Category: Photography

Ward’s Pics Get Social

While my site on my photography, Ward’s Pics, is already connected to Facebook I have decided to also do it in the reverse: connect Facebook to my web-site. If you go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wards-Pics/132727556787339 you can now show me you heart me by clicking on the “Like” button, all from the cozy comfort that we call home Facebook.

If you click on the tab labeled “Portfolio” all my pictures are viewable from within Facebook.  At this point functionality is limited, but I am hoping that this will continue to evolve over time.  Also note that I intend to post updates about my galleries to this Facebook page rather to my personal Facebook page, so by clicking “Like” you will guarantee to see these updates show up in your Facebook feed.

Dubai

My first encounter with Dubai came at night stepping off a flight on Tuesday from Athens, Greece.  I, a bit weary and hyped on adrenaline, stepped out and into the last leg of a three-week odyssey; an odyssey that began over dinner-drinks with friends so many years ago.  An odyssey that found its final leg back in March of this year when the query, “So, when are you going to visit me?”, was asked.  An odyssey better measured in years and layered upon layered of growth and introspection than in miles or in weeks.  I came to knock on a door.  I came to close a door.  I came to open a new door.  I came carrying many things with me, many of which already I have left on the wayside.

Dubai is a city that defies what I suspect is many of my fellow Americans’ perceptions of the Middle East.  It is a clean, well-organized, friendly and truly culturally diverse city that defies all of the conventions and stereo-types that an ignorant person such as myself might have wished to heap upon it.  It is as American as apple pie, maybe even more so.  I appreciate it is only a day in the city, but I have encountered more genuine smiles than I can recollect in a long time.  The kind of smiles that begin with the eyes, circumnavigate the face down through the lips and back to the eyes.  The kind of smiles that leave marks on the eyes indicating: I am here now with you; happy.  I am excited to see what the next three days will bring me; I may already be developing a sense of sadness that I will leave come Sunday morning.

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Athens

I arrived in Athens Saturday evening after an uneventful journey by various trains and an airplane from Firenze.  Again, I found it surprising that there was no customs to greet me; however, I suspect that since I was arriving from Italy, another member of the European Union, that such issues were of no consideration for our flight.  Getting from the airport to the hotel was as easy as taking the metro to Monastiraki station and walking a few blocks up to my hotel.

The next morning I was up, like all good travelers, to get out and see the city.  Good for Greece but bad for me is the fact that they are in the middle of elections; consequently, all national sites were closed on Sunday.  In some ways this worked out for the best as it provided me a reason to just walk the city and see some of the sites that I may not have seen otherwise.  Some 15 kilometers later I had walked a goodly portion of the neighborhoods, parks and even national cemetery.  I ended my walk at Lycabettus Hill which overlooks all of Athens where I stopped to take in the view and enjoy some Greek coffee.

Today I again awoke early, but this time all the national sites are open to visitors.  Yeah!  But because so many people could not see them yesterday they are all visiting them today.  Boo!  Frankly, there are so few tourists that it is really quite nice since you have much of the place to yourself.  It is certainly warm enough to not require a jacket even if I do see people walking around in winter coats; I suspect this a difference between people acclimated to warmer climes and people like myself who are not.

Athens in some very ways reminds me of Napoli.  There is a lot of graffiti nearly everywhere you look; however, I did find nooks and grannies of neighborhoods that did not show any evidence of tagging.  Unlike Napoli and Italy in general, people smile while out and about; this I find a pleasant change.  In the evenings when people are out and about at cafes is when the city really comes alive.  Every cafe and every restaurant is as much outdoors as it is indoors.  At times it is hard to discern where one restaurant begins and ends given that all the tables and chairs just flow together into a long river of linens and silverware.  My only regret is not being able to see the rest of Greece.

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Siena

Today I visited Siena (not Sienna) which is situated halfway between Firenze and Roma.  It is medieval town which includes more than few dozen churches strewn throughout its meandering hilly streets.  I am thankful for the calves Seattle has given me as I really needed them today to roam around the town.  I arrived a little before noon and soon discovered to my delight that it is already preparing for the Christmas season with the hanging of lights throughout the streets; sadly I was only there during the day so I missed actually seeing them lit.  There is apparently a university located in the town which I stumbled upon as I at first through the buildings were a part of the church I was exploring.  It is sometimes difficult for this American to comprehend being able to work and live in such history; I am very envious of the students.

Given that today was extremely overcast and a bit chilly I decided to spend a disproportionate amount of my time indoors.  I stumbled upon Duomo di Siena (Cathedral of Siena) in my meanderings whereupon I purchased a ticket to visit the museum, crypt, cathedral, and climb up some very steep and narrow rounding stairs to get a panoramic view of the town.  What excited me about the cathedral is that they allow photographs, albeit without use of flash or tripod.  I had hoped to take some long exposure photographs; however, given this was not an option I instead opted to rely on HDRI which I just started using yesterday in Firenze.  While I think long exposures are preferable in these situations, nevertheless HDR allows me to grab photographs that would otherwise require a tripod or a god-like steady-hand which I am not blessed with.

Siena is Firenze toned down in terms of tourism.  It very much reminded me of Cambridge, England when I visited three years ago right before Christmas.  People are out and about, chatting, window-shopping and generally doing the things that people do that live in a city.  Certainly the city caters to tourists and frankly does a very admirable job of doing so at a very reasonable price in terms of tickets and audio-guides.  For people looking to explore Roma and Tuscany then I highly suspect Siena is just about the perfect size and location for a vacation geared at taking it slower and yet affording itself the opportunity to drink in all that Roma, Siena, Firenze and Tuscany has to offer.

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Firenze vis-à-vis HDR

After what amounted to a rather dull day for photographs yesterday, I headed back out in Firenze in hopes of getting some pictures that better captured both the color of the buildings and the nature of the Tuscan light.  To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with the results from yesterday.  Simply put, the photographs did not capture the intensity of light and shadow that I recalled seeing with my own eye.  Some of this can be attributed to my own lack of ability with a camera; however, some of the blame rests squarely on the camera itself.

Basically a camera, any camera, is never as good as the human eye.  The ability to capture the same level of sensitivity is referred to as dynamic range.  Most cameras do a good job when the intensity of light is fairly similar throughout the area of the image; however, issues arise when we have lots of shadows and bright spots.  At present, to compensate for a cameras inability to mimic the human eye there are various techniques available.  One of these techniques is referred to as high dynamic range imaging (HDR or HDRI).  This is accomplished by basically taking 3 or 5 images of the exactly the same subject but under different speeds while maintaining the same aperture.  Doing this obtains a set of images that accurately portray the subject at different light intensities.  Software such at HDRsoft’s PhotoMatix then combines the images into a composite image.

I appreciate that HDR(I) can and is abused by any number of people.  And I will be, as of this post, including myself amongst this not so elite group of persons.  In many instances I have subdued the amount of processing to keep more in-line with a single-shot image.  In other instances I have intentionally amped things out to help highlight colors and provide emphasis to portions of the image.  And like anything termed “art”, there will be people who like the results and those who do not.  Regardless, at the end of the day there is really nothing special to HDR other than an extra step (or two) to the post-processing of images.  That all said, I do feel that some of the images I took today better capture the beauty and wonder that is Firenze.

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