Trees

No Moeraki Boulders in Kings Garden

No Moeraki Boulders in Kings Garden

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.

Curly Tree In the Sunset

Curly Tree In the Sunset

Sometimes it’s all about shape. This tree is wonderful I think. I found it close to my home, and caught it as a silhouette just after the sun had set.

About the processing

I adjusted the white balance slightly to improve the mood of the photo, and then I darkened the shadows a bit, to get a stronger silhouette against the sky. And then I cleaned the water for various birds to get a more clean photo.

Rembrandt Plein

Rembrandt PleinI went to Amsterdam on a business trip in september. One day I got up at 3.30 and walked all the way in from a hotel near by the airport to the center of Amsterdam. I hit the harbor when the sun rose – I have shown one shot from the Amsterdam Maritime History Museum. I took around 1000 shots for HDR that morning. In the beginning it was pitch dark and I had the camera on ISO 400. When the light grew brighter I changed the ISO to 100. I have had a hard time getting satisfied with many of the shots, but I have found that it has to do with getting the right mood in the processing and not as much the photos. This particular one is from ‘the way back’

How did I make this photo?

The photo is shot with a wide angle lens close to the ground. A wide angle lens is great, because it is sharp from very close up and all the way out to the horizon. When I came home and looked at this photo, the great sunlight at the end of the tunnel of trees didn’t come out so well. I have had the photo lying around for half a year, trying a few things, but not managing to achieve the mood from that morning. Finally I figured out, that a soft yellow light at the end of the tunnel of trees had been present, and that it had almost disappeared in the shots. So I emphasized it and that really brought the photo together.

Shoe Boat

Shoe Boat

I guess it’s no surprise that Amsterdam has all these lovely canals. You find house boats, construction boats and just small boats for cruising around in the canals. The yellow shoe shaped boat is one of the more spectacular ones I found.

About the processing

It’s a 5 shot HDR, that I processed with Photomatix. Nothing unusual there. Then I blended layers in Photoshop, to remove a little ghosting in the trees, not much there though. The photo still didn’t really pop the way that I had hoped. I had managed to get a not very pretty handle of bicycle in the lower part of the photo. In the end I decided on this cinematic format, cutting away the handle. The other thing I did like, was the hanging bowl of flowers, so I decided not to emphasize that too much.  I focused on the small Shoe shaped boat and the sun rays in the far end. Those I processed to be emphasized. The boat was a bit dark, I made it more light and the sun rays I emphasized using burn and dodge tools.

Late Summer Sunset

Late Summer Sunset

The late summer in Denmark is beautiful. This is after a great barbeque at my Brother in Law. They just bought a farm on a small island.

It’s a 3 shot handheld HDR. Instead of using shutter speed to bracket my three shots, I used the ISO. The brightest one was ISO 6400, which made it a bit hard to work with, due to the noise. I wouldn’t recommend doing ISO bracketing, when the ISO goes that high. I had to do it, because it was hand held and it was too dark to shoot the photo otherwise.

Tip: Crop dead areas away

Misty Orange Sunrise

Sunrises and sunsets keeps amazing me. You still can be surprised and see new wonderful variations. This photo is hardly processed. In Lightroom I have increased the contrast a bit, lowered the clarity a little and then raised the vibrance slightly. Not a lot compared to what I do to some of my other photos.

Tip: Crop dead areas away photo
In the beginning I didn’t want to cut away pixels. The more pixels, the better. I’m still struggling with this, but I have learned that some photos really get a much stronger composition by cropping them.

This particular photo doesn’t have much of an interesting foregrund and the sky continues upwards as orange. It becomes dead areas with nothing interesting. By cutting that away, I cut away dead zones and is left with the good stuff and that makes a stronger composition.

The Royal Stables

The Royal Stables

Right behind the Govermental building Christiansborg lies the Royal Stables. The Queen has got a set of white horses, which apparently are rare, if they have to be really white. The horses stays in the building in the left.

About the processing
This is a typically double tone mapped HDR. I created it from 5 exposures in Photomatix. The double tone mapping gives this much more painterly and surreal style, which works well for some images. The idea of the double tone mapping is that, you first do one HDR photo and tone map it, and the image that you get from that process, you tone map too. This is done by pressing the “Tone mapping” button once more. A side effect of the double tone mapping is, that you get a lot more noise (grain) into the image. You have to clean some of it up, but not all. The noise adds some of the grittyness to the image, which is part of the effect.

The second time you tone map, the colors go crazy, and you have to lower the saturation. The luminosity you also want to bring far down. Exactly how far depends on your photo. But this step is what creates the mood of your photo. Try some of the other sliders, and see how they affect your photo.

I brought the double tone mapped image into Photoshop and did a lot of clean up and some noise reduction here. I took the sky from one of the original shots and masked that in. If you are unsure of how to mask/blend layers in Photoshop, have a look at my tutorial on blending layers.

Trees In The Window

Trees In The Window

Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Germany is the most georgeous middle age city, surrounded with a city wall with beautiful towers and buidings. This particular photo is from St. James church.

About the processing.
I did a double tone mapping in Photomatix on a three exposures HDR. This is done by first doing one tone mapping, and when it is done, you just press the Tone mapping button again. The second time you have to push the saturation and the luminosity a good way into the negative area. That gives this funky and gritty look, which is quite far from how it looks, but is kinda cool.

The Misty Ducks In The Pond

The Misty Ducks In The Pond

I’m getting better at stopping the car, when I see something interesting. This time I saw the mist on the pond, and the sunshine going through the mist. The car went over the curb and luckily nobody was just behind me. Kind of stupid to drive so crazy; it was in a round about, and I could just have taken another round, but I got excited. Notice how the sun shines in one tree, but not the rest.

About the composition

I placed the sun behind the tree. It gave less power from the sun. It is about an hour after sunrise, an the sun is quite strong. I used the rim of the pond as a lead in line, but also the sun coming through the mist on the lake works as a lead in line.

About the processing

This is an HDR from 9 shots with one EV step between each shot. I used Photomatix to make the tone mapped image, and then I copied all 9 original shots plus the tone mapped into Photoshop as layers. The ducks were not exactly sitting ducks, so I had to mask them in from individual images to de-ghost them. I then removed all bluish colors, giving this almost black and white look with a golden glow, and a little green grass. In the foreground I removed a ton of leaves and floating feathers from the water.

On The Road Again

On The Road Again

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.