Botswana Sky

 Africa, Botswana, Travel  3 Responses »
Mar 112013
 

As we struck out on river safari on our first morning in Botswana, I noticed the light fluffy clouds forming out on the horizons, framing the bright blue sky. When we came across these two safari boats parked up against an island, I took the opportunity to get a picture of the clouds in the background. Little did I know that these clouds were a sign of the rain that was going to lead to a miserable afternoon on the back of a safari truck. Well, it wasn’t so miserable for me. As I’m such a gentleman, I’d let the girls I was with take the two outside seats on the safari truck while I sat in the middle seat. When the rain began to fall, I was fairly well sheltered and warm sandwiched between the two of them. They, on the other hand, were regularly hit by the water crashing down from the canvas covering on the top of our open sided safari truck. When we arrived at camp, they were both soaked to the skin. Light fluffy clouds in a blue sky over the green grasses of Botswana with a safari boat moored on the river.

Sheep on the Mountain, Iceland

 Europe, Iceland, Travel  1 Response »
Aug 132012
 

Sheep in Iceland

On our first night in Iceland we stayed in a little guesthouse near the airport. The next morning, the owner gave us a lift back to the airport to pick up our Jeep. He had one piece of advice for us. In summer, the sheep are allowed to roam free in Iceland and would be all over the roads. Further, if we saw a mommy sheep and a lamb on opposite sides of the road we should be very careful because when the lambs get scared they’ll run straight to their mother no matter what. This piece of advice came in handy on a fair few occasions. It was really remarkable just how many sheep there were about, just roaming free. We spent a lot of time wondering how they round them back up. We asked a few people, and got all different answers, none of which really seemed particularly convincing.

Today’s Photo: Sheep on the Mountain

These guys didn’t cause us a problem, they were a safe distance from the road. This photo was taken on our first full night in Iceland, in the Westfjords. I only shot 3 exposures on this one as the dynamic range in the scene did not require the 7 exposures I used to default to. I’ve gotten much better at reading a scene and being able to tell if I can get away with 3 exposures or if I need more. I still recommend that if you’re new to HDR or a little unsure about the scene you should shoot as many bracketed images as you can. If you get home and realize you’ve got more than you need you don’t have to use all of them. If you don’t have enough range in your images chances are you won’t be able to produce the results you want.

Sheep on the mountainside with green grass below and dramatic sky with clouds and orange sun in Iceland.

Fjords and Flowers

 Europe, Iceland, Travel  5 Responses »
Jul 012012
 

Sitting here, after taking this photo, I came to the conclusion that we were not going to make it to the bird cliffs at Latrabjarg. They are the furthest point of land in the direction this photo is looking in. As you can see, we still had a long way to go. It was still a great night with some pretty dramatic scenery. All of the photos I’ve released from Iceland thus far are from this night. It offered up the best sunset we had the entire time we were in Iceland.

White wildflowers on the rocky shore with a beautiful sunrise over the ocean and fjords with the bird cliffs at Latrabjarg in the distance in Iceland.