Vancouver's iconic Burrard Street Bridge caught in the low light of a mid-winter sunrise. Made all the more fantastic thanks to High Dynamic Range post processing and my ever-fun Diana lens.
The fun you can have as a photographer, thanks to digital photography, never ceases to amaze me. Recently, while playing around with a series of photos of London England, I found a rather cool High Dynamic Range (HDR) treatment that punches up any warm tones and shuffles off everything else into the realm of black and white.
Here's a mid winter sunset over Kitsilano Vancouver looking quite vintage.
The mid section of Shanon Falls in British Columbia Canada. Located roughly an hour or so north of Vancouver Shanon Falls is perfect for slow exposure shots of roaring water. This photo was taken using a 40 year old twin reflex Yashicamat 120mm mid-format camera using Fuji Velivia film. The positive was then scanned at 1200 dpi (25 Megapixels) and post-processed in Nikon's Capture NX/2.
Doug and Diane in Werl West Germany - June 1963. What I find totally cute about this photo, apart from my always in-style tartan Lederhosen, is my beseeching pose and my sister's grin. Hey! So do I get an apple too or what?
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. Albert Camus
And a whole bunch of seagulls. :)
Vancouver during winter has two states - It's raining, warm and calm or it's sunny, cold and blustery. Both pretty much rock once you embrace both states 'o being.
Here's Jericho Beach during a sunny, cold and blustery day. I really like this shot in that it (a) I got a freebee circular flair thanks to the spray reflecting off the setting sun (b) it nicely shows the shallow to deep water divide that separates English Bay and the Straight of Georgia and (c) the color of the leaf free deciduous trees contrasted against the pines (left side of the shot) is pretty much winter for us.
Nothing but soft pastelles in this dreamy midwinter sunset looking out over Kitsilano - Vancouver's south end urban-burb.
The start of every new year is more often than not the height of winter for Vancouver. After months of wind storms the trees are nearly free of last seasons leaves, the shadows, even at 'high' noon are long and wispy, the nights are cool (sub-zero) and the days are short with the sun rising near 8 am and setting around 4 pm. As such, a vew like this from English Bay of the famous Sylvia Hotel shot through the winter bare trees along Beach Avenue is of a magic and fleeting moment.
I'm onto my third major revision of Photomatix which is the software I've used since nearly day one to generate HDR images. This version I'd consider the most evolutionary yet and adds much needed noise reduction as well as the ability to fix 'HDR ghosts'. Ghosts in the HDR world occur when part of scene moves while you are taking a sequence of shots that will be merged, via programs such as Photomatix, into a single HDR composite image.
Ever one to push things into the insane I took a sequence of slow natural light exposures with my spiffy new Diana lens of my cat Sirrus and then used the anti-ghosting tool in Photomatix 4 to pick just Sirrus in just one of the 9 shots in the sequence to be included in the final composite. It worked out rather well expect for the missing top of her head. Sorry about that sweetheart. :)
Here in Vancouver the first sunset of 2011 proved to be one that was a few levels past totally awesome. Two or three times each year the conditions are just perfect enough to make the sky literally explode with fire. Jan 01 2011 was such a sunset. The killer band of purple right in the middle was an unexpected and here-to-for not seen bonus.
God does indeed paint with light. :)
As a photographer you eventually realize that 50% of the picture is being in the right place at the right time. Timing counts for much. The other 50% of the picture comes from your skill at composition and your ability to let your camera fully express 'itself'.
This is one of my favorite shots from the first decade of the 21st century. On the far left is me, holding my first digital camera, the 1 mega pixel Nikon Coolpic 950, bundled inside Snowbird 1 5,000 ft above the Fraser Valley in British Columbia Canada. In the middle of the shot is Snowbird 3, 15 feet away, upside down. Ahhh to live that moment again.
A black and white rendition of what was a pretty colorful deep winter sunset in Vancouver - December 29 2010. This was a high dynamic range (HDR) composite of 3 images shot in color with a Diana fuzz-o-rific lens attached to a Nikon D300 digital SLR. Post processing of the HDR set was accomplished via the latest version of Photomatix Pro (4.0.2) using the B&W setting.
Post post processing via Capture NX/2.
I've decided that my first resolution for 2011 is to let my inner impressionistic painter take control of my photographic moments.
2009 and 2010 were all about exact focus and hyper focal calculations (yes there is an iPhone app for that). What became an often futile quest for perfect focus. It was as though each image I took had to measure up to a National Geographic cover shot. While I loved the results (mmmmm crisp) it's time to tack a new course in this infinite digital photographic sea. I resolve to let 2011 become a year of soft tones, much fuzziness and a total disrespect of laser sharp focus. My Infra Red camera is going to love me. :)
As part of this quest I've picked up a Diana lens from Photojojo and really like the first set of HDR shots we've produced.
Mmmmm .... fuzzy. :)
The venerable and historic Burrard Street Bridge that connects Vancouver's Kitsilano region to its downtown core. Looking all warm and magical on a cool winter's night.
After days of rain in Vancouver the perfect cure is a warm golden sunrise reflected off the snow dappled North Shore mountains.
Who says Vancouver never gets sunshine during the winter? We do - in bite sized chunks 20 km away. :)
Snow arrived early in Vancouver near the end of November 2010 and while it didn't stay long it created it's usual level of chaos and, as always added a soft and gentle charm to the city core.
Looking appropriately like something straight out of a remake of the TV series Stargate or Battlestar Galactica (both filmed in Vancouver) here's the H. R. MacMillan Space Centre preparing for lift off from the late fall snow. "We're go for launch ... 10 ... 9 ... 8 .... main engine start ... 5 ..."
Vancouver, and most of the British Columbia lower mainland and island for that matter, is nicely laid back when it comes to fireworks. In particular during 'key moments' such as Halloween, New Years eve, Christmas eve, John Lennon's birthday, International Soap-On-A-Rope Day, etc. A popular spot for launching those $39.99 bad boys, perfectly devoid of "other stuff that can accidentally burn", is Sunset Beach in Vancouver's West End. Here's a shot of a couple close enough to feel the heat of their personal pyrotechnics last Halloween. Rock on.
As fall slowly trickles towards Vancouver's two weeks of winter here's a nice flair shot of Beach Ave and Cardero St just before Remembrance Day.
The English Bay Inuckshuk looking all ambasadorial in the later afternoon November sun. "Greetinks peables of da urt. We come in pieces."
Posts
All Comments
