Miamorama

This is one of those days when I have been thinking all day, what am I going to post this evening? Without dragging the story out too much, I decided to post something I very rarely do, a panoramic photograph. I processed this a very long time ago, but have always been put off by how thin and difficult to see ultra-wide panoramic shots are online. Today however, I am thinking what the heck.

This complete picture was taken from 5 images, that were stitched together in Photoshop. In fact apart from that, my post-processing has been very minimal. I did content-aware a telephone mast out of the picture, but in terms of the overall look, I only really added a slight vignette in Lightroom.

One of the most interesting facts about this picture, is that it was shot from my hotel balcony, while I was staying in Miami last year. It is of course one of the Miami bay areas, north of the main south beach hot spots. One last thing, this was shot in January last year. Boy I miss that sunshine....

South Beach, Miami

Just wanted to do a quick blog post today. The pictures above and below were taken from my trip to Miami in June. There are still quite a few pictures I have taken this year that I haven't posted yet, but posting (almost) daily on Facebook has helped me go forth and just publish pictures, I may have overlooked for this blog.

These picture as you can tell don't really look like photographs or HDR's, and that I would accept. Miami is of course so wonderfully unique and has a culture all of it's own (as most cities do right?), that I was inspired to create more 'arty' pieces out of these, rather than straight photos (plus it helped eliminate the heavy noise on the picture below!). This was largely achieved in Topaz Clean.

The first picture was taken outside the Art Deco centre along South Beach. The 2nd picture was taken in the Delano Club, which was once owned/part owned by Madonna. Not the cheapest club I have ever been in ($500 a table) but then I was with work, so all costs covered!

The Miami Sunset You Can't See

Film critics have often said that what you can't see in a scene, is often more important than what you can. Hitchcock was a master of this, though it was also used to great effect in the movie Se7en (I even wrote it like it is on the DVD). You know the 'What's in the box?!' bit at the end. I would write spoiler alert there, but if you haven't seen it now, well you really should have, it's nearly 20 years old. Now I know it's completely unartistic to point out features like this in your own work, but then I don't really think of myself as an artist, just a guy trying to capture the scenes of the world that capture my imagination. This will probably backfire on me one day, when I insist I want to be treated seriously as an artist, man. I think I'm way too grounded and down-to-earth for that though.

Miami in February is certainly a more attractive place to be than the British Isles, though I'm not an anti-winter person. It certainly has it's charm and beauty, though the typical day here is 9 times out of 10 a dreary, wet, overcast, cold one. I'm not a great fan of Big Brother (the TV series) but I could not help but LMAO (!) when Jermaine Jackson came to Britain a few years ago on Celebrity Big Brother, thinking it would be a snowy, fairytale-like land in the winter. Oh, when will the world learn!

So anyway, the beauty of being in Miami in January/February is the summer-like sunsets you can get, that are months away in Europe. I was lucky enough to be treated to a boat trip around the Miami Bay area the evening of this picture. As a photographer, this means you won't be getting the crispest, super sharp shots, but you can certainly get pictures that would not be possible from other vantage points. The sun was going down way over my right shoulder and was reflected beautifully in these 2 buildings. It took a while to grow on me I think, but it is perhaps now my favourite shot from my Miami trip. It is a single image, processed nearly entirely in Lightroom, with some minor clean up work done in Photoshop.

f/6.3 / 92mm/ 1/100sec / ISO 400

Dancing in Little Havana

The Cuban centre of Miami, with all due respect, Little Havana is perhaps not a place I would venture to again in a hurry. Having got a taxi ride from South Beach to Little Havana (which seemed worlds apart), the taxi driver dropped me off at a location, which meant I had to walk quite a distance to get to the main point where the tourists visit, such as the cigar-making shops in the centre. It wasn't the most secure walk I've ever had to make, and watching a news programme later on about how many guns were handed in that day as part of a guns armistice scheme, made me somewhat relieved I had not known how many guns were on the 'street' there in the first place.

However, Little Havana has tons of energy to it, and as well as the famous cigar shops where you can see them being rolled and made in front of you (picture of that coming up soon), there is also music always playing outside and people enjoying the atmosphere. These guys were happy for me to take their picture of this wonderful scene I came across in the centre of Little Havana.

It is a single image (not HDR) but I have used Topaz Adjust, as well as Lightroom, to give the scene a bit more energy and tone, than just a standard out-of-the-camera photograph. Tomorrow I am travelling to Egypt, so won't be back on this blog for over a week or so. I shall return with plenty of pictures still to come from Miami, and hopefully some good ones from Egypt!

Ocean Drive

Ocean Drive is the classic road along South Beach in Miami, that contains many of the famous Art Deco buildings, an iconic landmark of the city. I honestly did not know much about Art Deco until watching a video of Miami on the flight over, but in essence it is a row of hotels that date back to the 1920's and 30's, that are now of great historic interest.

Today's photo is not so much about Art Deco, but just a flavour of what Miami is about: the Spanish influence, palm trees, vintage cars and of course the beautiful weather. This was a well timed shot, as this car is not part of the diner behind it. It was parked there whilst waiting to be parked by the valet. The car in front of it waiting to be parked was a Ferrari (only in Miami!). This photograph is a single image and was processed entirely in Lightroom 4.

I have plenty more pictures to come from my time in Miami, and I know I have not been very good at putting them up. I will blog again tomorrow with a new picture from Miami, before I go away again on Thursday for another week....to Egypt. As I said last time, it looks like I can get back to the travel aspect of this blog this year.