Magical HDR

Nikon D90 with 17 - 50mm f2.8 wide angle lens (Shot at 3 exposures)

Post Processing: 3 exposures combined together i Photomatix

I walk past this odd looking monument everyday, I always thought it was some Greek monument or something like that and never paid it much attention. I always looked at tourists madly taking photos, posing in front of it, reading the writing and walking around it to have a closer inspection of every detail. One day I though "damn it, I'm finally going to figure out what this thing is". So I too felt like a tourist in my own city (sometimes thats a good thing, it means I don't have to explain why I have a camera and snapping away in a voyeuristic manner). It turns out it's a war memorial dedication, for one of the wars Australia was involved in I can't remember which one though (I have to admit I kind of lost interest once I figured out what it was :P ).

Something from the cutting floor

Nikon D90 with 17 - 50mm f2.8 wide angle lens (shot at 1/250 sec @ f3.2, ISO 200)

Post Processing: Bit of photoshop work here I must admit, some contrast effects and blurring.

I have to admit that this photo is actually a few months old now (taken on the Australia Day long weekend, January 26th for the uninitiated :) ). For some reason the family (including the extended members i.e. the Uncles and Aunts) decided to travel to the Dandenong Ranges and tackle the notorious "thousand steps". The thousand steps is a set of walking trails including a set of vertical stairs that are a sort of dedication to those soldiers who travelled the kokoda trail in Papua New Guinea in WWII. So it's meant to be reasonably challenging. Being the fittest one there, they instructed me to run up the steps, and run I did. I managed to reach the top in under 12 minutes, which is reasonable considering I had to dodge, weave and overtake the crowds of much slower people.

The photo was taken of a spiders web on a overhanging tree branch at the top of the thousand steps, and when I first saw it on my pc at home I was less than impressed. Infact I had my hand hovering over the delete button before I received some inspiration and decided play around with the light and shade. By the end of it all I came up with an image I can be reasonably proud of.

It's funny how sometimes we take our digital camera's for granted. We just snap away at the shots and often delete so many unwanted images that don't make the grade. Sometimes just a little effort can yield a rewarding surprise.

Warning.. Blue Skies Ahead!

Nikon D90 with 17 - 50mm f2.8 wide angle lens (shot at 1/1250 sec @ f2.8, ISO 100)

Post Processing: Another one of those images where I "tweaked" the vibrance ever so slightly in CameraRAW.

Believe it or not, this image is NOT a HDR although it does have a HDR look about it. It's from my last phototrip into Melbourne CBD. The blueness of the sky shows what a picture perfect day it was. In fact it was almost too sunny at times, as the buildings started casting nasty shadows. I took this shot while standing directly beneath the building, looking directly up (all while trying not breaking my back in my display of gymnastic ability). Funnily enough, this elegant building is a Optus mobile phone store on the ground floor, and for all this time thats all I have known it to be (until now of course).

Barely any post processing to speak of, other than to tweak the exposure and to set the vibrancy slightly higher.

Vintage Voyage

Nikon D90 with 17 - 50mm f2.8 wide angle lens (shot at 1/100 sec @ f2.8, ISO 100)

Post Processing: This image was actually cropped from a large image. All post processing was done in Camera Raw.

On a whim I decided to travel into Melbourne city on a beautiful winter's day. This was a non-tpical Melbourne winter, beautiful, sunny and picturesque. Anyone that knows Melbourne weather knows that "Temperamental" is putting it kindly.

I ventured into the New York end of the Central Business District (CBD) and managed to duck into and out of some amazing lane ways, some I had never known existed. I tweaked with this image for about 10 mins, something about it showed potential. I just couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. I cropped it from a large image that had "stuff" that just didn't interest me. Lately I've been going crazy with increasing the vibrancy of my photo's, but this time I decided to remove it all together, giving an overall "Vintage" feel. Yeah, I think thats what I wanted, a classic "Vintage" style shot

Life on the Edge

Nikon D90 with 17 - 50mm f2.8 wide angle lens (shot at 1/320 sec @ f2.8, ISO 100)

Post Processing: Just gave the vibrance a bit of a boost to add some extra “pop” to the image

I managed to stumble across this window as I was dawdling through the streets of South Melbourne. I looked up and there it was, I liked the way the window frame gives off an old world type rustic feel. How the flowers look so perfect that they seem artificial. How the blue sky just reflects off the glass of the windows as if they were a mirror. I didn’t notice at the time but as I was standing taking these shots, I had planted myself in the middle of the footpath causing myself to be an obstacle to all passers by. Until I noticed a lady passing by just give me a shy smile as if to say “I appreciate your passion, but your in my way!”

Oh How They Grow Up Fast!

Nikon D90 with 17 - 50mm f2.8 wide angle lens (shot at 1/800 sec @ f2.8, ISO 100)

Post Processing: This was shot on a very bright sunny day, so I had to correct the exposure through Camera RAW as well as a bit of contrast correction and vibrancy added.

It's hard to believe that our German Short Haired Pointer (Toby, pictured above) has been in our family for 1 year now. We got him when he was only 10 weeks old, and my wife got a taste of what it was to be a mother as she fed him, toilet trained him and comforted him when he felt scared or distressed (not that I didn't help) but she had a much closer bond at the time than I did. The difficulty in photographing both our dogs (Toby is our second, Dexter is our first), is that they are both black dogs, and often I take photo's on bright sunny days. This makes taking any decent photos almost impossible as the contrast between the bright sky and dark black dogs just don't make for an easy task. I often try to take the photo's in the shade or on overcast days (even still, it's hard to make out any distinguishing features).

The photo above was on one such outing to the park, where I took many action shots with both dogs running frantically chasing a ball, us or each other. In this case Toby is not yelling at an ant, but instead getting ready to catch a ball my wife has thrown to him. But it certainly does add a bit a of drama to the image.

The photo below was taken 1 year ago, just to show how he has grown in just 12 months!

Nikon D90 with 50mm f1.4 prime lens (shot at 1/60 sec @ f2.2, ISO 400)

Shrine of Remembrance

Nikon D90 with 17 - 50mm f2.8 wide angle lens (shot at 1/1600 sec @ f2.8, ISO 100)

Nikon D90 with 17 - 50mm f2.8 wide angle lens (shot at 1/1600 sec @ f2.8, ISO 100)

Post Processing: Nothing much at all in terms of post processing, just gave the colours a slight boost in CameraRaw to try to mach the bright vibrant day when this was taken.

Unfortunately another Aussie soldier has lost his life and as a tribute I have put up these pics of the shrine of remembrance in Melbourne. Ironically, it was a beautiful sunny "winter" day when I took this. To all those who have tragically lost their lives... Lest we forget.