Common Sense and Whiskey

Ethiopian Wednesday HDRs - Churches

 

 

 

Don't know why, but photography from some places seems to lend itself to HDR conversion better than others. Could be the photographer's inspiration. Some of the best HDR work I think I've done comes from Vietnam (Here are a few), a place I love, and I really liked Addis Ababa and the Ethiopian people a lot more than I'd expected to. So maybe that's it.

The top photo is from St. Mary's Church on Mt. Entoto, outside Addis. In the middle are worshippers at Trinity Ethiopian Orthodox church in Addis, and at the bottom we're back on Mt. Entoto. Click them to make them bigger. All these were shot with Nikon gear, converted in Photomatix and finished in Photoshop with Nik filters.

There are 390 photos in the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

Cash Money

Today is the last day for Greeks to trade in those old souvenir Drachmas they've kept in the bottom drawer for Euros. Yesterday was the last day for Finns to trade in their old Markkas.

Meanwhile, today the Turkish Central Bank published this new symbol to represent the Turkish Lira. In 1995 Turkey devalued the old Lira by lopping off the last six zeros. Somewhere I have a photo of our being Lira millionaires, from a 1993 trip to Istanbul.

You can still become a millionaire in Vietnam. At today's rate, all you need to do is trade in US$50 for Vietnamese Dong.

Rainy Wednesday HDR

The Wednesday HDR this week is the much swollen Mekong River during the rainy season, upstream from Saigon, Vietnam. I wrote this little story about the trip at the time.

Click the photo to make it bigger. This photo comes from multiple exposures of a single RAW, shot with a Nikon D-700, combined in Photomatix & finished in CS5 with Nik tools. There are 355 more HDRs here and 385 more photos in the Vietnam Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

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.

New Number One on EarthPhotos.com

After doing yeoman duty for some time as the most popular photo on our photo site EarthPhotos.com, the balloon over Cappadocia, bottom, has been replaced as number one, as voted by users of the site. (Mouse over any photo on EarthPhotos.com to give it a "thumbs up.")

The new number one is an HDR from the morning market at Hoi An, Vietnam. Click the pictures to make them much bigger.

Of Dams and Ecosystems - and Wednesday HDRs

Conflicting stories about a dam across the Mekong: On Monday the Vancouver Sun ran the story Laos agrees to delay dam that neighbours say threatens Mekong. From a story today via Vietnamnet, "Thailand’s second largest contractor is pushing ahead with the controversial Xayaburi dam in Laos despite concerns voiced by environmental activists."

Can't claim to be an expert on Laotian hydroelectric needs or possible ramifications in the Mekong Delta, but having visited both the general area of the dam and the Delta, I can say both are lovely and unique and you'd hate to see the character of either change.

Here's the Mekong upstream from Luang Prabang, Laos. Entirely pristine:

And from farther south at the Mekong Delta below Saigon, here are this week's Wednesday HDRs, a couple of photos from Can Tho, Vietnam's eighth largest city. First from the really big floating market, then a textured photo of the terrace at the Victoria Can Tho Hotel:

Both HDRs shot with Nikon D-200, processed in Photomatix Pro and finished in Photoshop CS4.

All these photos click through to larger versions on EarthPhotos.com. Check out the Vietnam Gallery and Laos Gallery there for more. And there are over 300 photos in the HDR Gallery.

And while we're on the subject, read an excerpt from our story Hurtling Through the Mekong Delta.

 

Wednesday HDR from Hoi An, Vietnam

Currently the second most popular photo as voted by visitors to EarthPhotos.com, this is an HDR from Hoi An, Vietnam. It's the incredibly photogenic morning fish market.

Spend a little while on EarthPhotos.com and vote for your favorites. Put any photo - anywhere on the site - in the main viewing box, mouse over, and give it a thumbs up (or down). Results show up in the Most Popular Gallery.

There are almost 400 photos from Hoi An and all over Vietnam in the Vietnam Gallery, and 321 HDR photos in the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

Tropical Diversion: Wednesday HDR

With the snow and cold weather sweeping over so much of this country and Europe this holiday week, I thought something tropical might be in order. Here's the ruins at My Son, Vietnam, near Da Nang, from a wickedly hot day about this same time of year a few years back.

From EarthPhotos.com. See more HDRs in the HDR Gallery and nearly 400 photos in the Vietnam Gallery.

Morning Fish Market, Hoi An, Vietnam - Wednesday HDR

The formerly quiet fishing village of Hoi An, Vietnam is increasingly a hot tourist destination. It's near Da Nang and Hue, roughly halfway between Hanoi and Saigon. Hoi An's old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and down by the docks, it's home to an utterly foreign, thrilling morning market (photos: 1, 2, 3). This week's Wednesday HDR photo was taken there.

This photo was featured on HDRSpotting a couple of weeks ago. It's been viewed 5743 times there since then, and the resulting traffic to EarthPhotos.com has made this photo the current #2 in the EarthPhotos Most Popular Gallery. (Please vote for your favorites.)

It's from a single photo, re-exposed +2, 0 & -2, recombined and tonemapped in PhotoMatix and finished in Photoshop. Click in the photo or here to see a much bigger version. See 383 photos in the Vietnam Gallery, and 315 photos in the HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

Vietnam at 1000

Vietnam has proclaimed itself 1000 years old today, 10/10/10. Happy one thousandth.

As visitors to mountains, beaches, the Mekong River delta and Vietnam's five biggest cities over several trips, we've never run into any bigger problem than one missed flight and a bit of food poisoning (for which the hotel graciously arranged for a doctor to call).

So I'm puzzled to read that "While Thailand can boast of a 50 percent repeat visitor rate, Vietnam’s is said to be somewhere between five and ten percent." That sure is low for a country with compelling attractions from the exotic hill tribes in the north to the gorgeous karst topography around Cat Ba island to the Mekong River, and vibrant old town Hanoi and Saigon, too.

Read the article Vietnam's Tourist Problem in yesterday's The Diplomat.

If you're considering a trip, consider the almost 400 photos in the Vietnam Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. For Vietnam's birthday, here are a few. The top photo is the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum in Hanoi. Below, top to bottom, are: girls from hill tribe near Sa Pa, Halong Bay, old town Hanoi, the ruins at My Son and river traffic at the town of Can Tho in the Mekong Delta. Click 'em to make 'em bigger.

 

 

Little Culinary Horrors

From our most recent trip abroad, we brought home scorpion vodka and Thai green curry crickets. I don't imagine they'll ever come out of their packages, though. Just interesting items for the kitchen counter.

I've just seen a discussion on Flyertalk about the strangest things people have ever eaten. Among them: dog and slugs and durian, of course, and live octopus and insect pupa. (We watched a man buy and enjoy a caterpillar in Burma. Said it tasted like butter.) In comparison, I guess my list is fairly conservative: fried scorpion in Beijing and crocodile tail in Cape Town. Scorpion was fine. Had a little problem with the croc.

The picture is from a visit to a big farmers market in Hanoi. The ladies we talked to were disdainful. Only men ate dog. Usually when drinking beer.

*****

There are 274 more photos from around the world in the Food and Drink Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

Wednesday HDR

For some terrific, truly exotic photos, visit the fish market very, very early in the morning in Hoi An, a coastal town halfway between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The traditional conical hat, called Non La, is just about everywhere.

This week's HDR photo was converted from a single raw photo and tonemapped in Photomatix.

While we're at the market, here's a quick long view and then a closer shot of individual vendors:

View more HDR photos in the HDR Gallery, and see nearly 400 photos from all over Vietnam in the Vietnam Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. All these photos are much larger there, too.

B&W HDR? Wednesday HDR #5

This article prompted me to experiment with turning one of my favorite HDRs to black and white. Here's the B&W result, with the color HDR after the jump, in case you'd like to A/B 'em.

Two new HDR Photos in "Full HDR."

It's been a lot of fun experimenting with High Dynamic Range photography over the past year, learning when photos benefit most from retaining a realistic look and when it's more fun to go "full HDR." Here are two examples of the latter:

 Ladies in a raft, Hoi An, Vietnam.

The Singapore Skyline.

See the whole HDR Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. Next, we'll look at a couple of much more realistic HDRs from Australia.

On Hotels: Why People Stay Where They Do

Everybody knows what they like. Everybody has their own approach to where to stay on the road.

Compare this gentle rant against high-end hotel properties with this list of favorite high-end properties. What we have here are two writers headed in different directions.

But I agree with both.

We've all got our stories on the anti-expensive-hotel side. In December, 2006 the hotel just outside the O. R. Tambo International terminal at Johannesburg (which was not then an InterContinental Hotel as it is now) charged us for every last beer, orange drink and tonic water in the minibar. All of them.

That was because we cleared all of them out and placed them in the cabinet beside the minibar so that we could store food we brought back from their restaurant. When it was time to go we reassembled the minibar, but it was one of those pressure-sensitive models which charges you for anything that's lifted from its assigned place.

Of course we were adamant that that wasn't right and would not stand, and it didn't. But we had to send a member of the front desk staff up to confirm all their Pepsis were in place, all momentum came to a screeching halt for fifteen minutes at checkout, and the ill will transformed what had been a pleasant enough stay to an experience I'm still writing about today. Just far, far too mercenary.

A trip up the Mekong River – From Phnom Penh to Pakse

Photographer Leo Laksi travels. We'll follow along.

Like we do, Leo Laksi shoots with a Nikon D-700 camera. He posts regular photos to his blog Leo Laksi's Bangkok and Back. Just now, he's about to travel along the Mekong River in seldom visited parts of Cambodia and Laos. Here's the story so far: Part 1 & Part 2.

See also the Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam Galleries at EarthPhotos.com.

Fifty Photos #41

Here's a favorite HDR photo taken at the early morning floating market at Can Tho, in the Mekong delta region south of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Take a CS&W photo journey through Vietnam from the Cambodian border to China. And read an excerpt from our story Hurtling Through the Mekong Delta.

Find almost 400 more photos from around Vietnam in the Vietnam Gallery at EarthPhotos.com. And see the EarthPhotos HDR Gallery.

Get top-notch professional 8x12 Glossy & Matte prints of this and any of these Top Fifty Prints for just $11.50, 16x24 Glossy, Matte & Lustre for $35.00 at EarthPhotos.com.

(Photo from EarthPhotos.com.)

Fine Food

Have we mentioned lately what a pleasure the blog Sticky Rice is? Here's a typical entry. Always colorful, nicely done. Best viewed hungry.

New HDR: Can Tho, Vietnam

Can Tho is way down in the south of Vietnam, south of Saigon, along one of the many fingers of the Mekong River as it reaches the South China Sea. Its floating market is famous, exotic and deliciously photogenic.

This High Dynamic Range photo comes from a single Nikon raw exposure under and over exposed and then combined with the original and tone-mapped in Photomatix Pro. See many more photos from Can Tho and the rest of Vietnam in the Vietnam Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.