Playing with light
Now and then, I like playing around with old photos, mainly with Adobe Lightroom (not a Photoshop fan, me) and with NIK filters. What do you think? Are you rather a SOOC -Straight Out Of the Camera- fan?
The Sagrada Familia church seems so close to the beach… Well it isn’t, it is well inland.
Planet Poblenou
You too can create your own planet! This is la planeta del Poblenou, complete with Hilton hotel and a beach!
Old dog…
… but still learning new tricks.
I mean on Adobe Lightroom, not the one with the 4 balls and the sardines… Don’t ask.
Photo taken on a Barcelona-bound ferry.
And don’t forget on sunday the City Daily Photo theme day, all about aging.
And for once, here is the original shot:
Paintings with my camera
A little publicity today, for myself. I recently started this project/website, taking some of my photos, and transforming them into paintings, using mainly Adobe Lightroom, and several plug-ins. Want to see more? It’s right here!
BTW, this is the W hotel, facing the Desigual HQ.
Sailing away… Rule of thirds
Fed up with Barcelona? Easy: just take a ferry to Italy, Africa, the balearic islands (Ibiza…)… Many nice places out there! In 24 hours, after cruising the Med, you can be in, for example, Livorno. Nice place. 20 km further (by land), you could have a pizza in Pisa, just next to the leaning tower. And I swear: you cannot beat an italian pizza!!!!! Buonissime pizze italiane!!!
Peix
The whale, this is what we call this big structure on the seafront in Barcelona.
No, wait… According to Frank Gehry who built it for the 92 Olympics, it is actually a giant goldfish. Ok with this, it is red indeed, made of copper and steal.
About the style of this photo ((no, I did not paint. Although, I did…), more about it on my brand new website, the painting camera, merging photography and painting. Feel free to browse.And who knows, you might want to buy a picture…
El bar rojo
A 5 years old Jpeg photo, from a non-DSLR, 3 MP camera. The so-called red bar, just behind the city hall. Nothing that a few tweakings can’t save from Jpeg hell, with the help of Saint Lightroom and Saint Photoshop, alleluia!
Dreamy
A rather dreamy view of the Port Vell, with the Maremagnum shopping center in the background.
Shooting into the sun
I love shooting into the sun! The results can be quite unexpected. This was around 9PM, sun going down. The photo is as I took it, just downsized to fit this window.
Details
One of my great pleasures is to walk around town, in places I’ve been soooo often, and discover new details. And also to imagine how the photo could like after a bit of reworking. Here the original photo.
Weekend reflection
Once again, I’ve been playing around with a good half a dozen programs, to rearrange a bit this old photo. Quite happy about the result.
Some more weekend reflections here.
Playing
Been playing around with Picasa and other programs. This is what came out, after a few minutes fiddling.
Not Barcelona neither…
…but Richmond-upon-Thames, near London. It is amazing to be able to find places like this just minutes away from the big city buzz.
I was standing far behind you…
…but I had my long zoom with me…
News. According to ‘Forbes’ magazine, Barcelona is the happiest city in Europe, and the 3rd happiest city in the world, after Rio de Janeiro and Sydney…… Aren’t you happy wherever you live?
Playing around
A combination of several programs, HDR, little planet and so on. This was originally a view of the old port, or Port Vell
HDR photography
I have been meddling with HDR for a while now, even though I really don’t have the time to really learn it, read the books or websites. So basically, I am learning it the hit and miss way. Here is a detail of a church in the old town. Hit or miss?
Pigeons
Been learning a lot lately about High Definition Range photography, aka HDR and ARW. Just playing around really for the moment. Anyway, pigeons on Plaza de Catalunya.
Working
We forget easily that Barcelona is still a working fishing port. Here is one of the rare remaining working boats.
Plaza de España
A monochrome view over Montjuic, the fairgrounds, the 2 venitian towers and the Olympic Torch, for Dragonstar’s Weekend in Black and White.
Watery Wednesday
Couple of simple things you can do with your photos. For this, I used a small but nice program called Artizen. It is a HDR program, but you can use it for tonemapping single photos as well.
Watery Wednesday, right here.
Black and White Weekend Reflections
Some university buildings in the Raval. James’s weekly Weekend Reflections meme is right here! And Dragonstar’s Weekend in Black and White, here.
The circus, part 3
Our World on Tuesday, of course!
Swans
Let’s get out of Barcelona, even Spain, for a bit. Some swans in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland, some time ago.
SOOC versus HDR
A few more trade secrets… Above, a photo processed with Artizen, a High Dynamic Range program.
In image processing, computer graphics, and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than current standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wide dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight, and is often captured by way of a plurality of differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter.
The two main sources of HDR imagery are computer renderings and merging of multiple low-dynamic-range (LDR) or standard-dynamic-range (SDR) photographs. Tone-mapping techniques, which reduce overall contrast to facilitate display of HDR images on devices with lower dynamic range, can be applied to produce images with preserved or exaggerated local contrast for artistic effect.
Sounds complicated, but it isn’t really. Basically, it allows you to recreate on your photos what you’ve really seen. Up to a certain point, of course.
There are many places where you can learn more about it, for example here. If you want to start doing it, I would suggest a little free program called EasyHDR. Or Photomatix.
And you can find many fantastic examples right here.
Below, the original SOOC, or Straight Out Of the Camera picture.
Caixaforum
I am stuck at home for a while, so here is one more archive photo, the entrance of the Caixaforum museum of modern art.
This is for Dragonstar’s Weekend in Black and White.
Painting…
As you all notices, I like experimenting (well ok: playing around) with my photos. The result is never really what I expected, sometimes good, sometimes better, sometimes not good, sometimes really bad. But then, sometimes, photography can be like painting… with a little sun glare on my lense.
Playing around
Been playing around lately with a panorama maker program. Here is something I did yesterday afternoon on the Rambla, 5 photos put together, 18.5 MB… Click on the picture to see it bigger, it is really worth it!
Cosmocaixa
We had some fun at the Cosmocaixa yesterday afternoon, Barcelona’s science museum. An amazing place, where you can actually touch things and experiment, and with it’s own sunken indoor jungle. More about it in the next days. The photo above was reworked with a touch of magic, you can see the original below. A few more HDR photos on my other, more experimental blog, right here.
Barcelona Daily Photo 
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