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Youthful Wisdom

Africa, People, Rwanda, Travel 25 Responses »

Feb 072012

Stepping out of my comfort zone of landscapes and cityscapes, I was inspired to shoot this portrait. The kids we encountered in Zambia and Rwanda were great. They certainly make a memorable impression. They’re also fascinated by the camera. I’ve mentioned the boy who followed me around Gisenyi setting up and packing away my tripod for me. While we were canoeing the lower Zambezi we paid a visit to a local village. As the chief’s wife gave us a demonstration in how they make flour, I snapped a photo of her toiling away with a small portion of her mob of grandchildren in the background. Without realizing, I left the screen on as I let the camera hang to my side. Suddenly I noticed all the kids were jockeying for a view of my hip. So I knelt down to show them the picture. They responded by pointing while chanting “Aye Nappa” (I have no idea how to spell this and am a bit ashamed to say I don’t even know what language it is, maybe our African language buff, Soniko, can fill this detail in). Our guide, C.B., filled us in that they were saying, “that’s me!”

Kids wherever we went loved having their photos taken, normally in a pack with huge cheesy grins. Most of these were really just snap shots to show them. As we climbed this hill in Rwanda (in a truck this time) to get a better view of the twin lakes, Burera and Ruhondo, we came across loads of kids – we were in Rwanda during a school break. As usual, they ran after us along the road and posed for photos. Then, at this verge looking out over one of the lakes there were only a few kids around. I’d started concentrating on taking landscapes before acknowledging the kids as it tended to be impossible after that. I snapped a few photos of this view and noticed that the older boy in this photo was watching me very closely, with that exact expression on his face and the littler one always by his side. I took a few photos and then called him over and had the two of them press the shutter button to fire off my bracketed photos for me. Neither asked for a photograph, which was a bit different, so I asked to take a photo of them. I’m very happy I did. I feel like this kid has the eyes of a wise old man. Regretfully, I don’t remember his name. I’m hoping to track him down. Cameron exchanged e-mail addresses with a few kids further up the hill who I need to send a few photos. They all wanted to be photographed with Cameron, who seemed a bit of a giant in Rwanda. Maybe those kids can track these guys down.

My HDR technique is based on Trey Ratcliff’s website, Stuck in Customs, where he bemoans the fact that Nikons force him to take 5 exposures in order to bracket exposures from -2 to +2. He states that the light range in the majority of scenes can be captured in three exposures, -2,0,+2. For no real reason I started using 7 exposures and have wondered what I would ever tell anyone if they asked me why I take 7. Now I know. It may be possible to capture the light range of the majority of scenes in three exposures. However, I’m still new to this HDR stuff and as such I’m not tuned to recognize when I need to go wider. For this shot, as I was photographing people (which aren’t very still), I dropped my usual 7 exposures down to 3. As a result, the background of this photo was plagued with noise. I think this is the result of Photomatix having to adjust the exposure of the background as it was not captured in the three images taken. Also, the option to mask out the sky in the Photomatix result to replace it with a noise free version didn’t work because I was missing the correct exposure. It’s come out alright after using Noiseware Pro, which is a great Photoshop plugin for removing noise, but I’ve lost some detail as a result. So, as I’m still learning when to shoot which exposures, I’ll stick to my -3 to +3 just to make sure.

Upper Zambezi Sunset

Africa, Travel, Zambia, Zimbabwe 6 Responses »

Feb 062012

Jollyboys Hostel menu of activities includes a combo price for white water rafting and a booze cruise. It sounds like a fantastic idea and it really is. What’s not such a good idea is indulging in the booze cruise the night before the rafting. Although, taking category 5 rapids head on is probably the best hangover cure in the world, unless you’re Cameron.

There are a lot of booze cruises going on in Bermuda and they’re great. But this one was a completely different concept all together. First of all, we were on a river. Second of all the water was chock full of hippos and crocodiles. On shore, you can see elephants and warthogs. It really is an incredible experience. The open bar doesn’t hurt. We paused to watch the sun dip below the horizon before heading back to dock, and I snapped this photo. It’s a pretty basic sunset shot, which I wouldn’t normally take, but I thought the clouds were particularly interesting. I used my 14mm lens to compress the sky into the image.

Victoria Falls

Africa, Travel, Victoria Falls, Waterfall, Zambia, Zimbabwe 3 Responses »

Feb 052012

This is where the hike to the Devil’s Pool at the top of the Victoria Falls becomes a swim. The pool is located just on the other side of this waterfall. To get there, you have to swim up-stream against the current and then across. There’s a rope strung across in case anyone should succumb to the force of the water. Fortunately, it’s not actually a particularly difficult swim.

The Clockmaker’s Door

Czech Republic, Europe, Prague, Travel 19 Responses »

Feb 042012

…at least that’s what I’m calling it. This is a detail shot of the door, and mosaic, beneath the astronomical clock on the Old Town Hall of Prague. This was taken at the same time as the picture in the above link, shortly after I’d discovered that the clock did not spring to life at this time of day. That is probably what the old street sweeper was trying to tell me as he watched me move my camera about in the middle of the road. The twelve apostles, which parade hourly when it’s running, did not appear. However, being there early did mean that, prior to the sound of Death noting the hour by chiming a single bell, I could hear the mechanisms through the stone wall working away. The clicking and whirring of gears spinning bred anticipation. I thought wow, this is going to be a much better show than the last time I saw it. That time I was surrounded by tourists and paying for overpriced water in a cafe to secure a view. I wasn’t too disappointed at the lack of action though. At least I got to hear something I hadn’t noticed the first time there.

This photo actually took a surprising amount of work. I even converted it to black and white to try to make it look a bit more interesting. In the end I realized that the bricks were an over-saturated orange color, which distracted from the door and cobblestones. Once that was toned back to a more natural level, I was happy with the result.

Oh, and England managed to beat Scotland in the 6 Nations today, despite a pretty poor performance. I’m happy with that result too.

Lower Zambezi Sunrise

Africa, Travel, Zambia, Zimbabwe 1 Response »

Feb 032012

It’s hard to leave Water Horse Safari’s Fly Camp on the Zambezi river after 3 nights there. It’s got the best showers in the world. You stand there with a chest height wall around you and solar warmed river water pouring over you. At the same time you’re spotting wildlife running past in the clearing ahead of you. They’ve got toilets, welcome after a night in the bush. They’ve got a table under a canopy and they have two-men mesh tents with comfy single beds in them. Square meals were prepared nightly and wine, poured from a bag, was available. Perfect.

Each morning we woke up to the sounds of grunting hippos and this view across to Zimbabwe. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Central Park Orbs

New York, Travel No Responses »

Feb 022012

Central Park, New York City. This is one of my first attempts at HDR photography. Shooting so long after the sun had gone down was certainly optimistic. I’ve tried to process this photo over and over again and I’m finally at the point where I think it’s good enough to publish. Once getting involved in HDR you set off on a pretty steep learning curve and don’t even realize it. If a photo is causing problem it’s worth leaving it to sit, the next time you come back to it you may have a better idea of how to approach it.

Boulders Beach Boulders

Africa, Cape Town, South Africa, Travel No Responses »

Feb 012012

Without a doubt, the main attraction at Boulders Beach is the penguins, which, with a little effort, you can get very close to. Also, If you’re willing to brave the cold water (5 people who’d just completed two overnight flights were not), you can actually swim with the penguins here. Searching for penguins is great fun. However, the beach itself would likely be an attraction in its own right.

The beach is walking distance from the Simon’s Town train station and it’s called Boulders Beach for a reason. It is comprised of inlets in amongst these piles of granite boulders. I’m not sure how these boulders formed, but it makes for an interesting scene – added to by the fact that the tides have created stripes on the boulders. The water is crystal clear and with a bit of luck penguins can be seen swimming about. It’s worth spending some time lounging around here.

I had spotted the interesting clouds in the background of today’s photo coming across the sky and set about finding something to put in front of them. A lot of my photos, particularly in places I know well, like Bermuda, are the result of seeing something developing in the sky and finding a location to act as my foreground. If I’m heading out in Bermuda I’ll often look at the sky and make a split decision on where to head rather than thinking of what I want to photograph. The approach may be a little backwards, but it works when you’ve got options in all directions, within 15 minutes drive. I wonder how many more photographers regularly let the sky dictate the location they choose to shoot. Feel free to let me know what you think about this in the comments.

The Czech Philharmonic at Rudolfinum

Czech Republic, Europe, Prague, Travel 2 Responses »

Jan 312012

On my last night in Prague, nearing the end of my five-hour stroll, I decided to make my way to Charles Bridge from the Old Town Square. I didn’t want to take the same route I had in the past and took off in what I was sure was the general direction of the river. Luckily, I was right. On the way there, I stumbled across this building and a very busy intersection in front of it. At the time I had no idea what the building was, but decided I definitely had to stop and take a photo. As I stood there shielding my camera from all the foot traffic, it was situated about a foot off the ground, the van driving politician cruised through with his music still blaring.

Since getting back home, Google Maps has informed me that this is the Czech Philharmonic at Rudolfinum, which I think is a great name for a building.

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.

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