Miami Nights

Writing this blog on a cold, English Monday morning, when last week I was in 28 degrees heat, walking on golden beaches and swimming in the bluest sea you've ever seen, is obviously quite depressing and not easy. I returned from the sunshine state yesterday, having been out there since last Tuesday. Although it was a business trip, it nonetheless provided a very welcome getaway from the English winter, something I have very rarely been able to do. Miami is a truly beautiful, and indeed cultural city, of which I had not really expected prior to my visit. It was a given that I would take a camera out there, to capture the city's sights in my 'offtime' from work, and so I took out the lighter and more portable D90, as opposed to the much bigger and hand luggage restrictor that is the D700.

I'm lucky to have taken quite a few pictures, of which should be able to fill up this blog for quite a while. Today's picture is one I took within a couple of hours of arriving in Miami. This was the view from my hotel room. Although it might be easy to be sad not to have a sea view, I was not complaining at all, as I immediately realised I would be able to get one of those nighttime city HDR shots, that I have seen of so many other cities. This is a traditional 3 shot HDR, taken in manual mode, and using the hotel balcony as a makeshift tripod, having not been able to take one out there myself. Processing a picture like this is a lot of fun, even after the Photomatix stage, because you can pick the best bits to include in the picture from the 2 HDR's I created (one de-ghosted and one not) and the original RAW files.

You will also notice today that I have changed the name of this blog to Pete Halewood - Home and Away. You may remember that last year my blog was called The Photographic World of Pete Halewood, which was a title based around the fact that I would have pictures to display from around the world. Due to my lack of travel last year though (in no small part due to my wedding and house move), I changed the name to Talking Photo with Pete Halewood. This year however, I hope to 'get out' a lot more, and this is why I'm confident enough to name this blog in part as an ode to my travels, but also to reflect the large numbers I will take in the UK. Today's picture is my first HDR taken in the USA.