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French Journal Day 4 (Travel Diary Day 84)
(travel blog - strange-lands.com/daily/2012/10/06/black-and-white-church/)
The house owners left today. Rachel and I are fully in charge now. My first task is to not vomit every time Byron, the 46kg 6 months- old, breaks wind, which he does constantly. He’s just done it now. I have my tee-shirt over my nose as I type this.
The worst part is that Rachel keeps blaming me. He’s getting off scott-free.
Bijuo, the husky, is terrified to walk past a particular set of shelves in the hallway. She banged her head off them when she was younger and now she can’t go near them. I’ve found if I cover her eyes, or put something in front of the shelves, she slowly creeps past.
It’s not going to be easy looking after this place and training the dogs. We feel well prepared but every aspect of this situation is completely new to us.
We’re used to living out of backpacks day in day out. Now we’re living in a small mansion with 14 hectares of land. We’ll adapt, as we always do, and make the most out of it. I just need some French speakers to practice with now.
Today’s photo – a black and white church
This church sits just off the A19 motorway. I took it as we made our way to the ferry at Dover. I enjoyed the way the trees and ancient graves framed the shot.
Tags: hdr church black & white
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French Journal Day 50 (Travel Diary Day 130)
(travel - blog - strange-lands.com/daily/2012/11/21/on-the-train-tracks/)
Polar Express on TV this week ignited the dormant Christmas spirit in me. It’s the 31st time in my life that I’ve gotten the Christmas bug. As the weather grows colder, and red and green decorations start to line shop windows, I regress into a child-like fantasy world of wonderment. It’s Christmas time – anything can happen.
Nothing ever does, but one day…one day…
Last year in the weeks leading up to Chrimbo, Rachel and I watched a Christmas film every day – Love Actually, Bad Santa, Elf, you name it. We had Christmas albums on repeat.
I know this all sounds a bit over the top for a fully grown, masculine, intelligent, alpha male like myself with a level 5 of wisdom on a 10-point scale, which is actually really high apparently because no one every gets past 8. But it’s something that I look forward to feeling. It’s the side of me that pushes the usually dominant cynical, atheist, scientific part aside and goes crazy.
In fact, I’d say it’s the exact same part of me that drives my style of photography. In almost every image, I want people to feel an element of mystery or wonder when they gaze upon it. I love the sense of unknowing in imagery. Like yesterday’s image of the French gardens: from the moment I took that shot until the moment it clicked when editing and I thought ‘Ah, that’s what I was looking for’, I had a strong fantasy-like idea or concept that I wanted to create.
For me, photography is not just about showing people the beauty of a given moment, but rather it can lead people to think beyond the scene into a world that then becomes of their own making, or at least that’s how I experience photography.
This will be the first year we’ll be alone for the festive season. The past two years in Korea we were surrounded by close friends. It’ll be odd, just Rachel and me, and two dogs who we haven’t met yet.
We’ll make the most of it, of course, but we’re a sociable couple – we love to be around people, especially at Christmas. It just won’t be the same without others there to share in the festivities with us.
We’ll be living in the middle of a small town at that point. I hope they put Christmas lights up.
Today’s Photo – On the Train Tracks
As we settled down to eat dinner last night, Rachel casually remarked that some thick fog had rolled in suddenly. I dropped my fork, grabbed my jacket and camera, and dashed out the front door to the nearby train station. I’d been waiting for a chance like this.
The place was deserted. For an hour, I took shot after shot. A few times I felt like someone was standing over shoulder. I could hear the sound of a faint TV coming from inside the station. I decided it must be a night security guard. He didn’t come to chase me off. Eventually I made my way back home, only to find Rachel standing at the front door looking out the window.
She said she’d thought I’d been murdered, I’d been gone so long.
One tip about shooting in fog at night – beware of banding. Even the RAW files, where the lights are there was noticeable banding before any post-processing. It took me a while to gain control over it. The most effective method was adding grain to just two of the colour channels, Red & Green. The larger image is free from banding, and this is almost controlled. I dread to see how it’ll fare after facebook’s terrible image handling is finished with it.
Tags: hdr night france
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Photomatix - www.hdrone.com/beginners-hdr-photography-course-art-of-hdr/
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My journal entry for this image is here, including a before and after - www.throughstrangelenses.com/2013/05/22/puerto-natales-pier/
Tags: hdr chile sunset pier patagonia
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Travel Diary Day 31
(Today's Photo - strange-lands.com/daily/2012/08/12/a-sunset-on-sanur-beach/)
We’ve migrated now to a lovely little island called Nusa Lembongan. The council was making some repairs. The whole island was without electricity.
I noticed a couple of hours ago that the air con suddenly turned on and started blasting our cold air – evidence of electricity. A hotel worker was bringing us some cappuncinos at the time. I said that since the electricity was now on I could access the internet, and asked him for the wifi password.
He said there was no electricity.
I showed him the air con.
He said there was no electricity.
I demonstrated the turning off and on of the air con.
He insisted there was no electricity.
I remarked how the air con made a beeping noise when it turned on, an impossibility without electricity I deduced.
He was sure there was no electricity.
I flicked the bedroom light switch on and off.
He wasn’t convinced.
He walked out of the room. His mother, the hotel manager, told him the electricity was back on. He turned to me and ‘Now there is electricity’.
I bellowed ‘I just said that!!’ while throwing my arms in the air like whiny teenager. He shrugged.
I’ll never understand why I wasn’t able to convince him.
Today's Photo -
This looks like something out of Lord of the rings but is actually a beach not far from Yogyakarta.
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Tags: beach hdr yogyakarta
Ulun Temple, Bedugul
Using a new exposure blending technique
Learn digital blending with me - www.throughstrangelenses.com/post-processing-masterclass-...
Tags: temple bedugul bali sunset hdr indonesia
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