Category: Travel

Reach for the sky…

Just outside the popular Prudential Center in Boston stands a tall bronze statue seemingly reaching for the sky. This statue, by Donald De Lue, was cast in Italy and installed in 1967.

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Aiming high.. Prudential Center towering over the bronze statue by Donald De Lue. 

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The backdrop of the Prudential Center made an interesting backdrop/canvas for the dramatic pose struck by the quest eternal statue.
Technical Details
Nikon D7000 with a Tamron 18-200mm lens
Autobracket at -2, 0 +2 in Aperture Priority
Processed in Photomatix Pro and Adobe Lightroom 5.0
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The First Church of Christ, Scientist

My recent travels in the US took me to Boston and past this imposing church. The first church of Christ in Boston is the mother church of the Christian Science Movement and was built at the end of the 19th century.

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The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston

This HDR image above is a composite of 3 bracketed shots processed in Photomatix Pro and Adobe Lightroom 5.0. Please view a larger image by clicking on the photograph above. Any comments/criticisms/observations welcome as always.

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Barcelona – By Night

Cities often look very different in the night. The effects of artificial lighting and spot lights often bring out features not usually appreciated during daytime. The following two pictures are of the Plaza de la Constitucion (Constitution Square) and Palau de la Generalitat.

Palau de la Generalitat is the seat of the government of Catalunya, and is one of very few medieval buildings of its kind still serving the purpose for which it was built.

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Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya
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Plaza de la Constitucion

Both pictures were taken using a high ISO as a long exposure was not practical given the number of people in the scene. The images were later processed using NIK software plugins Dfine and Viveza to cut ISO noise and enhance colour.

 

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Barcelona – Black and White

I have been away on vacation in the US for two weeks during which period I have over 600 pictures to process and sift through. It will be some time before those pictures make it to this blog. Therefore, here are some pictures from my trip to Barcelona 3 weeks ago.

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Detail on a wall opposite Barcelona cathedral
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A window in the Gothic quarter of Barcelona.

 Photographs using an iPhone 4S, post-processed in Lightroom and NIK Color Efex Pro.

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Barcelona Cathedral – Part 2

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A view of one of the sides of the Barcelona Cathedral
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Gothic quarter, Barcelona – Part 4

I have processed the following picture in both colour and black-and-white. I believe both iterations of the same picture are equally good and offer a different view of the same scene. The picture is of the building that houses the remains of the Roman columns of the Temple of Augustus. The building that surrounds the columns is a regular block of flats, which in itself is very surprising!

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Block of flats with balconies. Temple of Augustus, Barcelona
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Black-and-white treatment of the picture above. Processed with Silver Efex Pro.

These pictures are from my iPhone, processed in NIK Software (Color Efex Pro, and Silver Efex Pro).

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Under the highway – Part 2

I experimented with pictures I took of the M25/A30 Runnymead bridge over the Thames using black-and-white conversion. The first two pictures are roughly from the same viewpoint and one of these is an exact copy of the earlier post.

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A BW conversion from my earlier post of the Runnymead Bridge
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The spans of the bridge distribute load and prevent vibrations from damaging the older Edwin Lutyens built A30 bypass bridge
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The size of the arches are clearly evident in this image (my wife and son at the very top over the river)

Few places in the UK now seem free of people littering the place with graffiti and other detritus of modern living. The base of the bridge was littered with broken beer bottles and other unsavoury items, that destroyed an otherwise interesting scene of nature and modernity co-existing at this place. The Thames itself was tranquil and sedately flowed towards London en route to the sea towards the right of the pictures.

I used Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to process these images that came from my iPhone. I used the Black-and-White Strong Tonal Contrast Preset by Matt Kloskowski as a starting point before applying blue and green filter corrections to the images.

I hope you like the effects and I would love to hear your comments and suggestions..

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