POTD: Bridges over the Vlatava
The Charles Bridge at the centre of numerous other crossings of the Vlatava river in Prague.
POTD: Vysehrad Angel
A statue of an angel at Vysehrad in Prague.
POTD: Prague New Town Hall Pigeons
Pigeons roost on the windowsill of Prague’s New Town Hall.
POTD: Czech National Museum
The lavish interior of the National Museum in Prague.
POTD: Old Town Square from Above
Crowds gather hourly below the old town hall to watch the Astronomical Clock and its automatons chime the time.
POTD: Terrifying Baby Sculptures!
Agh! Kill it! Kill it!
These metal monsters appear outside of the Prague’s Museum Kampa, a modern art gallery on the banks of the Vlatava River.
The sculptures are the work of David Černý, a Czech sculptor whose giant, soul-consuming babies also climb the exterior of the Žižkov Television Tower in Prague. I didn’t see the TV Tower up close, but I imagine it’s harrowing to watch a massive tower being consumed by these evil creatures.
POTD: Strahov Monastery Theological Hall
This is the magnificent Theological Hall at the Strahov Monatery in Prague. It’s one of two library hall sin the monastery, but, unfortunately for me, the larger of the two, the Philosophical Hall, was under restoration during my visit and it’s shelves were obscured by scaffolding.
The Theological Hall was still worth the trip. The precious tomes lining the walls and displayed on lecterns, the ancient-looking globes and the ornate ceiling fill the room with wonder.
I love libraries and it would be a dream come true to have a proper library as a room in my home. I won’t be so bold as to realistically hope of having a room this grand, but if I ever had more money than I could hope to spend, I might give this photo and a good collection of stories (some Borges, some Eco) to an architect and see what he or she could do.
POTD: Knights of the Cross Square
As mentioned in yesterday’s post, one of the possible activities to engage in while in Prague is stair climbing. The effort is always rewarded as in this case where I climbed the steps of the Old Town Bridge Tower at dusk to be granted this view of Knights of the Cross Square.
up on those ramparts, this photo depicts the view to the East, but the view West is even more impressive. The tower watches over the Charles Bridge and its crossing of the Vlatava river. Rising steeply on the other side is the crag on which Prague Castle cuts into the sky with its jagged outline.
A photo or two of the castle will come later. For now, I’ve given you the shot to the East, where the dusk light seemed to bathe the buildings a warm glow as a blue night descended on the steeples.
This shot, obviously, involved the use of a tripod which wasn’t exactly a piece of cake to use in the narrow passage that surrounds the top of the tower. If you’re going to use one, make sure it’s relatively small and adaptable, but reasonably sturdy as well (I was lucky, but I imagine it can get a bit windy up on the tops of the towers).
POTD: Prague Spires
The next big batch of photos of the day will be from a recent trip to one of my favourite cities, Prague. It’s often dubbed the city of a hundred spires for the huge number of gothic towers that rise above the red roofs to pierce the sky.
Visitors are constantly drawn up spiral stairways or surrounding hills to gaze down at the city and across the hundreds of spires shooting upwards.
Each new tower rewards the climb with a new vantage on Prague’s endless architectural wonders. In this shot, the principle spires on display include (clockwise, from top left) the Tyn Church, the Powder Tower, the Old Town Hall, and one of the Charles Bridge Guard Towers, most of which can be ascended by the public (all except the Tyn Church).
Photo of the Day: Fountains Abbey Ruins
I can’t pinpoint why, but for some reason, this shot of Fountains Abbey reminds me of some of the ruined temples I saw in South East Asia. The architecture, of course, is entirely different, but there’s just something about it…
Photo of the Day: Fountains Abbey Nave
I can only imagine how impressive the nave of Fountains Abbey would have been prior to its ruin. I’m a sucker for gigantic buildings and this place certainly qualifies – the arcades seem to stretch on forever.
Photo of the Day: Fountains Abbey Bridge
The arch of a bridge near Fountains Abbey.
Photo of the Day – La Perdrera
I’m currently going through images from my trip to Barcelona last year and just processed this one from La Pedrera, one of Antoni Gaudi’s brilliant Art Nouveau apartment buildings. Also known as Casa Mila, this UNESCO world heritage site is full of Gaudi’s signature organic shapes and whimsical design.
This photo shows the view up to the sky from one of the many oddly-shaped courtyards below. It’s composed of five shots combined to make an HDR image. As tripods aren’t allowed inside La Pedrera, I had to shoot handheld which is never ideal for combining images in this way. But, thanks to Photoshop CS4’s improved ability to align layers, it all worked out.
I rarely get the results I want from Photoshop’s automatic HDR tool. Instead, I tend to throw all the different exposures into separate layers and go to town with masking. It gives better control over the final image and I can generally prevent the nasty halo effects that come with some automated HDR procedures.
Click the image for a larger version on flickr:
Photo of the Day – Parkour Jump
While walking late one morning in Castlefield, I happened across some guys practicing parkour on the steps leading down to the canals near Liverpool Road.
I happened to be carrying a Nikon D3 and its nine-frames-per-second glory. A perfect (and lucky) match.
I got to talking with them and they were happy to have me do a few shots while they practiced their moves. They were rehearsing for a short movie one of them was making in which I eventually had a role. If you ask me, I nailed the role of “Man on Bench” and I was robbed when I received no awards.
But I digress…
I had never really seen anything like this in person before let alone photographed it, so I was in foreign territory. Looking back on it, there are a number of different ways I could have approached the situation, but I do find this method interesting.
Click to see a larger version on flickr:
The largest version is here.
With those nine frames per second blazing through the D3, I opted to follow the progress of this jumper without a tripod. I thought it might convey not only his movement, but also his movement within the environment. I’ve seen a lot of sequence shots with a stationary camera, but not as many where the camera is allowed to track the subject. I think either way could have worked and I probably would have played with both methods given the time and a more formal setting.
Putting this together in Photoshop is just a matter of getting all the individual photos onto layers, positioning them roughly and then masking off the bits you want to keep or discard from each layer.
Photo of the Day – Cape Town Meditation
Last year, I was in Cape Town, South Africa for a couple weeks on a product shoot with work. It was a hectic schedule though – it left almost no time for seeing the city. That was a bit of a shame, of course since Cape Town is a captivating place with a lot to explore.
The top of the list of things to see is Table Mountain. Ok, you can’t help but see Table Mountain if you’re in Cape Town; what I mean is to see Cape Town from Table Mountain. It took until the last night of my two weeks there to get the chance to ride up the cable car with a camera in hand and gaze out at the magnificent views of the scenery below.
It’s a rather astounding place and I imagine the person in this photo has found nirvana. Perched on a rock high above the city, the sun gleaming in the sky and an endless ocean stretching into the distance – that’s contentment.
Click to see it larger on flickr:
Photo of the Day – Lit Match
I decided to play around with more high-speed macro photography and since I did water the first time, I thought I would go with a different element: fire.
With a fast shutter speed to capture the flame and some low-powered sb-800s to the left and right of the match stick (stuck straight up with a tiny bit of blu-tack), all that’s required is another lit match to ignite the subject.
A lot of matches went up in flames and this one turned out the nicest. Click the image to see it larger on flickr.
And of course, soon after it burns out, a match looks like this.
Photos of the Day – Rivers
On a quiet Saturday where I have little to do, I bring you a few peaceful images to help bring about some tranquility.
These were all shot on one of my trips home to Canada in the Rocky Mountains. Banff National Park and its surrounding areas may host a lot of tourists, but it remains wild. It’s not just the wildlife that occasionally will cross your path for either a welcome photo opportunity and connection with nature or a terrifying reminder of the dangers one can face in the forest if not cautious. There’s more than that. There’s a sense that if you walked just a little too far and didn’t pay attention to the way home, these wide lands could swallow you up, for better or worse.
Somehow, to me that wild, untamed nature is visible even just ordinary stretches of river. These are waters that haven’t been dammed or overfished or harnessed in any way.
Click the thumbnail to see three at once:
Or see each of them individually on flickr here, here, and here.
Photo of the Day – Tumbling Strawberries
Today’s photo of the day is another addition to my food photography portfolio. This time, it’s some strawberries tumbling through the air.
This shot is one of the better ones that resulted from a number of tosses of the bowl into the air. Things could have gotten a lot more messy if it weren’t for some padding underneath covered in garbage bags. That kept the strawberries from getting smashed every time they were thrown (and kept the bowl intact too.
Click the thumbnail to see it larger:
Lighting info: One sb-800 towards the back left, an sb-600 adding some fill from the left side and the main light was an sb-800 to the right and above. All of them on a fairly low power to be able to stop the motion.
Photo of the Day – Hadrian's Wall Ruins
One chilly March morning, a couple nights after a rare English blizzard, we drove along back roads near nameless sections of Hadrian’s Wall. The sun dashed in and out of the thin, high clouds. The cold didn’t deter us from stopping the car and walking along a random ruined stretch of the former Roman wall.
The visit was all too brief and Hadrian’s Wall deserves far more than the couple clicks it got from me on that abbreviated morning stroll. I would happily take on a project of landscape photography in that area. That would mean early mornings in isolated countryside watching and waiting for the light to change over rolling hills intersected by a centuries-old stone echo of history. Sounds like a good way to spend some time to me.
Click the thumbnail for a larger version or see it in the landscape section of my portfolio.
Photos of Chocolate, Delicious Chocolate
A short while ago, I worked on some nice food photography and the theme was chocolate. We had the chance to go for some dark and moody shots and we took it. The trend in food photography these days leans towards very bright backgrounds so it was good fun to buck that trend and do something a bit different.
I may have had the ideal stylist to have on a shoot featuring chocolate: she didn’t like the stuff! Me, I was drooling through most of the shoot and probably put on a couple pounds after all was said and done.
The results of the shoot are below. I can narrow my favourites down to five or six of these shots. They have been added to my food photography portfolio, so you can see larger versions of the best ones there.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on these images in the comments.
Photo of the Day – Sweeping the Gate of Dawn
At the Gates of Dawn in Vilnius, Lithuania, views generally look upwards to the painting of Mary or the archway, above which she hangs. But this shot takes a bit more of an earthly approach and gazes downward. It’s the humanist in me, I guess.
Click for a larger version on flickr:
More photos of Lithuania
More photos of Vilnius
More photos of the Gate of Dawn
Photo of the Day – Water Drop
Inspired by this strobist post, I decided to have a go at capturing some water drops. Actually, I mostly saw the post title and said to myself, “Okay, I’ve never done that before. Let’s give it a try,” And failed to actually read the article. I went ahead and set up my shot, took it, processed it and only later did I check out the handy tips in the post! I think I might give it another shot sometime soon armed with the added knowledge there.
So, here’s my first attempt at shooting wee water drops:
Given my fondness for elements of randomness and chance in photos, I’m surprised I haven’t played around with this before. I have no excuse now that I know a bit more about how to do it.
Lighting info: One speedlight on the background. That’s it! Mr. Strobist has already told you what you need to know.
Photo of the Day – Manchester Civil Justice Center (part 2)
To follow up on yesterday’s Photo of the Day post, I thought I would give you another view of the Manchester Civil Justice Centre.
This is one of the sides of the building in Spinningfields designed by Australian architects Denton Corker Marshall.
This photo and the previous one come from an all-too-brief weekend in which I had the chance to use a brand-new Nikon D3 and a wonderful 14-24mm lens to accompany it. Nikon loaned the gear to the studio where I work so that the photographers could take a test drive. Now if only we had had the budget to drive it off the lot – it’s great equipment and I’d love to be able to use it more. The D3 lives up to the hype on the high ISO front and that 14-24 lens is gorgeous.
This image comes to you from my architectural photography portfolio and it is also visible on flickr here.
Photo of the Day – Manchester Civil Justice Center
For today’s photo of the day, I bring you a bit of architectural photography.
The futuristic Manchester Civil Justice Centre is one of the many ambitious modern architectural projects that populate Manchester. This is but a glimpse of it – pull back and this pattern of squares and rectangles extends way beyond this frame and starts to resemble the armor-cladded side of a science fiction spaceship.
And that’s only one side of it. The opposite side’s massive glass front must badly confuse the area’s birds. And the ends of the building look like a massive glass and steel game of Jenga.
This image comes to you from my architectural photography portfolio and it is also visible on flickr here.
Darby Sawchuk is a Canadian-born photographer who currently resides in Manchester, England. He has travelled to over 40 countries and is always adding more to the list. He creates stock for multiple agencies and is available for assignments.
+44 0790 992 8932
