result:
Bonus non-lizard photo. Welcome, Mr. Hermit Crab. This was also a very tricky shot to get, as that crab does one thing when it emerges from its shell: RUN! Thankfully the shell is a handy handle. I simply picked the crab up and placed it back in a good location, over and over, until I finally got a shot properly framed and in focus. I had to do it without looking through the viewfinder or the LCD screen, because the camera was right on the sand to get the right angle. The focus isn't perfect, but again, I'm happy with the final image.
Soooo, the first half of my winter work trip is coming to a close. Last night my two shows went very well. I've started adding a "funny" hint about standing ovations in my show, and so far I've had at least partial standing ovations in every show since. This makes me feel good, because I like standing ovations, and the more I get the more work I'll get. It makes me feel bad at the same time though; humans are sooo easy to manipulate! I feel like Kelhus from The Prince of Nothing series.
After my show, instead of packing, I spent a few hours in the officers bar. As I mentioned on twitter, I fell into the roll of DJ and had a lot of fun. The first track I played had everyone cheering and singing and dancing, so I stuck with it. Thankfully people kept cheering at each new song I played, even when I got cheeky and dropped in tracks like All That She Wants by Ace of Base.
I arrived at the huge robotic flower, the one that follows the sun throughout the day. As I've been trying out HDR photography, I thought I'd try to get a good shot. Back when I first read up on HDR, I found many links to Trey Radcliffe's blog, called Stuck In Customs. The first image of his I remember seeing was of this very same landmark, but it was many months ago, so couldn't remember the details.
Here's one shot from today that I like, with the info plaque in the foreground:
Of course I wanted a better shot, so found a better location and angle and style. Click, click, click... and I was done. I went on to take some less obvious photo angles, which I'll share later.
When I got back to the hotel I worked on the HDR and other processing for the interesting photos from the day, and set them to upload. As I did this, I decided to search for "Buenos Aires" on Trey Radcliffe's blog, just to see what he'd done.
I was surprised how similar the two photos turned out...
My photo:
Trey's photo:
I guess there are two reasons they turned out so similar:
1. I subconsciously copied a photo I'd seen once months before. This might have happened because, as I said, this was an early example of HDR (for me). Maybe it stuck with me.
2. Or, more likely, this is just the best angle and location to take a photo of that huge flower. I've been there a few times before, and have walked around it many times, so know the angles already. And today men were setting up tents and Christmas decorations, so my options were limited. I took for this shot, and Trey took his shot, because the foreground is the most interesting, the camera is at the best height, the background has the least building (though we both edited out the same pylon), the angle of the flower is the most interesting... pity I was there just after a rainstorm, and Trey was there in the sun.
And now, a trip down memory lane...
Last year I was in Buenos Aires, I visited the Planetarium. I remembered a photo of some fellow interneteers I'd seen on a forum on the internet, and decided to recreate the photo featuring myself instead, but purely from memory.
Them:
Me:
I got the angle wrong, but the direction and location was pretty much spot on. The similarities between this second set of photos were intentional, but off, while the first set of photos were accidentally similar, and far closer to each other.
Some photos I've taken and I like, mostly Yellowstone taken with a reasonable DSLR.
The only veiw of the Grand Tetons I've had.
Pripyat by way of a point and shoot:
I only took five photos in Montevideo. Two of Bob and Nora, one of the cruise ship, one of some tango dancers, and the photo above. It's a HDR photo, but the tone mapping is, I hope, not overly unrealistic.
In the end I took a long walk along the beach, camera in hand all the way. Here are some photos from today...
A sea lion:
Looking back at the Norwegian Sun, my home for four weeks:
Others walking on the beach:
I took photos of non-ladies on the beach too, but meanwhile:
A bike and a ship:
Working with nets:
This dog followed me for many miles of my walk. Later the dog patrol tried to catch him:
A sea lion on the pier:
As I framed the sea lion for a closeup, it shed a single, tiny, milky tear. So cute!
I'll post more photos tomorrow...
Edit: Now available in Super-Big-O-Vision!
Heading into town with Churba later today so expect more to come.
Next you will put prawns and corn on it. Oh, wait, you Brits already do.
Foolishness.
Coincidentally, the bowl in the top left, had prawns in it, and I ate them with my pizza. I know, shocking.
Football through the trees. I'm amazed how well that came out.
Tractor in Temple Newsham Park