johnny peacock » Traverse Earth

Cheetah Outreach

Africa, Animals, South Africa, Travel 3 Responses »

Jan 302012

I’ve uploaded photos from our day of wine tasting around Stellenbosch before. This photo is from the same day. Before heading to our first tasting, we stopped off at Cheetah Outreach on the Spier estate. Quoting their website, they are “an education and community-based programme created to raise awareness of the plight of the cheetah and to campaign for its survival. Founder Annie Beckhelling launched the project in January 1997 with just one hectare of land provided by Spier Wine Estate and two cheetahs.”

We arrived just as they opened and were the first group of people through the gates. We were split into two groups for our encounters. My first stop was with the two adolescent cheetahs below. They had a lot of energy. The handlers were keeping them entertained with balls on the end of ropes. They’d swing the balls around them, and the two cheetahs would chase them around and around. During the brief moments they’d calm down, we were able to pet them and listen to them purr. Following this, we set out to go in the enclosure of an adult cheetah. This proved difficult – like the young ones they all had a lot of energy too and were pacing their enclosures. We couldn’t go into the enclosures when they were in this mood so we had to wait. We kept getting ushered from one enclosure to the other as word was received that this cheetah and that cheetah was lying down. But, they’d always hop up again by the time we got there.

Then, finally one stayed calm long enough for us to enter. It’s a weird feeling petting a full-grown cheetah. It purred as well and you could feel it rumbling through it’s whole body.

For this shot I set my shutter speed good and fast and took a ton of photos. All the time I concentrated to keep the cheetah’s eyes in focus. I then created an HDR image from a single raw by adjusting the exposure levels and then combining the resulting three images in Photomatix.

Purple Haze

Bermuda, Travel No Responses »

Jan 292012

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.

Lone Little Girl, Charles Bridge

Czech Republic, Europe, Prague, Travel 3 Responses »

Jan 282012

I set out early in the morning to get some photos of Prague’s main tourist sites, the Old Town Square and the Charles Bridge, without hordes of tourists blocking my view. There’s a few ways to create images without people in them. Of course, the best is to take an image when there’s no-one there. Another method is to set a long shutter speed so that any people moving through the scene will not register in the final image. This requires two things. Firstly, the people crossing through the frame need to keep moving enough that you won’t end up with a ghosted image of them. Secondly, you either need low enough light levels or a dark enough filter to use a long enough exposure.

Neither of the above methods worked for me in taking this picture. I was there early, but not early enough. On top of this people like to stop on Charles Bridge and I didn’t have a dark enough ND filter to really extend my shutter speeds to block them out. As a result I set about working on a post processing technique. I took a bunch of pictures so that I could blend them together and end up with a people-free Charles Bridge. Then, this little girl walking with her parents suddenly took off running and stopped at this little plaque. I decided this made for a nice image and decided to keep her in the photo. Once I got home I decided I’d actually have liked to show the various stages of her approach. Unfortunately, I hadn’t taken enough images to make this work. I’ve seen an intriguing e-book called “Photographing the Fourth Dimension – Time” . It’s available at Flatbooks which is run by Trey Ratcliffe of Stuck In Customs. The photographers he works with in producing these books are always interesting and informative. I’m planning on buying this book and giving it a read as the concept sounds intriguing to me. Also, the next time someone starts moving through a scene in an interesting way I’ll make sure I keep the shutter firing.

Rwandan Insect Repellant

Africa, Rwanda, Travel 5 Responses »

Jan 272012

We didn’t have much of an issue with insects while in Africa, except for one member of our group with an odd fear of moths, and the men’s bathroom in Lusaka airport. It was like a horror movie. Lights flickering, bugs flying around and making the floor squirm along with the shuffling of an individual sweeping live bugs to the corners. Horrifying, but an experience none the less.

The reason I’m going on about bugs is that the flowers in this photo are farmed in Rwanda and used to make a natural insect repellent. I took this photo on our way up to see the mountain gorillas in the volcanoes national park. I’ve mentioned before that it was a tough walk. Pausing to set up for a photo is a great way of taking a rest without admitting that you need one. This is made easier by the fact that wherever you look in the Rwandan countryside you’re confronted with a beautiful view.

I’m pretty sure this is also the hillside where I left my Black Rapid camera strap. If you haven’t heard of these camera straps you should check them out. They let the camera hang comfortably at your hip or lower back and the connection system prevents the strap from twisting and getting in the way when you raise the camera to your eye. Going without it in Prague made life a little more difficult for me, I’ll be ordering a new one this weekend.

This photo is comprised of 7 images ranging from -3 to +3. I had to open up the aperture to get the flowers sharp enough. Unfortunately, I’ve traded off depth of field and the background gets a bit blurry. I’ve started experimenting with blending photos at different apertures to capture moving subjects while maintaining the depth of field only achievable with a smaller aperture. As soon as I find some success with this I’ll post an example.

Wenceslas Merry-Go-Round

Czech Republic, Europe, Prague, Travel 3 Responses »

Jan 262012

For some reason I’ve gotten stuck on producing panoramas. Tomorrow night I am going to ensure that I process a photo that isn’t a panorama!

This is a picture of Wenceslas Square. It’s an odd square as it’s actually a skinny rectangle. As you can see it’s more like a wide boulevard with a divider down the middle. It was originally the city’s horse market. Also, while there I was informed that it was also the location of the fall of communism following student protests.

It’s funny how you can try to imagine how your picture of a place is going to look prior to getting there. I did just that with this location. I had this image of light trails from traffic rounding various bends and going off in different directions. When I arrived this isn’t quite what I found. In fact the first thing I discovered was what I’m sure was a politician stood atop a van with a megaphone. He was yelling excitedly at the crowd of 30 or so onlookers that had gathered. I encountered him numerous times throughout the night. However, on each of those occasions he’d given up on speaking and was just driving around blasting out classical music at an ear-splitting volume – fantastic from a distance, horrible up close. It certainly set a great mood when he cruised through the Old Town Square though.

New York Skyline at Sunset

New York, Travel 4 Responses »

Jan 252012

This is the trip where I really got to test out my new Canon 5d Mk II and L-series lenses. I walked across Brooklyn Bridge and actually got my timing completely wrong. The sun had set by the time I got there. I set up for a night shot of the skyline, and then the sunset provided an encore, spreading pink light across the sky.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I was initially annoyed to have cranes ruining my skyline shot. This was taken a week before the marking of the tenth year after 9/11. I processed this while watching a documentary on the progress of the World Trade Center’s new tower. Suddenly, I realized that is the building with the cranes in my photo. I understand that when this photo was taken it was at about half of the height it will reach.

Large Lunch Companions

Africa, Animals, Travel, Zambia, Zimbabwe 13 Responses »

Jan 242012

Our last day paddling our way down the meandering Lower Zambezi was an exciting one. By now, the surroundings were familiar and comfortable. Working in tandem to navigate the river was almost second nature. It even became easier to suppress the fear of crocodiles that occasionally welled up in my mind. This was despite coming closer to the eerily calm reptiles than we ever had before. As we approached midday, we spotted a group of elephants on an island. After paddling into a small inlet, and walking a very short distance, we were approximately 30 feet away. The elephants acknowledged our presence, but continued munching away and even moved closer. I was completely focused on grabbing a good photo. Once I realized that most people had already moved on to return to the canoes I turned to follow. It turned out that we weren’t departing. Our guides had prepared lunch for us, the usual beautiful fresh salad to accompany the most processed meat in the world. They were some form of Frankfurter, but were fluorescent pink on the outside and white in the middle. So, we ate and watched the elephants munch their way back across to the other side of the island. Then, they started to head to the water and we followed. They took the plunge and meandered their way down the Lower Zambezi.

Prague Skyline

Czech Republic, Europe, Prague, Travel No Responses »

Jan 232012

I took this on my last night in Prague. I went out for what I thought was a couple of hours, it turned out I was out for 5 hours just wandering and taking photos. I discovered this viewpoint in a park by the river up from Charles Bridge. This photo is most interesting viewed at full size where you can scroll around the details of the skyline. On the right you see St. Vitus Cathedral jutting above the Prague Castle. Moving to the left the dome of the Church of St. Nicholas is visible with the gateway to Charles Bridge leading into the bridge itself to the left. Up on the hill opposite the castle can see an Eiffel Tower like structure. You could probably take photos all night long in Prague on an overcast night as the lights from the city give the clouds a yellow glow.

Times Square Headlights

New York, Travel No Responses »

Jan 222012

Another shot portraying the hustle and bustle in Time’s Square, New York. It’s very easy to spend hours here, every few steps presents a desirable angle. This is a combination of 7 exposures processed with Photomatix, Photoshop CS5 and Topaz Adjust. I used the de-ghosting tool in Photomatix to select this group of people and to select the streaks for the headlights.

The View from Lunch

Africa, Animals, Travel, Zimbabwe 31 Responses »

Jan 212012

On the first day of our canoe safari, on the Lower Zambezi, we stopped for lunch under a big shade tree on the Zimbabwe side of the river. While everyone stretched out to nap after a sandwich and a salad I started getting my camera gear out. I wanted to get a photo of a hippo yawning. Typically, the hippo let out a huge yawn as I was setting up. Then I had to wait quite a while for him to do it again. It worked out for the best though, as these elephants moved into frame just before the hippo let out a huge gaping yawn.

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