Common Sense and Whiskey

Churches - Wednesday HDRs

It's gotten to be a little project lately. Anytime we're visiting somewhere new I try to pop into a local church and get enough shots to put together an HDR photo. Since churches aren't places to be big and brash and American, coming in, taking over and spreading out with a tripod, these usually have to be hand held brackets and some are more successful than others. They all seem to require substantial processing.

Here are some from a few of our last trips. Click them all to make them bigger. They're from Havana, Cuba, St. Helena Island, Panama City, Panama and Riga, Latvia.

See them all, along with 380 other HDRs in the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. And if any of them catches your fancy you can see more photos in the Cuba, St. Helena, Panama and Latvia galleries. All these were shot with Nikon cameras, processed in Photomatix with various Nik plug-ins and finished in Photoshop.

 

EarthPhotos.com Announces Digital Downloads

Today I'm happy to announce Digital Downloads on EarthPhotos.com. Just about all of the 18,691 photos on EarthPhotos may now be downloaded immediately. Two sizes are on offer.

You can buy a Web Size image, roughly 640x480 pixels in size, or 0.3 megapixels. This is suitable for web sharing on social sites like Facebook. Or you can buy a 1Mpix image, roughly 1 megapixel in size. These photos are for your personal, and not commercial use (Read Personal License). The 1 Mpix download is roughly 816x1224 pixels, about big enough to print an 8x12.

And we want to help with your commercial application. We're proud of our lion photo in Afar Magazine. It remains the Most Popular Photo on EarthPhotos.com, as voted by users. A couple of weeks back, we placed a photo on a kids' show for German TV. All these commercial applications are different, so please talk with us about what you need.

 

Stuck in the Sixties - Wednesday HDRs from Havana

These Havana photos have been a lot of fun to work on. Click each to make them bigger. There are three dozen photos up now in the Cuba Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. Probably will be another dozen or so. See also the HDR Gallery.

Wednesday HDR - Back from Havana Version

There's just about no internet in Cuba. No internet cafés, no internet in private homes. There's slow internet in hotel public areas, but we opted not to spend the time squeezing photos through the wires, so we have lots to catch up on about Cuba.

And there's lots to say, but I'd rather not be hasty. I want to let all our impressions steep for a few days before I make my inevitable brash and presumptious generalizations about the lot of the Cuban people. It'll come, over time.

For today, here's one of the first photos I've posted to the new Cuba Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. Keep an eye on that gallery. It'll grow steadily over the next few weeks.

We've all heard there are old cars like this in Hanava. What's surprising is how many there are - just hundreds upon hundreds. Many, many more than I expected. Click this photo to get a much bigger version.

This shot comes from multiple exposures of a single RAW, shot with a Nikon D-700, combined in Photomatix & finished in CS5 with Nik tools, including my new favorite, Viveza 2. If you like this, you might check out 365 other HDRs in theEarthPhotos.com HDR Gallery.

Ethiopian Street Life - Wednesday HDRs

HDRs from a trip to the Mercado open air market in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. All shot with a Nikon D-700, processed with PhotoMatix, Nik filters and Photoshop CS5. Click 'em to make them much bigger. And see 360 more HDR photos here, at EarthPhotos.com.

The Katherine Gorge, Australia's Northern Territory - Wednesday HDR

Here's the photogenic Katherine Gorge in Australia's Northern Territory. There was about a half day stop on the Ghan train between Darwin and Adelaide, and the only way to get in in that amount of time was with a kind of paddle boat thing with twenty or so others.

With a little determination, you could get out ahead of the others in time to set your tripod down and fire off a few photos without getting Phil and Marge from Brisbane in the picture.

As usual, it's multiple shots with a Nikon D-700, combined in Photomatix, finished with Nik plug-ins and CS5.

There are 354 more HDRs here and 405 more from Australia here at EarthPhotos.com.

 

Helsinki - Wednesday HDR

I don't know, I just thought Vatican was a pretty funny name for a café bar nightclub. This was three bracketed handheld shots with a Nikon D-700, combined in Photomatix & finished in CS5 with Nik tools.

There are 352 more HDRs here at EarthPhotos.com.

Lapland Photography

We're back on the farm and I've had a chance to put up a few Lapland photos on EarthPhotos.com. Here are a half dozen for your perusal.

Click them to make them bigger. See all we've posted so far in the Lapland Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. These will all ultimately live in the Finland Gallery.

Wednesday HDR - Big, Huge, Massive, Get Out of the Way Bank

I don't know, it was just funny. In lots of places, a big bank like this one in Helsinki probably suggests safety and stability. But in the U.S., with all our bailed out too-big-to-fail financial institutions, mortgage lenders, car companies, you name it, it plays a little differently.

This particular Big Bank, on Salomonkatu in the Kamppi section of Helsinki, was shut tight on a Saturday in these photos. The top HDR was processed from three hand held bracketed shots, and the other is from a single RAW re-exposed and bracketed several times, both photos processed with Photomatix, Nik and Photoshop CS5.

There are almost 350 HDR shots in the HDR Gallery and also check out the Finland Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

Textures: A Simple Example

In yesterday's Wednesday HDR post of Mt. Cotopaxi, Ecuador with an added texture, I suggested you go out and shoot your own textures and experiment with them in Photoshop. Thought I'd show you an example. This is a photo of the docks at Windhoek, Namibia:

This is just some random, ordinary wall I shot in Riga, Latvia:

Here they are, combined in Photoshop:

This was one of my early efforts with textures and it surely will never win any awards, but it also didn't cost $100 - $400, and I learned a whole lot in the process. Just get out there and try it for yourself.

Wednesday HDR: The Ortakoy Mosque, Istanbul

Istanbul is such an unparalelled location. Europe on the left, Asia across the bridge. You just can't beat it.

Click it to make it bigger. See hundreds more HDRs in the HDR Gallery and lots more of Turkey in the Turkey Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

Wednesday HDR: Likoma Island, Malawi

In this week's Wednesday HDR, a tailor works at his open air shop on Likoma Island, Lake Malawi.

The story of our journey across Lake Malawi to Likoma Island is Chapter Fourteen of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book. We're excerpting the book here on the blog, and you can read the entire chapter here later this year. Not that you need to wait.

This is a single shot HDR, re-exposed at +2, 0 & -2 ev, saved as .tifs, tonemapped in Photomatix and finished in CS5. There are 341 more photos in the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com, and 184 photos in the Malawi Gallery. Click the photo to make it much bigger.

Wednesday HDR, Sydney, Australia

HDR from a single RAW. It's from an amusement park in Dolling Hobba, Sydney, 2009. Click to enlarge, and enjoy 340 more in the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

New Most Popular Photo at EarthPhotos.com

Visitors to EarthPhotos.com have voted in a new most popular photo - it's one of the tree-climbing lions in the Ishasha Wilderness, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda. This photo was also published in a feature on Uganda in a recent edition of Afar Magazine.

You can vote on any photo on EarthPhotos.com. Just mouse over the photo and click thumbs up. See all the photos voted most popular in the Most Popular Gallery.

Since this wasn't the type of photo for which you have leisure time enough to set up a tripod and walk around composing the best angle, it's an HDR from a single RAW. There's a before and after comparison here.

 

One of Our EarthPhotos Shots Featured in the Current Afar Magazine

Proud to tell you this photo is featured on page 38 of the September issue of the Travel Magazine Afar Magazine, on newsstands now. Get yours today.

It's an HDR from an afternoon spent with a group of tree climbing lions of Ishasha Wilderness, Queen Elizabeth Park, southern Uganda. At EarthPhotos.com, it's in the Uganda, wildlife and HDR Galleries.

Many thanks to Afar Magazine.

Wednesday HDR - Ecuador: Pigs!

Colorful small animal market outside Quito, on the road to Volcan Cotopaxi. Mostly llamas and pigs, as you can see in the Ecuador Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. Click this one to make it bigger, and see 330 more HDR shots in the HDR Gallery.

Guatemala Shoeshine - Wednesday HDR

This week's photo is from a May, 2010 visit to Guatemala. This shoe shine man sits on the main square in Antigua, Guatemala. Click the photo for a much bigger version.

We intended a peaceful weekend at Lake Atitlan, but a few hours after our arrival Volcan Pacaya erupted, closing the airport, then we were hit by tropical storm Agatha and had to flee first Lake Atitlan then Guatemala, where the airport remained closed, for a ride home from El Salvador.

Here's what happened: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. There are photos of the experience in the Guatemala Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

And here are three hundred-odd photos in the HDR Gallery.

Hands

Reworked HDR photo from several years back. This lady is from a hill tribe near Sa Pa, Vietnam, up by the border with China. We met her outside her village. Click the photo to make it much bigger. More from Vietnam.

Hoi An, Vietnam Morning Market - Wednesday HDR

Colorful, and one of the top 100 most popular on EarthPhotos.com, this is from the morning market at Hoi An, Vietnam. Click it for the full treatment.

Two More Wednesday HDRs from Ethiopia

The basics here are similar to last week's two Ethiopian photos. Each is a single image re-exposed at +2, +1, 0, -1 and -2 EV and then combined in Photomatix, tweaked in Photoshop Camera RAW and finished in Photoshop CS5.The top photo this week used a series of blur layers and the Nik Software Duplex plug-in, and the bottom used a series of Stylize -> Find Edges layers in CS5. Click 'em to make 'em much bigger.

There are 300+ more HDRs in the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.