This photo was from last week. I dashed out because I realised there was going to be a great sunset. I planned on getting out to Ferry Reach but left too late. I stopped off on the way and grabbed this photo of a fishing boat sat in its harbor at day’s end.
As I was rushing I shot this handheld using my 70-300mm lens to get in close to the boats. I took 3 exposures and then used Photoshop to align the images prior to running them through Photomatix.
This is another photo from Spanish Point taken last summer. Looking towards the North this time.
I took this photo last summer. The sky was looking pretty dramatic so I hopped over the hedge from my house and walked about twenty steps to get to this little bridge in the formal gardens within Bermuda’s Botanical Gardens.
I’ve tried to work up four different photos tonight. None of them would work for me. So, I reached into the reserves and pulled out one of my early attempts at HDR. This sunset may look surreal, but that’s what it actually looked like! Truly amazing.
The wall in the foreground encloses my friends’ neighbor’s backyard in Spanish Point, Bermuda. It’s a great spot, and perfectly flat. I’d really like to set up a croquet set over there. I do wonder how long it would take for someone to have to go swimming after their ball though.
It’s odd how sometimes you just can’t get inspired to process any pictures. I’m sure I’ll return to the same photos in due course and be happy with the results. They probably won’t even look much different than they did tonight. I think I need to get out taking some more photos of Bermuda. It’s always easier to work on photos I’ve just taken. Any suggestions for shooting locations? You can let m know in the comments here or on my Facebook page.
Gibbs Hill lighthouse, as seen from the Yacht Club on Albuoy’s Point in Hamilton, Bermuda. Bermuda has two lighthouses. This one and St. David’s lighthouse in the East. Bermuda’s waters are treacherous. The 21 mile island is surrounded by reef. Its large collection of ship wrecks helped to earn it the moniker The Devil’s Isles back in the days of tall ships. It was the reefs that resulted in the eventual settlement of the island when the British ship, the Sea Venture, on it’s way to Jamestown, was shipwrecked here in 1609. All survived the wreck and lived on the plentiful wild hogs, fish, and birds until they were able to build two new ships from the island’s substantial cedar supply and move on to Jamestown. In 1611 the British returned, to colonize the island.
This is the view from Mount Island, Bermuda . It’s just off Spanish Point, I actually waded out to it. This was shot right after the sun had dipped below the horizon. You can see the cruise ships in the background moored up in Dockyard. I dialed back the effect of the HDR process on this one. It was useful in bringing up a bit of detail in the foreground but I liked the way the island looked as a silhouette.
I’m planning on committing my day tomorrow to finishing up my free HDR tutorial and getting it online.
Another shot from the girls’ house in Spanish Point Bermuda. I had a lot of trouble getting onto the internet earlier and for some reason it’s just sprung to life, so I’m doing a quick upload and then heading to bed. Glad I didn’t have to miss a day already.
This is another Bermuda picture taken in Blue Hole Park. There’s another cave here you can swim in. I’ve lived here my whole life and only found out about it this summer. We swam into the back where there’s a much smaller cave, or so it seems. You lower yourself into the water which puts you into what’s probably a 5 cubic foot space. It’s pretty claustrophobic. Then we shined our flashlights down and discovered we were swimming in a huge cavern. You could also see ropes set up by cave divers that seemed to go on forever. I’m planning on going back there to try to take a picture in the small cave. It’ll be interesting to see if I can show how it expands underwater.
Another Bermuda shot, Flatts Inlet. This summer, I went out early morning before work to take a bunch of pictures around Harrington Sound. This was my last stop. I wound up getting mesmerized by the fish under the dock and really struggled to remove myself from it.
I’ve just booked a trip to Prague. I’m leaving on Friday. I have to go to London for meetings so i decided to go grab some pictures somewhere else in Europe as well. So, assuming I can get on the internet there will be photos from Prague being posted in two weeks. I’m also hoping to head out with my gear in London but that will depend on how the sunrise/sunset lines up my meetings.
This shot is from my friends’ house in Spanish Point, Bermuda and looks out across the Great Sound. I spent a good deal of my summer here after they moved in. I also took a ton of photos here and neglected the rest of the island. It’s tough not gravitating to this point at sunset as it’s perfectly located and seems to have unlimited vantage points and new angles to use. On top of this there’s always a beer or two available and the potential for spontaneous barbequing.
This image was created using one picture, shot in RAW format, rather than multiple images. I adjusted the exposure of the raw images to provide three images ranging from -2 to +2. Then I ran these through Photomatix before Photoshop where I used the Topaz Adjust to bump up the contrast and sharpen the image. I wish I could give you a sound reason why I used this method and not multiple exposures. But, it’s just because I used my multiple images and wasn’t happy with the results. There was far too much noise in the foreground and sky. So I started playing around with different methods and found this worked far better in this instance.
