"We will find a way or we will make one"

Quote is from Hannibal (247-181BC)

Hedgerow City

Staying in Poland for today's picture (and close to Zakopane), this is one of those pictures that was taken on a whim. And what you might call a bit of a fluke. I had noticed this wonderful landscape scene on our way to Zakopane, while travelling in Poland last year, and had made a mental note to perhaps try and stop somewhere near here on the way out of Zakonepane, a few days later. Well of course I completely forgot about that mental note, so of course when we passed this landscape on our journey between Zakopane and Krakow, I rushed to get my camera out my bag (I of course was not driving) and took some quick shots out of the car window.

Most of them came out blurry due to the travelling car, but this one shot at a lower exposure and faster shutter speed came out pretty good. It's still not tack sharp, but it achieved the vision I had aimed for when picturing this scene. It would have been better if the sky was more interesting, but you can't have everything (though I'll keep trying)! This picture was processed with a mixture of Lightroom and Photoshop, with a lot of work done to balance out the light.

The Lake on the Mountain

You may have seen my tweet last night saying that my usual Saturday blog, has been delayed until Sunday (today), and with good reason. I could not be putting the time and energy that I am now into this blog post, if I was writing it last night. So I thought on this occasion, it was best to wait for it to be ready, before putting it 'out there'.

The scene you see above was captured in the Polish mountain region of Zakopane, during last summer. I have written before about the revealing of the landscape from the clouds, just as we made it to our planned destination. It seemed quite a miracle in a way, considering it had been nothing but dense fog on the way up, but even still, this moment was temporary and fleeting. There was another lake we really wanted to visit known as 'Mirror Lake' (it is a very common image on postcards of Zakopane), and we made it there late in the day, but the dense fog never left the lake, so there was no great surprises twice that day. All my pictures there are just a bit of water and stones, behind a massive layer of clouds.

For the photographers out there, you probably guessed that this was taken from a single RAW image. I had taken many bracketed shots in this location, but with the dynamic range able to be captured in a single image, you then have to decide if it looks best in HDR, or processed as a single photo. Despite some tutorials out there, I don't believe you can create the 'HDR look' in Lightroom, or other non-HDR specialist software. Even if you are processing a single RAW image, the only way I believe to get the HDR look, is to tone-map it in Photomatix, or some other HDR software. I don't think this shot would have worked as an HDR, and to be honest there was no need really. I was happy to bring the most out of the scene, without giving it that artistic look time.

I processed it entirely in Lightroom, and have displayed my setting below that I used to achieve the final image:

Bringing down the highlights and opening up the shadow areas, helps you bring out the most of the dynamic range, and I often adjust the whits and blacks to refine the highlight and shadow areas. It just helps bring the realism and contrast back. Clarity I think adds the drama to the scene, the highlight and shadow colour settings, give it the colour tone I was after. I have no hard and fast rule for sharpening, except for zooming in and dragging the slider along until I feel it is just right. I always add masking though, to make sure that it sharpens the necessary features, and not a blanket sharpening job.

Hope you have enjoyed that quick look into the making of this picture, I will definitely look to include more of them in future.

The Lakehouse

Here we go again Saturday night.....I thought about posting a picture of a singer in Oxford, due to the fact it is the UK X Factor final night, but that would perhaps mean losing any credibility I have. Therefore, I have decided to remain within the Polish National Park of Zakopane. I had to check I haven't posted this picture before, but it seems I haven't, so we are good to go.

The trek to get to this lake was about 3 hours of steep but beautiful adventure. It was taken near the spot of my Mountain Hut picture from a few months ago, and likewise is an HDR photo, created from 4 exposures. Topaz Adjust was also used to bring back detail in the mountain side and the lake.

Waterfall of Zakopane

Regular viewers (the 3 of you) of this blog may recognise this picture. It's actually a new version of this waterfall pictured in Zakopane, Poland. I posted an HDR version a few months ago, but I much prefer this non-HDR version, that I processed afterwards. It's much cleaner and sharper, and proves I didn't really need to 'HDR' this one. Having said that, I have taken some of the HDR version's elements and blended them into this picture, such as the water in the foreground, that was more brought to life with the HDR features.

Tip: Blending HDR elements into non-HDR pictures (and vice versa) can help give you the best of both worlds.

Back to the regular blogging schedule tomorrow. I have been a day late twice this week, because of metal and fatigue.

The Simple Life

Third Saturday in a row and still going strong. It's great fun being back to the regular blogging scene, it is the only way I get blogs done. When there's no structure to posting, it can take ages to make your mind up to post.

This is a simple picture, of a simple way of life. It was taken in Poland, at a village just outside the magnificent city of Wroclaw. I processed this almost entirely in Lightroom, with some minor clone stamping work done in Photoshop (to remove the engine on the boat). Obviously, I have got a little creative with the tone of the picture, but I like the fact that it is predominantly a light shade of green, rather than a green tree, with a blue lake, and brown sand, and so on. It helps gives the picture some coherence, if that makes any sense at all.

Hope everyone is having a nice weekend - 18 days until Christmas now, it always creeps up so fast! See you on Tuesday!

An Enchanting Part of Poland

Disney title perhaps? Maybe, I was indeed struggling to come up with a title for this picture, especially as the one that kept coming to my mind 'The Land of Krzeszow' had already been used on a previous photo. In the end I couldn't get away from the 'magic kingdom' feel to the picture (maybe that's just me), albeit this being a very real and wonderful place. Yes this is one of my favourite pictures to come out of my recent trip to south west Poland, and an idea I hope of how truly beautiful the landscape and scenery is in this part of the world.

It is has been quite a long time in the making this picture, even the last day or so I have been uploading to my HalewoodPhotographic.com site and then reloading it, because I have made tiny adjustments I think will improve it. I know it can be a dangerous game spending too long processing a picture, but in the end if your heart is telling you it can be improved, then it's best to go with it.

This is a single image taken hand-held from near the top of a hill that overlooks the village of Krzeszow in Poland. I didn't want to have to say it again on this site, but one more time, the wonderful holy building you can see in the picture is the Basilica of the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Have I mentioned I got married there recently?

Rural Poland

Getting closer to the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary now, this is clearly different from Tuesday's picture, by being taken on more level ground. It was actually captured the evening before the last picture, but was nonetheless a great opportunity to picture the spectacular Polish landscape, this again being the village of Krzeszow. Whilst out in Poland, the weather for most of the time was very good. Unlike England, you get a much better sense of autumn out there, and indeed all the trees were starting to, or had turned, a beautiful shade of orange and red. With the sun being out a lot, the sunsets in the hilly landscape were quite stunning and I drove a short distance out of the village to get this picture over the misty autumn evening as the sun set.

I'm not always in agreement that you should take your tripod out with you on every photography trip. I often find it can be cumbersome and unnecessary, especially when you are working with daylight. Even HDR's in that case can be done handheld (of course there are other factors that affect that possibility), but with today's picture, a tripod was absolutely necessary. First of all, because the light really was quite low and any handheld shots would have been unsharp and potentially blurry, and secondly, because HDR was essential in this case, to capture all the light and tones of the landscape. So after experimenting with a few different compositions, apertures and ISO's, this is final image I think worked best on all fronts. I think this picture works in black & white as well, but I will perhaps save that one for another day.

Coming up on Sunday: I put my wildlife photographer hat back on, with a picture of a Grass Snake pictured at Cuckmere Haven near Eastbourne last weekend!