I spent a lot of time last summer taking photos of sunsets off of the dock at my friends’ new house in Spanish Point. One day I decided to do something a bit different, so I went to take photos off the rocks on the other side of Spanish Point. The result, of photographing a tide pool there, has a weird abstract feel.
I wish I could say that I’ve missed the past couple of day’s posts because I didn’t have any internet. Instead, we’ve just been operating on a pretty exhausting schedule. We’re about to finish our circumnavigation of the country. Yesterday, I realized that I could film a pretty cool time-lapse while driving using my wide angle lens, my back-up camera, intervalometer and a Nikon lens cap someone left in our jeep before we picked it up. I realized this yesterday, on our second last day. I could have had a video of the entire journey, but I only realized it yesterday. It’s alright though, it just means I’ll have to come back, I’m thinking for the whole month of June next year. We’ve been talking about how to spend a month here as it’s painfully expensive – we’re dropping about $100 on gas alone every day. The country’s full of free campsites, so I think on my return I’ll be sleeping in a tent. It’s good though, as there’s no need to meet check-in times and you can decide to stop whenever you get too tired to go on. Today we head to Reykjavik, after backtracking a bit to the glacier bay. It was cloudy and rainy yesterday and last night, so decided to leave photographing the crystal blue chunks of ice until the sun was out this morning. Tonight, we’ll be snorkeling the rift under the midnight sun and then possibly touring the Golden Circle, which will get us truly back on the tourist trail.
Back to Bermuda in a couple of days when I’ll actually get to process some Iceland photos! Here’s a shot from Bermuda taken a few weeks ago up at Ferry Reach.
My plan to get all of my posts ready before taking off for Iceland didn’t pan out. So, I’m sat writing this from the Western Fjords. My first day in Iceland has been quite eventful. If you’ve seen my Facebook page you know what my logo looks like. The bird is an arctic tern. About an hour into our drive today I hopped out of the car to photograph a waterfall. I heard a screech, looked up, and realised I was under attack from my logo. They’re not big birds, but they’re bloody terrifying.
This is shot from Lighthouse hill, just below Gibb’s Hill Lighthouse. I decided to try to capture the whole of the view that caused the Queen to pause and take it in. To do that I had to shoot 4 different frames, each with three exposures, and stitch them together.
I’m off now to spend the night driving through the Western Fjords. The light is already looking amazing on the mountains.
I’ll be finishing off packing for Iceland in a minute. I fly out tomorrow morning and am really, really excited! I finally bit the bullet and bought a carry on bag I’ve had my eye on for a while (I know, that sounds pretty sad). But, I hate checking bags and have perfected traveling light, even with my camera gear. I find I never really need much while out on the road. I went to Africa for three weeks with just my Lowepro Flipside and a messenger bag (a.k.a a man-purse). I liked that setup, I could sling the messenger bag over my shoulder below my backpack and walk around with my hands completely free. Admittedly, it was a little difficult packing everything into these two bags while rushing in the morning with a banging hangover. I’ve taken this configuration a step forward in buying the Air Boss by Red Oxx which was designed with input from the creator of an awesome site on traveling light: OneBag.com. It’s basically a carry on luggage sized messenger bag with really cool compartments… perfect. I think I could travel indefinitely with this configuration, and my tripod fits inside!
I drive by this spot all the time and think I should stop there sometime to take a photo. One day, a couple of weeks ago, I actually did. It’s funny, I’ve never seen anybody there when I’ve driven past before. Of course when I decide to stop there’s a couple of German tourists there taking photos of their own.
I framed up a few shots looking up this road trying to capture the feeling of this big tree looming over you. Then, I realized that in order to do this I’d have to drop the camera down much lower. I was also having a lot of trouble with lens flare as the sun was beaming through the leaves in the left of the frame. I had to carefully position the camera so that the sun was hidden behind one of the branches.
I’m glad the plans to turn this place into a hotel didn’t go through. I think I’ll be making a return to this area again sometime soon, so I can explore the property beyond the entrance-way.
I like this site so much I’m mentioning it twice in one post. It’s not much to look at, but take some time to read about and you’ll suddenly realize that you’re taking far too much stuff with you when you travel. I’m now a convert to the belief that wheeled luggage is a seriously flawed concept and basically evil: www.OneBag.com
I took a lot of pictures on that morning down at Horseshoe Bay. I won’t be publishing all of them but think this is pretty cool. It’s taken with my 14mm prime lens. One of the things I really like about this lens is the fact that it allows you to look off into the distance and almost straight down at the same time. It’s particularly effective when stood at the top of a cliff such as this one.
Next Saturday I’ll be visiting the most Westerly point in Europe, in Iceland. There’s a huge cliff there that’s home to multiple species of birds, including puffins. You can bet I’ll be using this lens to give a view straight down the cliff. With any luck I’ll get close enough to a puffin to include it in the foreground. I’ve heard they let you get really close, especially if you crawl up on your belly.
If you’re into photography that breaks from the norm, you should check this out. This photographer takes multiple shots through the days and combines them into amazing night and day photographs. I feel a need to figure out how to do this: http://9wows.com/day-and-night-in-new-york-city-captured-in-single-images-8-pictures/
This was a tricky shot to get as the light was low and there was an occasional breeze. I had to drop the aperture down lower than I’d have liked to keep the shutter speed fast enough to catch the flowers without the wind blowing. Even so, I had to make about 10 attempts to bracket 3 photos with a minimal amount of breeze. If I’d had a flash, it probably would have come in handy in this instance. I think I’ll go back another time with more light to try for full sharpness from front to back. But I think the blurred background in this version is kind of interesting.
FriFotos on Twitter’s theme this week is “Fit for a Queen”, in honor of the Queen’s diamond jubilee. As a result, I decided to go out and find something I could contribute. It’s certainly undeniable that this view is fit for a Queen. The plaque in the foreground reads the following: “On this spot her majesty Queen Elizabeth II paused for a while to admire the view, Wednesday the 24th of November, 1953.”
It’s located just below Gibbs Hill Lighthouse, the subject of one of my earlier posts: Guiding Light
It’s wake-boarding season again, with the water warming up and wave free days popping up. I decided to bring out my new Canon 7d to give it a test. After all, it was supposed to compliment my 5d mk II by excelling at action shots. I was not disappointed. The 7d’s burst mode sounds like a machine going off in comparison to the 5d mk II. On top of that it’s more complex focusing system, with far more focusing points, make holding focus on a moving target a breeze. To illustrate the action capabilities of the 7d, I decided to upload the best photo of the day, next to a couple falls that were captured brilliantly.
I used one exposure shot in RAW to create this HDR image. As there was so much white in the scene, between the boats’ wakes and the clouds in the background I had to bump up the exposure by one stop to expose Soniko correctly. In post processing I adjusted the RAW photo to provide exposures at -1, +1, and +3. These were then combined in Photomatix and tweaked in Photoshop.
I know I told you that my first time-lapse would be of an ice cube melting and that you’re all really excited to see that. Unfortunately, I’ve got to disappoint you. Yesterday, I shot a time-lapse of my friends as we cruised through Hamilton Harbor, Bermuda. The intervalometer was set to take a photo every 10 seconds. The end result is a 30 second video. I feel like it needs a sound-track, but can’t think of anything.
As a happy side effect of buying a second camera body, I took out one of my backup memory cards. Happily, I discovered some photos from New York I thought I’d managed to lose. Early in the morning, just before last Christmas I decided to set out and take some photos without anyone else around. The streets were empty as I’d expected. It was also really cold. Colder than I’d expected.
Bergdorf Goodman always has pretty extravagant window displays, so I decided to try to incorporate them in a few photos. I had seen a picture someone took on a train, where half the photo showed what was outside the window, the other half showed what was inside. This made me decide to try taking a similar approach with this shot.
I’ve been trying to decide on a photo to use as an example in my long awaited HDR tutorial. I’ve actually decided on a few, taken all the screenshots I need while processing it, and then lost the files. The first time, I somehow just forgot to save it. The second time, my computer froze on me just as I was preparing to save the images.
Finally, I got all the images I needed. Today’s photo will be the sample. So, if you’re interested in how I produced this photo, and the general method I use to produce all of my images, I suggest you follow this blog by entering your e-mail to the right, or follow me on twitter or just make sure you check back daily… AND, while you’re at it, tell your friends to check out the site! Tell all of your friends! You can do this by sharing posts you like on Facebook, Twitter etc. and sharing’s made easy via the buttons below the image!
Going down to Horseshoe morning after morning I grew more and more shocked by the level of activity going on. It seems a lot of Bermudians engage in a morning ritual revolving around Horseshoe Bay. There are people walking the length of the beach, people running and even, gasp, people swimming before May 24th. The swimmers turn up randomly and converge at the point where everyone leaves their dry clothes and towels. They all seem to know each other. Then, they swim out and float around together, chatting away. You can hear them from the top of the rock, where today’s photo is taken from! I decided I wanted to capture some of this action within one of my landscapes and when the swimmers formed a neat circle and drifted out to about the middle of the bay I decided that was my opportunity. It really is a nice time to be down there, you’re surrounded by beautiful scenery and friendly people. There’s supposed to be lightning tomorrow morning. I’m tempted to go down just to see if people still turn up.
