Where the Kings Rest

Taking a break from my recent trilogy of Dubai pictures, today's picture finds us in historic Europe, more specifically the Polish city of Krakow. This is Wawel Cathedral, within the huge Wawel hill grounds, one of the key places for tourists to visit when venturing into this part of Poland. The cathedral is one of the most important historic buildings within Poland, being the burial sight of many Polish kings since the medieval age. More recently, it is also the resting place of Lech Kaczynski and his wife, who were both tragically killed in an air crash on 10th April 2010. He was the President of Poland at the time.

I have mentioned in the last couple of months how I am very influenced recently by the work of Serge Ramelli and Glyn Dewis, and that continues to be the case. Their compositing style of creating pictures has intrigued me to think where I can take a photograph during post-processing, and I have used compositing techniques to complete this picture. Whether you call it a photograph or digital art, does not matter to me.

You can see the original file below and compare the 2 pictures together by clicking on one of them, and then using the arrows to flick between them. The original below is still at the point where I have cropped, adjusted and prepared the file before exporting it to Photoshop. I didn't think it would be a good comparison to compare the finished version with the untouched RAW file.

Although the sky in the original is not bad, it lacks colour or character, so I replaced it with a red evening sky I pictured recently. As you can see, I have also eliminated (in a nice digital way) all the people within the picture. This was probably the most painstaking and pixel level work I have done in Photoshop yet. I then added the birds from a stock photo, carried out some adjustment work in Topaz Clarity, and finally added a colour filter in Nik Color Efex Pro.

I hope everyone is having a nice weekend. I am slightly concerned about the water levels outside my apartment (we are on the ground floor) due to the recent onslaught of rain we have had in England recently. I don't think I remember visiting a shop that sells sandbags, so hopefully it won't come to that. Will be back here on Tuesday with another picture from Dubai.

John Paul II Statue Krakow

Staying in Poland for the third picture in a row, today's photo is back in Krakow, the beautiful and culturally rich city in the south west. As I have written in a previous blog post, Krakow is heavily associated with the former Pope John Paul II, who indeed was Bishop of Krakow for many years before becoming Pope in 1978. He is honoured throughout of the city of Krakow, but I particularly like this memorial outside this mysterious church, which I cannot seem to find anywhere on online. Of course it will teach me to pay attention when I'm visiting, but then I am too busy normally taking pictures.

Fact: I had to wait at least 10 minutes to take this picture, due to a woman standing right in front of the statue, taking pictures on her mobile phone, and literally staring at them for about 2 minutes at a time. I have learned to be patient as a photographer travelling, but this this was a test of the highest order. She must have seen me standing there waiting to take a picture the whole time. Oh well, patience pays off and all that.

The Magic Kingdom of Krakow

Ok, so I may owe a slight debt to Walt Disney for the title, but I'm sure the Disney Magic Kingdom owes (at least some of) it's design to the magnificent churches of central Europe. All over Europe you can of course find magnificent old and new castles and churches, and Poland is no exception. The church above is St. Joseph's Church in the Podgorze district of Krakow, slightly away from the city centre. It was built at the beginning of the 20th Century, and is well regarded as a magnificent work of architecture. We were only passing by on our way into Krakow when I took this picture, so it was captured during standard daylight (there are some wonderful photos taken of this church at dawn/sunset), but I still could not resist firing off some bracketed shots to create an HDR, no matter if it is a fairly touristy shot.

It was nevertheless a difficult picture to process (as these tall churches often are), as it does feel the building has been compacted a little. I could fix this in Lightroom, but then I lost the pathway leading up to the church, which I had specifically allowed for in the composition at the scene. Sacrifices have to be made occasionally I guess, but the HDR work and a bit of Topaz Adjust has given me a result I was hoping for.

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.

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.