Misty fish net

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This I saw after driving my son to school. I threw the car to the side of the road and got to catch this misty morning.
I have had this photo lying around for some time. I took it as a 3 shot HDR (2 ev steps), but I didn’t really work as an HDR. The light just wasn’t for HDR. Later I tried cropping away some ground and a tree to the left, leaving only the fish net. Now it started to be something. I then toned it slightly to the yellow/brown from cold grey. I did that by increasing the temperature from 5800 to 9433 in Lightroom and then the tint I added +14 to. Then I got this tranquil mood.

Up in the sky – Hyper speed

Going somewhere? It is from Sydney. Sydney has a great skyline and you can do all kinds of wonderful stuff with it. I got inspired by something I saw, shooting straight into the air with a wide angle. It really does things to the sky scrapers. I then added a little speed.

This is a 4 shot HDR – the fifth was shaken. I sat on the ground and shot straight into the air between some wooden pillars. I then did a standard HDR from 4 out of 5 shots, using Photomatix Pro.

I then imported the HDR and the 4 shots into Photoshop as layers, aligned the layers (because it was hand held). I blended a little, but not much. I then merged all layers to one layer. Duplicated that and used the filter radial blur, with a small setting, blended that in closest to the middle of the image and then I did another duplicate, and did another radial blur with more effect. That I blended in all around the edge. That made the strong effect of speed up into the air.

At last I did an additional Topas Adjust just to make it pop a little more, but I guess I could have done that with curves and vibrance too.

You can read about blending layers in my HDR tutorial here. Or the complete HDR tutorial here.

Lighthouse on the edge

Leaning against the fence I was just able to capture all of the light house, thanks to my 14mm lens. I made this from one photo. I tonemapped it using Photomatix and did a version in Lightroom as well. Both images I imported into Photoshop. I have used the Lighthouse, as a non HDR version, but the rest as HDR. I hope you like it done in that a bit unusual way.

Data: ISO 400, 14mm, f4, 1/320

The Beauty of Noravank

Armenia lies in a very seismic active area. They are the first nation ever (!) to become a Christian Nation, which happened around 300 AD. They have a lot of these small very beautiful compact churches spread all over the country. They are compact to withstand the earth quakes. Armenia is not only the first Christian nation, but they also invented color television and even more important: they invented red wine, some 8000 years ago.
This is the Monastary Noravank, one of the most beautiful monasteries they have got.
The photo is a single RAW file, taken with my old Canon 400D and the kit lens at 18mm. I did two virtual copies in Lightroom, and changed the exposure of the two to -2 and +2, so that I had exposures (-2, 0 and +2). I then worked on the noise and sharpened a bit, before I took them into Photomatix. I then took it to Photoshop CS6, used Topaz and did worked a bit with blending the exposures with the tonemapped image. And finally I cloned out a couple of things.

Morning Glow in Milford Sound

The sand flies in Milford sound is pure Hell. The Maori’s said that their god created Milford Sound, and to prevent people for staying forever in such a beauty, he created the sand flies.
I took a bath in a repellent spray, but when I got home to my camper van a couple of hours later, I had this huge bump right on my forehead. Good thing, though, it only itches like hell for a week or so.
Milford Sound is one of the most photographed tourist attractions in New Zealand and it is understandable why. It’s massive size and beauty is amazing. Mitre Peak rises 1692m straight out of the water. Your sense of proportions really is working on overtime.
This is an HDR of 5 shots. ISO is 100, at F11 and 1,3 seconds for the 0 exposure.

University of Copenhagen

This is the main building of the University from 1836. The University has fostered a few known people, one of the more famous is Hans Christian Oersted, who discovered elektro magnitism in 1820. This particular photo I took on 22nd of December 2012. I have been waiting to take it, but the square in front is always crowded with people, busses, cars etc. But this day, only one single car was there.

It’s a single RAW file that I have tonemapped to achieve this result.

Fountain in Kings Summer Castle

Being a Kingdom we have a number of castles in Denmark. This fountain is placed in front Frederiksborg Castle (Frederiksborg slot) in Hillerød.
This is a 5 shot HDR with a couple of additional shot to get rid of people. The purpose has been to make a very true looking photo.

Viking ship lit in the Winter

Here’s one more from the local viking ship, the Sea Stallion (Søhingsten). From this angle it’s easier to see, that it’s the worlds largest. More than 60 modern vikings are used to row and steer the ship.
Taken in the evening. I used 5 shots and processed it in Photomatix and mixed layers in Photoshop and did the final adjustments in Lightroom.
Happy New Year everyone 🙂

Desolate Central Station

I rarely come by a central station that is as empty as this station, even at night time. I haven’t cloned anybody out or used multiple exposures to get rid of people or even waited for people to get out of the way. It just was empty – except for one single person (if you can find him).
This is a 5 shot HDR taken with a small tripod handheld on the rails of the stairs. There are way too many bicycles to get room with a real tripod. Denmark is a bicycle nation, only surpassed by Holland, I think.

Lake Tekapo by Night

Lake Tekapo in New Zealand lies in 700m above sea level. The lake it self is the oddest blue color, though you can’t see it at night. It sits very beautiful between snow covered mountains. Lake Tekapo and the observatory on top of Mount John (which is right behind me when I took the photo) is trying to become the worlds first UNESCO World Heritage Starlight Reserve. One criteria for that, is that all lamps point down, to avoid ‘light pollution’. So I thought a night shot from Lake Tekapo was appropriate.
This shot is a single exposure taken during a full moon, which explains the light on the stones.

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