Tag: buildings

Wat Phra Yai Pagoda

Wat Phra Yai is the real name for what everyone else in Pattaya calls Big Buddha.

Having seen Big Buddha more times than I care to admit I skip it now and head towards the Chinese Temple that most ignore. Meaning, it’s not jammed by a bunch of tourists being dropped off by the busloads.

If you are ever in Pattaya and are like I rather see the Chinese Temple, just pull in at the top of the parking area and make a left and start walking. The Chinese Temple is actually bigger than the Big Buddha area. Nice, calm, and the best part no tourists to be annoying. The biggest issue you have is the chickens and roosters walking about.

Shot on my Sony A7ii and yep, it’s HDR using Aurora 2019.

Enjoy.

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Buildings Of Baltimore

I could have titled this Oshiro 35mm F/2 lens review but that’s boring. Still, all the images were shot using the Oshiro 35mm F/2.

I had purchased the lens because I needed a relatively fast 35mm lens for my Sony A7R. Since they don’t make E mount version I got the Nikon version and adapter for Sony E.

With the lens in hand I set off to Baltimore on one of the hottest days of the year in August. I didn’t think it would be as bad as it was as Baltimore is on the water and tends to be cooler. Wrong!

I still managed to shoot for a couple hours just using the Oshiro 35mm and my A7R with focus peaking turned on.

I’ll let the images speak for themselves. I’m sure some of it was me handholding the camera and some minor motion blur. It was brutally hot.

Since there is no EXIF data other than shutter speed and ISO I know I had the camera at ISO 200 and I think I had the aperture at F/5.6. So corner softness is all the lens.

In all I have had worse lenses. If I had to do it again, I would buy a Minolta MD 35mm and use an adapter.

Enjoy.

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Casco Viejo – Part 2

Here is the second part of the Casco Viejo series I shot while I was in Panama. I’ll stress again I didn’t want to go for the typical tourists shots. Anyone can shoot those. I wanted to show the real Casco Viejo that isn’t always pretty.

This set has some people in it. I guess I did a bit of street photography. Unlike the cliche’ street photography stuff I left it in color. I think some people do the conversion to black and white because all the legends of street photography did. Part of it has to do with them shooting film and black and white was cheaper to develop. The other part is that I think people feel the need to shoot in black and white to call it street photography. Good thing I ignore most stuff.

Enjoy.

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Iglesia del Carmen

The real name is Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Carmen, or The Church of our Lady of Carmen, supposedly Mount Carmen but no idea. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary. All I really know is that the place was constantly full of people. Every time I tried to get a shot at night it would rain on me and the one day I set aside for shooting it was a children’s day there. So this is my best shot.

I shot this off the pool deck of the hotel I was staying at. I had to hold the camera above the glass enclosing the deck and just hope for the best. I got fairly lucky with it so I’m not going to argue. While I love the detail the Nikon D810 brings to the table a flip screen would be a welcome addition to it.

Editing wise I went fairly basic. I did want to bring out a bit more of the details so I masked in a layer. Then I had to do some color correction because the greens went a bit nuclear and I wanted to the yellows to pop. Once I was happy called it done.

Enjoy.

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Flying High Again – Part 2

As this post goes live I will be in a car heading to the airport to catch a flight out to Panama. It seemed appropriate to post these images today since I’ll be among the clouds again.

This set of images focuses mainly on the ground and not the clouds. Shooting the ground from a plane is a lot easier because you have more contrast than clouds. The downside is you are going to notice motion blur just because you are moving so fast. I’m sure if I used a better camera with a longer lens I could achieve better results but I like the smaller ones because I can move the camera around to reduce glare coming in from the window. I can also use it 1 handed and use my other hand as a flag to block out light.

For inquiring minds on the city at the end of the series, it was Washington, DC. and the surrounding burbs.

Processing wise it’s a lot of dehaze and clarity. They really are your friends when processing this stuff. It allows you to put contrast into the blacks and create separation. Then you can use gradients for localized adjustments.

Enjoy.

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Nestled In The Hills

This is a Portland shot from my balcony in my hotel room. While my view looks ok I was also zoomed out on a 240mm lens. Plus a wee bit of cropping to get some of the extraneous bits out that would ruin the illusion.

No idea why I like the image. I did think it was cool with all the giant pine trees in Portland and people with houses built within them. These were up on a big hill or small mountain. My topographical skills aren’t that hot so work with me on the name. The entire scene with the blue sky behind it and the dark pines and the lights from the buildings just makes it a cool image.

I went low key on this image since it was a 20 second exposure. I did the usual Photoshop stuff then starting bringing in various layer masks from filters I ran. Taking bits here and there.

Enjoy.

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Blossoms For A Foodie

This will be the last cherry blossom related image I believe. This was the last image I shot form the excursion and I was happily at my car. I believe the building in the image is part of the United States Department of Agriculture on Independence Ave. but I could be horribly wrong but I will blame Google Maps since it’s where I looked.

In DC the food trucks are common now and they seem a popular choice for people who work in the city. While I live and work in an urban area I don’t live and work in DC. I did the working thing in DC for a few years and wasn’t a fan. We also didn’t have food trucks back then either. They are a relatively recent phenomenon. I have walked past a few in operation and they do smell good so one of these days I’ll partake. Considering I have eaten off of food carts in developing nations I can’t see a food truck as a dietary risk.

Straight up editing here. Nothing fancy. Most of the heavy lifting done in Photoshop. Lots of dodging and burning and thats about it.

For those of you looking for the full resolution image it will be posted later. I have preloaded this post as I will be out of town doing the Baltimore Tattoo Convention so just preloading the post up. Once I’m home I’ll link to the full resolution image.

Full resolution.

Enjoy.

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Dancing Lights

This is another long exposure of the Jefferson Memorial that I captured while I was on the Washington DC Tidal Basin shooting the cherry blossoms that I admittedly haven’t edited.

I didn’t post process this much in Photoshop. I just went with what I felt looked right in Lightroom and said it works and left it alone. I did dodge and burn a bit and did the sharpening in the full resolution there and then the downsizing and watermark on the one you see here. I really recommend checking out the full resolution image because its pretty cool!

Full resolution is here.

Enjoy.

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Vegas Rising

I don’t really want to do all my flower stuff at once. I have a lot of it so don’t worry they will return. So instead I shifted back to some of the Las Vegas stuff I shot before I jumped on a plane and flew to Thailand for 6 weeks. Most of these are around that Aria Hotel and Casino and I don’t pretend to know the names of them. The buildings aren’t straight and they just out at angles that mess with your perception.

Nothing overly fancy here in editing. All of them were shot on an Olympus EM1 and with a tripod and shutter release. Did the usual Photoshop voodoo. Was fun to use the Wacom to do the dodging and burning.

Enjoy.

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Four From The River

These are shots from the San Antonio River Walk. One of my favorite bands was playing there and they were posting images on Instagram so I figured why not see what I never published. Turns out it was a lot!

These images were shot on the river boat cruise I took with someone I work with. We may have been imbibing frosty cold adult beverages as we were on the cruise but the images turned fine for the most part. I blame any blur or shake on camera malfunction not on the frost cold adult beverages.

One of the reasons I have so many unpublished shots is I was hot and heavy into HDR and was learning how to do it at that moment. So shots that weren’t for HDR I just never really bothered with. Now I can switch between HDR and non-HDR images without much issue. I also have even within the span of a year really progressed with my Photoshop skills so I can go back and work on images I just didn’t know how to process before without looking like crap.

The newest thing I am learning now is using a Wacom Tablet. I have had it but I never really used it. I would use my mouse for the masking and dodge/burn work I did. I am finding I have far more control when I use the pen and tablet. This is allowing me to create stronger images but it slows me down as I learn to control the pen within Photoshop.

Enjoy!

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