Waking up in Copenhagen.
On my way to the dentist one early morning, I suddenly noticed this reflection. I have crossed Kultorvet in Copenhagen hundreds of times. But I have never seen the reflection. I had 15 minutes for shooting photos. I learned the reason why I had never seen the reflection before. just as I was finishing up. It is a fountain, and I had to jump off not to get wet.
The Millenium Bridge and Sct. Pauls Cathedral in London.
The first time I tried to get to the Millenium Bridge, while I was in London, and get a shot of Sct. Pauls Cathedral, I completely underestimated how long time it would take to walk there, from London Tower Bridge. I had to give up, because it was getting very late, and I was tired, and my feet hurt. I had to get a Taxi back to the Hotel because the Underground had stopped for the night.
A few months later, I got back to London, and this time, my starting point was once more London Tower Bridge. However, I did not hang around too long in this neighbourhood, but started moving down the Thames, and when I felt it was time, I got the Underground and quickly got here.
The bridge is actually quite wobbly, and I had to wait until no people walked the bridge, and shot my 9 shots. The dynamic range of this scene is incredibly high, from the darkest areas down around the Thames, and to the highly lit Sct. Pauls Cathedral. But 9 shots did it.
–Jacob Surland
Semi secret room found in the Cathedral of Chester.
When I exhibited at Chester Art Fair 2015, I got the chance to see Chester Cathedral. An amazingly beautiful cathedral built in the shape of an enormous big cross. It’s like it has more churches in one, or many chapels if you like. This pattern on the floor I think is a bit of a secret. It’s hidden behind the main altar, next the choir boy’s benches. It’s a sort of a room right in the middle of the church, but for some reason you miss it.
Before getting into the Cathedral we were standing in some of the surrounding facilities shooting on a tripod, and an elderly formally clad lady working in the church came by, and said ‘that must be important’, and I figured she was a member of the tripod police, but no, she wasn’t. She just wanted to know why I used a tripod.
I shot this photo with my Sony A6000. I really like the size of the camera, it produces photos of an amazing quality, as you can see. This is a bracketed photo shot using -2, 0 and +2 exposure compensation.
–Jacob Surland
Fiskettorvet is one of the Shopping Malls in Copenhagen.
Fisketorvet is one of the shopping malls in Copenhagen. In the beginning it was quite lonely, on the old harbor, but other houses, both residental, and offices has been built around the shopping mall. And now, it is a pretty cool area, especially for photographers!
This one is shot literally with the camera standing on the ground. It’s a amazing how clear a reflection in the water can be. I only had to fix a few issues in the reflection.
One day, at a conference I sat and played around with my camera. I had my 50mm lens on, and I shot photos of various slides from the presentation. Suddenly I noticed, that if I pointed the camera, at my iPhone, the iPhone would be completely blurred, but what it reflected was 100% sharp. Later I took this photo, which once again is a reflection in my iPhone shot real close with a 50mm lens.
Closeup photo of an iPhone. Notice how out of focus the iPhone is, and how sharp the object reflected is.
I really wondered what happened and later on the same day I learned why. The glass works as a lens, and for that reason you have to focus from the distance of the ‘lens’ (the glass of the iPhone) to the subject. The iPhone and the camera being very close to each other makes this distance almost the same. And this also explains, why you can put your camera literally on a poodle of water, and reflect completely sharp.
Cologne Gold
I don’t know if there ever was Gold in Cologne, but if there was, they must have put it into this bridge. When I got close, I could see there is is another kind of gold on the bridge. It’s full of padlocks hung by lovers. I have never ever seen so many padlocks in one place, as on this bridge. It’s from one end to the other. It’s golden love!
Shooting this bridge, with the Köln Dom (or Cologne Cathedral) in the distance is a classic shot. I tried to find some different variations though I have the classic shots too. This is one of my variations. What I like about this one, is the strong leading lines, with the strong focus on the curves of the bridge, and yet the Cathedral is still an important ‘actor’ in the composition.
I started at the view platform of the skys craber right behind this vantage point called LVR Turm (LVR Tower). There is no problems using a tripod there – for a change!
Nice Pearl Shop on top of the Rialto Bridge in Venice.
We didn’t buy any pearls when we were on Rialto Bridge. We were far too busy shooting photos. Half the bridge was under reconstruction, but we still managed to get some great shots. One of the things I like, about shooting in Italy at famous locations, is that there usually is a band playing some music. People are in general friendly and happy, and moving around with selfie sticks, trying to shoot themselves with their loved ones. I wouldn’t dare to put any of my cameras on a selfie stick though!
These are a couple of my favorites from same evening:
A quite unique reflection of the Rialto Bridge in Venice
Scaffoldings covered half of Rialto Bridge when I visited Venice. This, of course, was a great disappointment, as I had planned to shoot it. I call it Scaffolding Disease, and I seem to suffer from this disease.
The good thing about such situations is that you are forced to look for alternative compositions. In this case, I had half of the Rialto Bridge to work with, and only from this side. On the other side, houses on both sides were completely covered in scaffoldings too.
I walked around, and suddenly I saw this reflection in the roof. The Taxi boat had been lying there for ages. We had been at Rialto bridge since before the city lights were turned on, and the taxi had been there most of that time, but I hadn’t thought of using it as a reflection surface.
I am not sure I would have shot this shot, had it not been for the search for a unique composition, using only half the bridge. The reflection in the roof is a bonus, but it is the final touch, I think.
The Sun Voyager is a fascinating modern sculpture watching over the sea.
You would almost expect the Sun Voyager (or Sólfar as it’s called in Icelandic) to take off while you watch. It sits on the water front of Reykjavik overlooking the fiord leading out to the Atlantic sea.
The famous view of Canal Grande seen from the Rialto Bridge.
Crossing the Rialto Bridge is a must do experience when visiting Venice. And if you have the option to plan it, try to do it at sunset. The houses along Canal Grande look just awesome with the lights and colors. Stay and watch the traffic for a while. Gondolas, Varporettos, taxi boats, and ordinary people cruising in their small speed boats. It’s a very busy area, the bridge itself included.
This photo I shot using my 24-70mm Sony Zeiss lens attached to my Sony A7R. As you can see, the light is fading quickly, but I really didn’t want a long exposure. Opened the lens to it’s maximum, which is ‘only’ f/4, and then I cranked up the ISO to 2500. I got a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the three gondolas navigating.
I shot it as a 3 shot HDR photo, but the gondolas and for the water and boats, I only used the one exposure, the middle one. The bright exposure is too long, and the boats get blurry, and the dark was, well too dark.
During the day, Mont Saint Michel is crowded with people. All most too much. But as the begins to set, people disappear, and when darkness comes to Mont Saint Michel, and the small street lamps are turned on, you can wander around in empty alleys. This street wasn’t quite empty. I triggered the five exposures manually, I can control, when to shoot, and make sure I didn’t shoot with people in the same location, and that way remove them in the post processing. The longest exposure was 8 seconds, which also allows moving people to disappear in the long exposure.