Should the Krakow Bubble Burst

Been too long again since my last photograph, but hoping to post a few times this week in anticipation of the Worldwide PhotoWalk next weekend, of which I shall be participating in from the city of Oxford, led by Glyn Dewis.

There is no tedious link I can state from Oxford to Krakow, but never mind, here is a photo I tried hard to get while I was in Krakow last month. The city square is indeed a beautiful place, and amongst the many musicians and artists to be enjoyed, there were a couple of people blowing these enormous bubbles, which inevitably led to many children chasing after them to put them out. I was chasing after them too, but that was so I could capture a picture like this, with the city in the backdrop to a picture of these great bubbles.

This was created from a single RAW image, and indeed I put quite a lot of work into retaining the colour and detail of the bubble, without going too far.

The Wroclaw Saxophonist

Taking a mini break from the southern most part of Poland (and HDR processing) to the south-western city of Wroclaw. It was near this city that I was based for most of the recent 2 weeks I was in Poland, as it is the nearest city to my Wife's family in Poland.

I have visited Wroclaw several times now and thoroughly enjoy it each time. I have written about it plenty of times on my photographic blogs, but it always springs up new sights for me to photograph.

This wonderful scene presented itself as we were walking towards the Wroclaw Cathedral, a saxophonist playing his heart out to the numerous tourists visiting Wroclaw. It was a great place to ply his trade, against the back drop of the cathedral, and it was only right that I gave him some (well deserved) money, for the opportunity to take some pictures.

I always envisioned this picture as a sepia/black & white image, as I feel it gives an authentic and historical feel to it.

Revelations

Going back to the theme of mountain climbing from one of my previous blogs 'The Mountain Hut', today's picture was taken on the same day, not too long after that picture. I had already been and walked around these lakes and by this time I was heading for the next lake, some 2 hours walk away.

As I spoke about in that previous blog, the visibility was not great when we got to these lakes, so high up in the mountains, but there were moments when it just drifted off (or drifted 'around' would be more appropriate) and gave glimpses of the magnificence of the surrounding landscape. I had no time to set up a tripod for this shot, so this is a hand held HDR taken from 4 exposures.

I may try this as a non-HDR as well, as 1 or 2 of the shots were able to capture the dynamic range of the scene within the exposure, but I wanted to make an HDR out of this first and foremost, to bring out the texture of the clouds. Plus of course I always like that arty look, that HDR brings.

Old Krakow Town

Having visited Zakopane at the very edge of southern Poland, I was also given the opportunity to visit one of Poland's most famous cities, Krakow. Krakow is indeed a stunning city and was once the capital of Poland (up until the 16th Century). With so much culture and history there, it is also a wonderful place to capture some photographs.

This part of Krakow is what the locals call 'Stary Miasto' which literally translates as Old Town. Krakow has many historic churches but aside from them, the Old Town is the place to find some authentic architecture. The second building on the left (the yellow one) was the home of Karol Wojtyła later known as Pope John Paul II, between the years of 1951 and 1967.

On a photographic note, I deliberately did not 'de-ghost' the crowd outside the the Pope's home, because I felt like it lost its 'feel', it just became to static an image. Therefore, to give the impression of movement and life, I left the slight ghost movements within the picture.

Mountain Hut

The 2nd offering from my trip to Poland and today's picture remains in Zakopane. I am by no means a mountain climber, but as you climb these high mountains there is a feeling you get which asks yourself if it will be worth it when you reach the top? This was taken on my first day in Zakopane and generally the weather was ok, but as we got near to the top of our planned destination, the visibility got less and less.

Having dodged Brown Bears, Wolves and Lynx's, we got to these lakes we wanted to see near the top of the mountains in this region, to see nothing much but the clouds right in front of us. However, rather magically, the mist began to clear after a short while at the top and suddenly we could see many spectacular sights all around us. One of my favourite 'revelations' was this little mountain hut, which I'm not sure what purpose it had (there was a visitor cafe hut just a little further away). It gave me all those wonderful mountain images in my mind though and was an obvious choice for an HDR photo.

Zakopane - A Photographer's Dream

There are not many places that can be called 'a photographer's dream'. Certainly Paris and Venice would be obvious examples, but normally the photographer has to work hard in any location to produce a worthwhile result. Certain locations though, give you plenty of 'raw material' to help you produce those great shots.

Zakopane is a well known beauty spot in southern Poland, and I was very lucky to get an opportunity to visit this special place, having spent the last 2 weeks in Poland. I have been interested in photographing Zakopane (officially called the 'Tatra National Park') since I watched a video of Charlie Waite, one of my favourite photographers teaching a class of Polish photographers. Here is a link to that video. In particular, after watching his video, I wanted to get close to the fast flowing streams that flow down the mountains of Zakopane, of which the picture above is the result.

It is an HDR taken from 3 images, and luckily I had the 'blurred stream' effect on all 3 RAW images. This was achieved by shooting at F/22 and ISO 100, but was helped by the misty and cloudy weather, keeping the light level low.

I returned from Poland very early this morning and have had my most enjoyable and (I believe) rewarding photographic trip of the year. Lots of photos to come...

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!

Time to Go Hard or Go Home

Perhaps it is a little lame to reference a Black Eyed Peas song on this blog, but that sentiment matches how I feel. After a few months of indecision and uncertainty, I have a new plan with my photography to keep me busy and focused.

After only a few posts, I have decided to revert from my decision to use borders. It may seem to make my words a few weeks ago a little hollow, but after using the borders a few times now, I just don't think I like it as much as the pictures without the distractions, such as borders and watermarks. Having blogged recently about my experience of having my work copied and uncredited to myself, I know this new direction of the borderless pictures again opens me up to internet image theft, but I've decided I'm prepared to take that risk now.

The only thing I ever needed was a copyright to put with the pictures. Most top photographers have this, and it ensures that you can blog and post your pictures away, knowing that if anyone was to make any commercial gain from your pictures, you can take action. I am  now registering all my photographs with the UK copyright service. This makes me much more secure about posting them online. Yes some people will still claim pictures as their own, but they could not gain much from it, as eventually they would be found out. I do not say this out of anger, it gives me a great sense of freedom now to post pictures without worrying what someone else might be doing with them.

More importantly though, I need to have a direction to take my photography in general, and as I said in my blog 'Coming Back to what I Know' the focus will continue to be HDR photography. It is simply the type of photography I enjoy creating and I want to find my way into some of the most amazing places in the UK and abroad, to fulfil my love of HDR photography. It's not lost on me that my output this year has in general been quite low, and I'm trying to ask myself why as well.

One of the reasons I think is because posting pictures online seems to be such hard work. There seems like a new social media website to become apart of every week and it is demotivating to decide which images to post on which side, and to follow that up with all the writing that goes with it. I have written on Twitter recently how I dislike the new looks to both Flickr and Google+ and I stick by that. I never had that much of a problem with Flickr in the first place (contrary to popular opinion) but now I find the changes unfocused and an eyesore. There is simply too much going on now when you view Flickr or Google+ and I have no desire to post on these sites.

Therefore, it may surprise you to learn that I am going to focus now on Facebook, where my following is only currently 44 people. The reason I want to focus on Facebook now though, is because the image quality of the photos you present online has vast improved and of course on Facebook is where you will find not only the biggest social media audience, but also my intended audience, non-photographers. I say that because although of course I love discussing photography with my photography friends, I love the reaction non-photographers have to new digital art forms such as HDR, they just really seem to love it. And of course you don't get the cynical anti-HDR attitudes as you do on specialist photography sites.

I have decided for the time being that I am going to post a daily photo everyday on Facebook. Now most of these will have been pictures I have already posted over the last 3 years, but again, the aim is to keep me busy in the photographic media world while also working on new images. If you want to visit my Facebook Photography click the link HERE. You will find another new picture there today!

I will continue with Twitter, and occasionally Google+, simply because despite my grievances, it seems that it is continuing to grow in popularity. I have finished with Flickr though and other social media sites.

So the final part is my own websites......where does that leave them? I have been searching for the answer to a great photographic website this year and continue to be unsure. You may know that as well as this blog, I have 2 photographic websites, HalewoodPhoto and HalewoodPhotographic. With money tight these days, I find now that I cannot afford to keep both, so have to pick a website to go with. I love the functionality I have with HalewoodPhoto (built using SquareSpace), and though I have stated this as my official site for a long time now, there is a reason I am verging to switch focus to HalewoodPhotographic, and that is simply image quality. On the smugmug based HalewoodPhotographic site, the images simply look better then on any other platform you can find on the internet. Now don't get me wrong, I am not a fan of how to create a website using smugmug and it is this difficulty for non-IT literate people that has kept me from focusing on it. But again, the quality of the images speak for themselves, and I am going to try and push through my difficulties with smugmug and make a permanent home out of HalewoodPhotographic. Watch this space anyway, the final decision is still to be made.

That leaves this blog. After thinking about abandoning it, I have decided this will remain my blogging home for now. I won't be posting here everyday like on facebook, but I will post new blogs on here for discussions and new pictures.

The picture below is an HDR picture I took at West Woodhay House in Berkshire (I think) recently. Last weekend it was the West Woodhay House Garden Show, and though I do not know much about the history of the house, I knew it would be a good opportunity to venture down there with my wife and take some pictures of the wonderful landscape there.

Summer by the River

Well it couldn't last really could it? We had a fairly nice spell of weather in England recently (and hey I'm an optimist but I don't think it was quite as nice as everyone makes out, still I don't complain) and sure enough just as we thought we may get a summer this year, it leaves us again. Enough of the cynicism anyway, I'm sure there is plenty of nice weather to come.

It's one of my missions this summer to capture the British countryside in the summer weather, and while that may seem ambitious, I am a sucker for a photograph of a beautiful sunny day. Such as this scene I pictured recently within the grounds of the Newbury Manor Hotel. The river that runs through it is the River Kennet, and a drink to be had alongside this river on a sunny day is not to be missed.

This is a 5 shot HDR picture, crafted in the fairly typical, Lightroom, Photomatox, Photosho process, though like most of my pictures have these days, there is a subtle touch of Topaz Adjust in there as well.

Away From the Rainbow

This may seem like a pretty obvious and easy picture, and being as I walked about 10 steps out the front door, it's not an unfair thing to assume. But rainbows are fleeting things, and knowing this probably would have gone in 2 minutes, I was not going to jump in my car and try to find a more inspiring landscape. I just wanted a picture of that rainbow!

I do need to get out more though. Not been out much taking pictures, not through lack of motivation, just need the time to find a new inspiring location. I want take lots of pictures of the British countryside over the summer time, give them the HDR/arty look, and see how good they are. I have other plans as well, but hopefully you will see some of that soon...

This is an HDR picture taken from 4 different exposures, and layer masked using the original RAW files, hence the car is not ghosted (people often ask me how it is possible to have an HDR picture with moving cars and such, and it's really not that hard). Some more new pictures coming soon.....