There are no Moeraki boulders in Kings Garden in Copenhagen. They are round stones however only half the size of a real Moeraki boulder. Everyday for the last 7 years I have walked through Kings Garden to get to work. Until a year ago the stones were just round stones to me, but then I started to prepare a long vacation in New Zealand. Along with that, came the knowledge of the Moeraki Boulders. Ever since I have been to the Moeraki beach, these round stones, though only half size, reminds me with great joy of New Zealand. Oh what a wonderful place – I want to go there once more!

About the photo

This is a 5 shot HDR from -2 to +2. The sun I have placed in the leaves, to take some of the strength out of it and then I used a 5 inch tall tripod to get close to the ground. That makes the boulder look quite large and gives the viewer a feeling of 3D in the photo.

About the processing

I processed this in Photomatix and then blended the layers in Photoshop to get rid of nasty halos in the sky (see my too tutorial on blending layers). I wasn’t quite satisfied with the result and have had the photo lying around for some months, without a fixed solution. But then the other day I picked it up again. I added a shadow to the stone, adjusted the light about in the leaves, in particular in the right hand corner. For some reason they kept coming out too black. What I have found out in the mean time, is to use the Dodge and Burn tools in Photoshop. The Dodge tools makes things brighter, where ever you paint, and the Burn tool makes things darker. In this case I used the Dodge tool to brighten the leaves. What’s cool is that, I specify to make the shadows brighter, and then it will leave the bright sky untouched, and that really worked, and I got green leaves instead of black.

Our last real drive after a month in New Zealand went from Oamaru to Lake Tekapo. This is from the road to Twizel and suddenly we saw these amazing clouds. I have never seen clouds like that in Denmark. We saw them a couple of times down there.

This photo is 95% Lightroom processed. I have placed a gradient on the sky, enhancing the contrast and clarity, as well as bringen the exposure down a bit down.

Then I have on a global basis turned up the contrast to maximum, and set the clarity to +29. Shadows I have raised to the maximum, and the highlights I have lowered to the minimum. The Curves I have on the minus side (-13, -9, -22 and -44).

This is a very strong manipulation, but it is what gives the photo its look and feel.

After two nights in gorgeous Queenstown in New Zealand, we continued on our way. It was a clear blue and a little cold morning in November 2012. Just at the out skirts of Queenstown we pulled over the campervan and I shot a few shots, including this one.

It is a 5 shot HDR photo shot with my 28-300mm lens at 28mm. Processing wise this is fairly standard processing, first processed in Photomatix and then I blended layers in Photoshop CS6. Only the spiky grass thingie in the lower right hand corner have received a very special treatment. It’s in the shade and turned out too dark, so I had to ‘lighten it up’.

EXIF: 28mm, ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/50 sec.
Why? At a wide angle as 28mm you can get almost anything sharp, but not what’s absolutely closest. It is shot hand held, so I had to use a fast shutter speed on all 5 shots. By using ISO 200 instead of ISO 100 I made the shutter speed twice as fast. I didn’t dare to go higher on the f-stop (that is a lower number – remember, that they work counter intuitive), because the foreground had to be sharp too. Most of my shots in this spot failed, because the foreground was not sharp enough. I should have used a tripod and lowered the f-stop to perhaps f/16.