Common Sense and Whiskey

Ten Places of Worship - Wednesday HDRs

Enjoy these HDRs of churches in Ethiopia, Italy, Lithuania, Panama, Cuba, Latvia and on St. Helena Island. Click any of them to make them much bigger. There are almost 400 more HDRs in the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

The first two are from St. James Church, the oldest Anglican church in the southern hemisphere, St. Helena Island, South Atlantic Ocean:

These next two are from the Riga Cathedral, Riga, Latvia:

Here is the Catedral de la Virgen María de la Concepción Inmaculada de La Habana, Havana, Cuba:

Wednesday HDR - Across the Tiber River, Before and After

Here's an example of turning a typically dreadful tourist snapshot into something you might hang on to.

You can't help the weather, and this was a pleasant enough day, but with a high overcast that washed out colors.

I'm always snapping away (ask Mirja) and if there's a body of water I'll be shooting across it. In this case, it's the Tiber River near the Vatican. It's one of those shots you skip through on your computer, and never look at again. But with a lot of spare time over the next winter, I went back to see if any of those Italy shots were salvageable.

You start by re-exposing the camera raw original + and - several stops. Then save each as a tiff, and then combine and process to suit you in Photomatix, and finish in Photoshop with the help of Nik filters. Up close, it looks like I used a tree bark texture over the whole thing, too. The result? Well, it beats the original:

Click the photos to A/B larger versions. There are 390 HDRs in the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

Wednesday HDR - En Route to Miami Version

As we head south today, I leave you with an HDR I cooked up one rainy cold winter day, in front of the wood stove at the studio. This one is from somewhere up on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo.

Shot with a Nikon D-700, processed with PhotoMatix, Nik filters and Photoshop CS5. And a texture added. Click to make it much bigger. And see 365 more HDR photos here, at EarthPhotos.com.

The Vatican, Rome - Wednesday HDR

 

Here's an HDR combined from three exposures, not exactly hand held, but propped up on the wall at the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome. That's the Tiber River on the left, and the dome in the background, center, is the Vatican. Click it to make it bigger.

There are 354 more HDRs here at EarthPhotos.com.

Shot with a Nikon D-700, made HDR in Photomatix, finished with Nik plug-ins and CS5.

Wednesday HDR: One More from Rome, on Canvas

One more contribution like last week's two from Italy. Not having enough fresh new material from abroad lately, I've been trolling old, unprocessed RAWs.

One day December before last I climbed to the top of Castel Sant'Angelo, alongside the Tiber River just a stone's throw from the Vatican. Here's an HDR from that day. It's three RAW shots, handheld, with a Nikon D700, combined in Photomatix and finished in Photoshop CS5:

Click the photo to make it really, really big. See related photos in the Italy Gallery and the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

Wednesday HDRs: Lack-of-Travel Fatigue

Haven't been out on the road nearly enough lately. A not entirely satisfying substitute is to go back to a few bracketed shots that you never got around to converting to HDRs. Here are two from a 2009 trip to Rome. Click 'em to make 'em much bigger.

It's the Vatican on top and just a generic apartment block below. Compare the processed image in the bottom photo with the lackluster original.

 

It's been a little scant here on the blog during these last few days of birthing my book, Common Sense and Whiskey. It's still on schedule to be up on Amazon right around May first.

Meanwhile, I think this is just a delightful story in the New Yorker about a group of Chinese tourists on a package tour of European cities.

Chestnuts Roasting on a... uh... well... a metal stove kind of thing.

This week's Wednesday HDR: Selling chestnuts at Christmastime, just off the Duomo square in Milan, Italy, about this time last year.

The Tiber River and the Vatican

HDR from Rome about a week ago.

 

Photo of the day

Rome, Italy landscape from 30 December, 2009.

Milan HDR

Duomo, Milan HDR.

Low Season, Minor Destinations

There's patchy show in the fields as our train brings us down from Lecco, on the less famous branch of the lake called Como on the other side, north of Milan. We've been poking around in tourist towns in the midst of their very slow season. Farther up in the Alps, ski resorts will be busy now, but here in these pre-Alps south of the Dolomites, villages still put on the remnants of their Christmas markets to dwindling crowds, as people returned home to get back to work this week.

The other night as darkness fell, just off a ferry and chilled through, we hustled into the second bar past the dock in the little village of Varenna. The left of the building was an albergo with rooms for E70. The right half housed a bar/community center/news stand/kiosk, run by husband and wife, he serving campari and sodas and complimentary tiny squares of anchovy pizza, she furiously vending lottery tickets and cigarettes behind the cash register. Four men played cards (one of them eyeing me suspiciously) while one of their wives watched. A cadre of rough dock worker types smoked and drank beer around a table, some of them seated, the less cool dudes having to stand. Valerie Bertinelli starred in something on Rai Uno TV.

It was family night, community center and happy hour all in one, and it was fabulous.

(Top photo, Varenna, Italy, and bottom, the card game, from EarthPhotos.com.)