I haven’t posted anything on the blog recently as I just last week returned from a conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The image you see here is of the famous Sugar Loaf Mountain as seen from the even more famous statue of Christ the Redeemer which overlooks the city.
The image was tweaked and cropped in Lightroom and made into a black & white using Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro.
I blogged about the Hilo edition of the Scott Kelby Photowalk in my last post and about how difficult (at least for me) the conditions were: wind, rain and early morning! Not a great combination.
In the end, I thought that I got at least a couple of decent shots which had some potential so I entered those. I was quite pleases with them and I had the good fortune of coming in second again. Again? Yes, I took part in this photowalk last year and entered this shot which also got me second place. Looking back, it was a good event and one that I shall support again in the future. In the end there were over 900 photowalks around the world with over 32,600 photographers – snappers, keen amateurs and professionals alike. Everyone welcome!
Given the conditions, I think us Hilo folks did well. You can see the entries here. I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate Jock on his wonderful winning image showing an infrared view of Wailoa Park in Hilo. It certainly got my vote!
And finally, many many thanks to Bob Douglas who organised the walk and got everybody together for this, keeping our enthusiasm going through the adverse Hilo conditions. Thanks Bob!
The alarm went off at 6:15am and I slowly got my stuff together and headed to the bayfront area of Hilo, to Liliuokalani Gardens to meet up with other bleary eyed photographers (pros, aspiring and snappers alike) that morning. And because of our position on the globe, Hilo and another 3 Hawaiian cities (Honolulu, Huelo and Paia) would be one of the last (if not the last) cities in the world to embark on the 2nd annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk. Over 400 cites around the world and more than 27,000 32,000 photographers were taking part this year. Wow! And all within the same 24-hour period known to us all as July 18, 2009.
But it was raining. It had been raining all night, and as I awoke with the alarm buzzin’-n-beepin’ on my bedside table, it was still raining. But as I drove out of the house it stopped. With an inspirational photography podcast playing on the car radio, I began to plan in my head what I might shoot that morning. But, as they say about the ‘best laid schemes of mice and men…’, as soon as we were ready to start the photowalk at 7am, it started to rain.
The conditions made it really difficult and, personally, I found it a struggle to get inspired – to get “in the zone”. I would see something that I thought was an interesting composition and set up the tripod and then struggle to balance the umbrella over me and the equipment (well, mostly the equipment) while trying to set up the camera, thinking about focal point, zoom, crop, apertures and shutter speeds all the while. That’s hard in the best of conditions, but in the pouring rain….aaargh! Typically, this was my first view through the viewfinder as I crouched down (soaking my okole in the process!):
Despite these conditions, some 25 people from the East Hawaii area did turn up and venture into the Liliuokalani Gardens and Coconut Island area, in search of that perfect shot which might just win them some great prizes. In retrospect it was fun, and I am eager to see what images others managed to capture in those difficult conditions.
Ironically, as I write this up the following morning – it is a sunny and most beautiful day here in Hilo. Absolutely no regrets, I love Hilo whatever the weather!
We’re told by the best photographer that pre-visualisation is a key technique to make good photographs. You are supposed to look at a scene or subject and try and imagine what the final result will look like before you press the shutter. And by ‘final’ what is meant is after all the post-processing is complete and you’ve printed your image or published it to your blog.
This is the first time that I have tried to do a HDR on a sunset scene. The light is changing so fast in this situation I didn’t know what to expect. Still, I like experimenting and so I gave it a try. I worked as fast as I could to get the shots (8 images in all – each 1 stop apart – were required to cover the extreme contrast range between the setting sun and the rocks in the foreground). At the time I didn’t know how it was going to turn out, but I like the result.
This was shot at a small beach in Maui where we have just spent 10 days of vacation. Just above and to the right of this scene is a deck where we would sit in the evening, eat our freshly BBQued meal and enjoy the sun setting behind Molokai (which you can see in the distance).
We went down to the Kalapana lava viewing point last night. The entry seems to have moved over since the last time we were there in January. But the colours were still pretty spectacular.
Most surprising of all was the amount of surface flow that we saw streaming down the side of the mountain. It really was impressive, more especially for me as I have never seen that much surface flow before. Ever so often you would see a bright light as a tree caught fire and lit up like a candle. Impressive!
I was up at the JCMT last week helping out with ‘Imiloa and SkySkan film crew as they collected footage of the telescope for their 3D productions which they show at the ‘Imiloa planetarium. They are doing all the telescopes on Mauna Kea and this past week was our turn. They have a nice set up. Two Nikon D700 cameras with mounted next to each other at the inter-ocular distance, so that when the images are projected onto the dome with the 3D glasses on, the 3d you get is actually very realistic. They had two of these set ups (i.e. 4 cameras) which they rigged up at various positions around the dome. The cameras would then be set to take up to 7 frames per second for about half an hour or so (you do the math as to how many images that is!). Ben, one of our Telescope Systems Specialists, would set the telescope in motion as the cameras fired away. I can’t wait to see what the final results will be like. Especially in the big dome at the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center.
While I was there, mostly shepharding and not always successfully trying to stay out of the way, I tried to take a few shots of my own. The image above shows a detail of the support structure on the back of the 15-m JCMT dish.
Some friends and I were taking a trip along the Saddle Road and we stopped off to have a look around at about the 27-mile marker. We came across a pile of old rusted hinges strewn across the relatively new, black lava. Not sure how they got there or how long they were there for, but nature seems to be reclaiming its iron.
Well I’ve been pretty quiet with the blog recently, and will be even quieter over the next couple of weeks as I will be back in England for some meetings. So, I’ll just post this picture which I took the last time I was in England. I was out walking with my father in the fields behind his house, taking pictures and showing him how to take HDR images – a new adventure for him (bought him Photomatix for his birthday – hope he’s making use of it!). We found this old abandoned caravan and trailer which were just begging to be photographed – so we did!
The image above is my HDR interpretation of the scene and I think it gets into the shadows (especially as you look inside the old caravan) and holds on to the highlights well (we’ll ignore the halo around the tree in the top left of the image, shall we?). Just for a bit of fun, I double processed the image through Photomatix to get this surreal look – make your own mind up which you prefer!
Really, this could be a stroll through any small English village. There will be a pub! Well, actually there will probably be several pubs. And then, appropriately, there will be a cemetery just a few, careful steps away:
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