I’m having so much fun playing with HDR again! I feel like a whole world has re-opened. I used to enjoy HDR many years ago, but I have always wanted my final images to have a natural look. Achieving that look was challenging with the software that was available to combine exposures and time consuming to do it by hand in Photoshop. So when camera sensors started getting … [Read more...]
Aurora HDR 2018 Review and Video Demo
I thought I was over HDR. I used to use it quite a bit around 5 years ago when it was all the fad. Like many photographers, I went through the overblown HDR look and slowly made my way to more realistic HDR photos. But then camera sensors improved to the point where they could handle most of the high dynamic range situations I encountered. Even if I took bracketed shots, I … [Read more...]
This Baobab Tree is One Thousand Years Old (give or take)
I come from British Columbia, Canada, so that means it's pretty hard to impress me with big trees. People come from all over the world to be awestruck by the magnificent old growth forest I grew up with. But one tree I was impressed by is the incredible Baobab Tree in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania. It's not necessarily the size of the tree. There are taller trees, … [Read more...]
Abandoned Car in the Desert (and some fun processing techniques)
The desert has amazing powers of preservation! Joshua Tree National Park wasn't always a park, there used to be a few ore processing mills here in the 30's. One of those is the Wall Street Mill which is protected as a historic site because of it's mechanical uniqueness. The machinery is still intact. Near the mill you can also find a few abandoned cars - antiques left … [Read more...]
Sunrise at Clark Dry Lake, Anza Borrego
One of my favourite discoveries from last year's snowbird trip is Anza Borrego State Park in California. It's only about half an hour from Palm Springs and there are tons of excellent boondocking locations in the park. "Boondocking," in case you don't know, is where you camp off the grid for free. You wanna know the best part about boondocking in Anza Borrego State Park? … [Read more...]
Ocotillo in California’s Colorado Desert
I love these Ocotillos that decorate California's Colorado Desert. They have such strong shapes for photography, and when they flower they have beautiful red tips on their green stems. This is a pretty typical scene in the Colorado Desert, which encompasses about 7 million acres and is a low-elevation desert with warm winter temperatures, making it perfect for us … [Read more...]
View of Daytona Beach
For some reason I don't like to start showing new places on a Friday, so I decided to put up one more image from Daytona Beach today. This one was taken from the top floor of that shopping center complex I showed yesterday. It shows a couple of hotels on the left and the view of the fantastic beach. Please click the image to view a larger version. I made this image by … [Read more...]