The Power of Peace

This photo borders on illustration. It is a merge of two different HDR interpretations of the same three photographs. I used one interpretation to make the human form of the sculpture "glow". The second interpretation I used for everything else in the frame to even out the tones in the bright sun and add some "richness". I then combined the two images using layer masks in CS2. Last, I did some serious perspective adjustment to straighten it all out. I really should have taken the photos with the 24mm Tilt/Shift lens that I don't have :) And very last, you rarely ever see this sculpture looking anything like this anyway...I felt like I waited forEVER for the pigeons to get off of his head! I've heard, but can't confirm that this is some sort of "peace" sculpture (hence the title).

Sculpture on Liberation Square (Trg Oslobodenja)
Along Ferhadija - Sarajevo



Saborna Crkva, Largest Orthodox Church in Sarajevo in the Background

Another One

Suleimania Mosque aka "Colored Mosque" Travnik, Bosnia

So What Do You Actually Do...

with 4165 photos? (as of today). I mean really, how many will ever really be printed or even seen (by someone other than me)...for that matter most probably aren't worth seeing. And that is basically just one years worth, I hate to guess how many slides and regular photos I have that we've taken over the past 20+ years. Here goes a few more:

"Texture on Blue" Travnik, Bosnia

Rapunzel

I think this plant will eventually "let her hair down" in the form of seeds...








Castle
Above
Travnik,
Bosnia

Lions - Why are They Always Sad ?

The Lion in the Wizard of OZ... (sorry, no photo)

The Lion in the cemetery by Koševo Hospital here in Sarajevo



The Lion of Lucerne, Switzerland. (From my archives:)

More Cemetery Photos

The first photo is one I promised earlier. A Muslim "new" cemetery from the mid-90's siege of Sarajevo. All the obelisks neatly in rows, with dates primarily from '92-95. In some cases, what are entire families, three generations worth right in a neat row. I'm really not sure where to "go" with this photo, but in this iteration, I "blew out" the white on one side of the obelisk to empathize the angles. To see the details in the marble on the side of the obelisk facing the camera, you need to click and view the larger iimage.



This second one is from Veliki Park, and literally right outside our door. It is an HDR image, but again I've purposely blown the whites of the obelisk gravestones from the war in the background. Compositionally, my idea is to draw the eye from the old to the new...



This is a different angle, time of day etc. but many of the same gravestones as this earlier photo.

Springtime = Flowers

so here's a flower photo, one of the pansies on our patio.

Night Time HDR - City Living

Reading Sean Duggan's recent blog entries on night time HDR in Las Vegas prompted me to mess around a bit on my own. Last night I took shots of the "eternal flame" and the National Bank Building. I didn't realize at the time how much I would have to compensate for the vast difference between the bright light of the flame and the lights the bank sculptures hold respectively, so I'm not real keen on my results. Photos like these are beyond the capabilities of the camera's generally very good evaluative metering I'll try again soon. In the meantime, I decided to make sure I understand, and get it right next time. So I took shots off our balcony in "front" and out the "suicide door to nowhere" in "back". Here are the results. The "front" photo is a combo of 7 shots, the "back" is a combo of 9 shots. The "back" shot especially, combines some of my favorite things, HDR, night photography and mixed temperature lighting. I may have to try this at night in Veliki Park to add gravestones to the mix!

FRONT


BACK

Black and White

I always liked black and white darkroom work. I think it is an art in and of itself, in many ways separate from photography. I never really liked color darkroom work. It was too much like work to get the color balance correct. Photoshop sort of gives me the feeling in color that darkroom gave me for black and white. But I've not really done much in Photoshop with black and white...I miss the magic and aura of putting that piece of paper in various liquids and watching a photograph magically appear...and then get to see if my dodging and burning and whatever other voodoo I tried actually gave me the effect I was aiming for. Photoshop results are more immediate with easy and fast "retries". All this leads me to...someone had suggested one of my gravestone photos would look nice in black and white. I really think the photo he referred to looks better in color. It got me to thinking though, I and thought this one



looks pretty good in black and white.

Abandoned

...in a bed of flowers.