Bonus - Messing with Perspective

This one was tilted because I was shooting up and from the left. I corrected the tilt in Photoshop, but I'm not really sure it works. It somehow looks wrong to me.

Goat-Head Man

I wonder if the Rolling Stones saw this one?

Twins? or at Least Sisters

Stone People from the Austrian Times

One of the neat things about Sarajevo and other cities where "east meets west" is that the culture in the form of architecture can make for some neat mixes. In this region, after the Ottoman-Turk Empire faded, the Austro-Hungarian Empire dominated until just after the turn of the previous century (remember World War I started here:). It shows in the buildings, the faces, creatures and just plain fancy designs that peer down on you as you walk the city streets. One Saturday a couple months ago, I started a project to take photos of the various things I see on buildings. Eventually, I plan to do a whole portfolio, in the meantime, here are three (well, five since two of the photos have two faces each) of the people that watch over us here in Sarajevo.

more of the graveyard

A couple more photos of the headstones in Veliki Park, Sarajevo taken in the fog at night.

The first one had three different light sources, all at different "temperatures" or colors. This made it fun to play with in Photoshop changing the hue, the saturation, adding a curves layer, using gradient masks etc. Most people would consider the result shown here as significantly different from the original out of the camera.

The second photo, with the silhouettes, was more straight forward; a temperature change, minor curves and some sharpening.

Novo Stari Most - Mostar, Herzegovina

We went to Mostar for a day trip Wednesday. Mostar is famous for the bridge...the "Stari Most" Old Bridge. But the bridge was destroyed during the war, now it is the "New Old Bridge" and the only UNESCO "World Heritage Site" in all of BiH.

The "old town", the Muslim portion of which is on the left, isn't so old anymore either.

Source of the River Buna - Blagaj, Herzegovinia

Not too far from Mostar...just like the source of the Bosna is just outside of Sarajevo. I think this one is a lot more water though. If I remember correctly, I read that 43,000 liters per second were coming out of the cave at the bottom of that cliff.

Blast From the Recent Past - Volcan Pacaya

Fired up my printers and scanners today, the first time since the big move. The Epson C80 printer isn't real happy, I must have cleaned the nozzles a dozen times, but it should be good enough to print letters, homework and such. The Canon i960 photo printer, which we use primarily for photos, seemed to work fine on the first try. Then I fired up the scanner, the Konica-Minolta DiMage Elite-5400. It made horrible grinding noises and wouldn't load the slide or the negative carrier. This has been a problem before, but it is now way out of warranty and Konica-Minolta is out of the camera and scanner business. I took it apart and could see nothing obvious wrong. Then I did a heap of research on the internet to see if I could find any reference to someone fixing this problem themselves. It was no trouble finding reference to the problem, but besides those who sent it back under warranty, solutions were so rare as to be non-existent. As I was giving up hope, I found an old forum posting and discussion, and tagged on at the end, relatively recently (Sept 06) the original poster with the problem came back to say that pressing control,shift and "i" as the scanning software loaded solves the problem. I was skeptical, since the grinding gears etc all seem to be clearly hardware problems...but try it I did...and shazaam! it cleared up the problem. Above is one of the slides I had loaded in the scanner. It is also my first scan using Photoshop CS2 vice the merely the scanner software and a little bit of Elements 2.0

Catching Up - Source of the River Bosna

As I get more comfortable with Photoshop and remember what I learned in August, I'm starting to go back over the photo's I've taken in the past 8 months or so. Above are a couple I played with today of the source of the river Bosna, just outside of Sarajevo. It is pretty neat to see a river basically coming right out of the side of a big hill. The moss was all very green, yet the leaves were for the most part off of the trees and finished with their color. Again, feel free to click on the photos to see a larger version.

Sarajevo Castle

Taken a few weeks back. As we came into the city, the sun was shining on the castle and rock faces with the ominous clouds in the background. Photoshop work centered on emphasizing that. This definitely looks best if you click on the photo to view it large.

Ghosts in the Graveyard

The city has been closed in by fog for the past few days. Flights have been canceled for 3 days running. But the fog is pretty cool, especially at night under the lights that the camera sees much different than the human eye. This was taken on the nightly dog walk, about 1/2 hour ago. Minimal manipulation in photoshop...cropping, selective sharpening and some curves/contrast adjustment. The colors are what the camera sees.

For the geeks among us, it was a 13 second exposure, ISO 200, 70mm (70-200 2.8L IS lens), an exposure compensation of -2/3 stop (inadvertent), shot and processed as raw.

Another HDR -Roman Ruins, Salona Croatia

This is a different type of HDR. A lot of photographers don't like the "cartoonish nature" of this type of HDR translation. Other people like the "painting" look it can give a photography. For the right subject, I think it can be appropriate (not saying this is the right subject though :) This is a combination of 5 exposures again.

Messing around with HDR

Messing around with Photoshop CS2's HDR function. I took a lot of photographs with HDR in mind since the workshop in August. This one is a composite of 5 exposures along with some layer masks, curves adjustments etc.

It Snowed !

they aren't masterpieces...
I snapped them on my morning walk to work.
But it was a crisp cold morning with a blue sky and...
white stuff on the ground and all around!

Santa Fe National Cemetery

This shot is with a "lensbaby", the blur is point of the lens. Photoshop work revolved around contrast on the gravestone and color/saturation for the tree and the crab apples.

Sculpture Garden - Santa Fe, New Mexico

This is a 30 second night shot using a tripod. Most of the sculptures moved in the wind. Photoshop work was primarily color balance and exposure tweaking.

Abandon Jail - Outside of Santa Fe

This is another one from the jail. Saw this door with the peeling paint, rust etc and the light hitting it from the side. Photoshop work was primarily moving the color more toward red (blood?), more contrast on the hand print, and some cropping to make the photo a little more abstract.

Abandon Jail - Outside of Santa Fe

This is where they filmed the latest iteration of "The Longest Yard".
I looked up and saw this "chimney" in the real part of the jail, not the set.
Photoshop work was a combination of multiple raw files, shot using a tripod at different exposures to get the windows and the walls to show up. Not true "HDR" but a useful technique when the range from light to dark is so extensive.

Tent Rocks - New Mexico

A very interesting landscape. Photoshop work was pretty much limited to making some portions slightly lighter, others darker, some sharpening and contrast/curves working from a "raw" file.

Photos from a workshop

I spent a week at the beginning of August at a photography workshop
in Santa Fe..."Real World Digital Photography". It was a lot of
fun, I learned heaps about Photoshop and photography. Here are
a number of the photos I took and worked on in Photoshop during
the week. Santa Fe Workshops can be found at:
santafeworkshops.com
The instructor, Sean Duggan has two web sites, his blog:
www.f1point4.com/f1point4/
and his main web page:
seanduggan.com
If you ever have the time and the money, like photography,
I highly recommend both the Sante Fe Workshops, and Sean's
classes (he also does workshops and classes at other locations.)

The Croatian Coast

The weather and and views were incredible. As a friend would say
"I could live here".

Mud Volcanos

Here's some mud volcanos...outside of Baku, Azerbaijan. They aren't hot, you can walk right up to them.

I'm back

still waiting on my computer etc. I have heaps of photos though

And a 3rd, El Paraiso Hot Springs Waterfall, Water is about 110 degrees F

Here's another one, from an airshow

During one of the processions, Notice the dad on a cell phone, the little boy wondering what is going on

A photo - to prove I'm still here

It has been a long long time, so here is something
from my new camera. A photo from Good Friday in
Antigua, Guatemala.