Road

The Quiraing (in Gaelic: A' Chuith-Raing), Isle of Skye, Scotland.

• Edward Hopper.

| facebook | 500px | ferpectshotz |

After our hike of antelope canyon we decided to try our luck and head back to monument valley, to get one more sunset shot. I had this location in mind for sunset but we slightly under estimated the distance and only reached here after sunset. When we reached at the famous 13 mile marker, it was almost completely dark with only a bit of light remaining in the far western sky.

It’s really hard to make sunset shots when it’s dark all around but you still have to use ND grad filters. This was the best shot of the bunch and it was a bit of work to get the foreground to brighten up. Thank you for visiting hope you enjoy the picture..

sDSC07548-ed2

• Andy Warhol.

| facebook | 500px | ferpectshotz |

After a long time of all work and no play, we finally managed to get some time off from work and coupled with the thanksgiving day holidays had a decent enough time to plan another photo trip. This time like last year we chose the South West.

On the first day of our trip we basically drove straight to Sedona, AZ and to the Cathedral Rocks vista. We spend a lovely evening walking around the park and scouting locations for the evening shoot. As the sun started to go down we had amazing light hitting the rocks with some beautiful foreground interests all over the park.

This view particularly caught my interest with the beautiful rustic barn in the foreground with the cathedral rocks forming an interesting albeit distant background. I used my tele lens to compress the distance a bit and stitched three shots to get this image. I swear I will never get tired of the incredible red of the rocks set against the beautiful blue skies.

Thanks for visiting more pics to follow..

sDSC07548-ed5

Saint Mary Lake, Glacier National Park, Montana, USA (_7050556) OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

E' una strada alberata (nei pressi di Bregagh Road, sulla strada secondaria per Armoy) voluta dalla famiglia Stuart che nel 1750 fece piantare gli alberi con l'intento di creare uno spettacolare viale alberato all'ingresso della loro tenuta. Gli alberi di faggio si sono naturalmente incurvati verso l'interno creando uno straordinario tunnel di alberi e rami quasi a non vederne la fine...non sorprende il fatto che sia stato teatro di alcune scene di alcuni famosi film, non per ultimo Games of Thrones. Durante il giorno e al tramonto è impossibile scattare una qualche foto senza passanti o turisti (periodo estivo almeno) per cui l'unica possibilità era sfruttare l'alba....che offre spettacolari giochi di luci e ombre e colori.

Åndalsnes, Norway

E' una strada alberata (nei pressi di Bregagh Road, sulla strada secondaria per Armoy) voluta dalla famiglia Stuart che nel 1750 fece piantare gli alberi con l'intento di creare uno spettacolare viale alberato all'ingresso della loro tenuta. Gli alberi di faggio si sono naturalmente incurvati verso l'interno creando uno straordinario tunnel di alberi e rami quasi a non vederne la fine...non sorprende il fatto che sia stato teatro di alcune scene di alcuni famosi film, non per ultimo Games of Thrones. Durante il giorno e al tramonto è impossibile scattare una qualche foto senza passanti o turisti (periodo estivo almeno) per cui l'unica possibilità era sfruttare l'alba....che offre spettacolari giochi di luci e ombre e colori.

sDSC07026-ed2

Small old bridge just meters away from the Gluggafoss waterfall

After leaving Valley of Fire SP, the sky suddenly turned into these magnificent colors. I had to photograph this, though it would have been nice to have some slightly more interesting foreground. I also photographed the view at 180°, which I will post here later.

[#45 on explore 20/4/17]

Royal Border Bridge spans the River Tweed between Berwick-upon-Tweed and Tweedmouth in Northumberland, England.

SCOTLAND 2014 - Skye

Helloooo. It’s been a long time. I’ve just returned from a 16 day trip to Scotland. And yes I’ve taken lots of photos with which I’m gonna bore you over the next time ;-) ok hopefully it won’t be boring but it will be quite a few shots from Scotland I’ll post here.

First of all, hell it’s so true what’s told about the scottish weather. So unpredictable. In 16 days I had 5 decent sunsets and only 2 sunrises. Else it was rain or fog in the morning and a downpour in the evening. Not what I had imagined. I knew the weather would be rough but the timing couldn’t have been worse. Damn but I like to shoot sunsets and sunrises, the weather just didn’t let me.

Besides we did have quite fine weather, during day there’s usually rain followed by sun followed by rain and so on which creates sweet light and the possibility to shoot even on midday. A thing which I normally don’t do. But with those dramatic landscapes around, Scotland really provides for a landscape photographer. So even if I didn’t get all the shots I had planned for I’m quite satisfied with the result of the trip.

The first photo I’m showing here is a very special one for me. It was the first decent sunrise during the whole trip. I was in Scotland for 10 days then and quite frustrated because every time the alarm clock ringed at 4am I looked out of the window and saw rain and grey featureless skies. I checked again every hour but usually no change. We had been in the Trossachs 1 day, 3 days Glencoe and now already 6 days on Skye but I hadn’t taken one sunrise shot with which I was totally happy. This unnerved me quite a bit. The first morning in the Trossachs I was out shooting sunrise but it wasn’t the dramatic light and the colors I like. Maybe I’m a bit spoiled ;-) On the morning I took this photo again I woke up to be greeted by rain but it was only one more day left on Skye, so now or never. If I’m not gonna get the Old Man of Storr I’ll at least try the Quiraing and hope for a little clearing in the east to let the light through.

During the 30 Minutes drive north I went past the Storr where again thick clouds were hanging as low as the Old Man, a sight I was quite used to by now. But beyond further north the sky cleared up and I became very excited. I might get a good photo this morning. I parked the car and started shooting, first facing east and then I walked to the more classic viewpoints. The Quiraing is a place where it’s very hard to get a unique photo. I think nearly every comp was done before but I so wanted to shoot this place and damn I don’t care if this view isn’t a special comp nobody has ever come up with. It’s just beautiful light which only for about 1 minute painted the clouds in the south with those nice colors. A fleeting moment but I had the shot and then went on exploring some other comps. What made this moment even more satisfying was that I was the only photographer there and had the whole place for myself. This is not so usual in Scotland and especially not at such iconic views. So that’s the positive effect of the bad weather ?

Details: Hoya HD Polarizer, Lee 0.6 hard GND

cheers

sDSC07019-ed2

Une atmosphere magique , les fées y sont surement pour quelque chose ...

This is a fantastic place. It felt so unreal driving along that lane with those huge trees lining the street on both sides. It also wasn't easy to get a photo without cars in it. Not that there are many cars on that road. But the few who drive along, usually park on the lane for a couple of minutes to enjoy the scenery. So it wasn't often we had the dark hedges for ourselfes.

Some focus stacking was needed to get a god dof. I left the nearest part out of focus though to get some framing. In postprocessing I first focused on bw conversion, then on contrast and in the end I took out some details by controlled blurring of highlights and some orton effect.

hope you like it!

cheers

my start2finish postprocessing tutorial can be found here: mibreit-photo.com/blog/?p=963

If you like to buy a print please visit my wall art shop www.pixael.com/en/shop. This is a free picture released under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic. Feel free to use and share this picture but please give me credit linking my website or my Flickr account. More info about me on www.pixael.com. If you like my pictures please like my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/giuseppemilophoto) or follow me on Twitter (twitter.com/pixael_com) and Instagram (instagram.com/pixael). Thanks!

Il passo dello Stelvio è il valico automobilistico più alto d'Italia. Avevo una gran voglia di fare uno scatto con innumerevoli curve da eseguirsi in notturna o quasi.

This was the first time I visited Valley of Fire SP and had little idea what to expect. In the late afternoon all the pastel shades looked wonderful under the low December sun. I probably need to return here and find some more detailed spots for golden hour photography. This is the view called Rainbow Vista.

sDSC07568-ed3

Glacier NP, Montana, USA, _8281313OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Trollstigen More og Romsdal, Norway

This must be one of the most beautiful drives in the world! With eleven hairpin bends and narrow sections, it was definitely not the most relaxing. However, when surrounded by such magnificent scenery, there is certainly no sense in rushing! It was a challenge to keep my eyes on the road ahead and not allowing myself to get too distracted by all the sights!

Thankfully, we had the opportunity to visit this location twice. The first time around, the whole scene was covered in low hanging clouds and rain. I could hardly see 100 meters in front of me. Photographing it would have been impossible. We were rewarded the next day with blue skies and puffy white clouds. The valley was cleared of any fog and visibility was fantastic.

Always thinking of new perspective for such an iconic location, I decided to hike up to a higher vantage point and capture a bird's eye panorama from above. Viewers are also able to follow the twisting roads all the way to the valley floor. The cars on the road provide a sense of scale. Stitching such a wide angle panorama became quite a challenge, especially on my laptop which certainly struggled to process the 62 megapixel image. I had to make several attempts to get Photoshop to work the way I wanted and I am finally pleased with the results. Hopefully, you will agree that my patience pays off!

10 exposure panorama, stitched and edited in Photoshop.

/ Pigeon Point Lighthouse, Northern California

Thank you in advance for stopping by and viewing!

Press "L" followed by F11 to view as intended....sDSC08777-ed2

• Warren Christopher.

| facebook | 500px | tumblr |

This was one of my toughest shots in a long time. I used a Lee 3 stop ND grad to balance the exposure and other that no other gadgets were used for this capture. We reached Big Sur around noon and the plan was to drive all the way down to Hearst Castle with family who were visiting and come back. Unfortunately CA Route 1 was closed that day just after Pfeiffer State Park due to a 6500lbs rock sitting right on the road. The plan was abandoned and we drove all the way back to Carmel by the Sea and had lunch and said farewell as our relatives took Rte. 101S on their trip to LA. We decided to salvage what’s left of the day and get some snaps of the Bixby Bridge, another icon of Big Sur Coastline.

I had this shot in mind since I last visited the place and the sun had already gone down but the sky was lit up in beautiful red hues and the clouds were absolutely perfect for a sunset shot. The only thing missing were some break lights and unfortunately due to the road closing there not much traffic. So my wife decided to drive our little Mazda over the bridge and I ended up with this great shot. While she came back from the ride I realized to my horror that the little case I use to hold all my very expensive lee filters were left on the hood of the car. I couldn’t believe how lucky we were no to drop them. I know I would be crying myself to sleep if I had lost them.

Hope you all enjoy the picture and have a Great New Years..

• Oscar Wilde.

| facebook | 500px | ferpectshotz |

One of the shots I had in mind during our trip to San Francisco was this shot of the Bay Bridge from Treasure Island. I have seen pics from this location before and in my mind, this was taken from a viewpoint right off of a highway. So, I planned an evening shot from the viewpoint with the view of San Francisco skyline and thought of this location after sunset.

Once we reached the spot, I realized how hard this shot is gonna be. This Spot is on the edge of a narrow two-lane street just before the highway entrance. And to make it more difficult, there is a fence that has quite small links and it was ruining my shots with the 24-70mm. Also, cars whizzing past you at night while you were taking shots didn’t allow time to think. Thankfully I checked the live view screen and noticed that I was shooting at 50mm anyway and had a 50mm f1.8 prime in my bag, so I ran to my car and quickly changed lens and got back taking the shot at f1.8 aperture. The razor-thin DoF didn’t work for a landscape shot so I had to manually adjust focus and this image here is a composite of about 4-5 images stacked for deeper depth of field. I later remembered that the D850 had autofocus stacking feature, but I didn’t know how to set it up at that time. Hopefully next time.

• Saint Mary Lake is the second-largest lake in Glacier National Park, in the U.S. state of Montana.

Located on the east side of the park, Going-to-the-Sun Road parallels the lake along its north shore. At an altitude of 4,484 feet (1,367 m), Saint Mary Lake's waters are colder and lie almost 1,500 feet (460 m) higher in altitude than Lake McDonald, the largest lake in the park, which is located on the west side of the Continental Divide. Here, the great plains end and the Rocky Mountains begin in an abrupt 5,000-foot (1,500 m) altitude change, with Little Chief Mountain posing a formidable southern flank above the west end of the lake.

The lake is 9.9 miles (15.9 km) long and 300 feet (91 m) deep with a surface area of 3,923 acres (15.88 km2). The waters of the lake rarely rise above 50 °F (10 °C) and are home to various species of trout. During the winter, the lake is often completely frozen over with ice up to 4 feet (1.2 m) thick.

The opening scene in the 1980 Stanley Kubrick film The Shining was shot at Saint Mary Lake.

Wild Goose Island rises a mere 14 feet (4.3 m) above the lake. The island is dwarfed by the lake and surrounding mountains, yet it is of one of the most frequently photographed locations along the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Italy

Thank you for your comments and faves!!

La Trollstigen o Escalera de los Trolls es una carretera de montaña que tiene once curvas de 180º.

... this is the view of Hobart from the peak of Kunanyi (Mount Wellington), high above the island's capital.

2-picture panorama made with Hugin

Kunanyi (Mount Wellington) pano, overlooking the city of Hobart, Tasmania.

This must have been one of the most spectacular sunsets I have ever witnessed. This view is the 180° opposite of my previous upload. Again, the foreground is not particularly exciting but the blazing sky took my breath away!

This is a stitch of 3 horizontal photos.

Previous upload: www.flickr.com/photos/adelheids-pictures/34138844495

The first photo in the set illustrates nicely the Maori name of the New Zealand - "The land of the long white clouds" which I had seen almost every day in the sky. Maori were good observers...