Places

Thinking of colder times

We’ve been hit by a serious heat wave during the past few weeks, with very little rain and ridiculously high temperatures (not normal for Southern Transilvania, where summers used to be a balmy 25-27 degrees Celsius when I was a kid). So I started to think fondly of colder times and gladly contemplated freezing weather — anything to escape the heat.

The photos were taken in Grosvenor Park.

Leaves under ice cover, lake, Grosvenor Park.

Hole in tree trunk, Grosvenor Park, North Bethesda, MD, USA.

Ice and snow on lake surface, Grosvenor Park.

Thoughts

Fun with shadows

You can get wonderful photographs by playing with shadows. They’re used to great effect in portraiture (which is a subject for another post) and you can use them to the same effect when photographing objects or shapes, in effect sculpting the image with light. Here are a few examples.

Window blinds form a column of shadows on a wall.

Soft golden light falls on a sheet of paper.

Places

On 15th St NW in DC

A few days back, you got to see what 17th St NW looks like. Now you’ll see 15th St NW, which passes the White House on the other side of the Ellipse. Among the photos, you’ll the US Department of Commerce, the Willard Washington Hotel, the Boy Scout Memorial, the Pershing Memorial, the Department of the Treasury and other interesting sights. Be sure to view the full gallery at the end of the post, which contains 30 photos. I only posted a select few below.

A memorial bronze plaque near the Department of the Treasury, Washington DC.

Hotel Washington and The Willard Inter-Continental Hotel, Washington, DC, USA.

The Willard Inter-Continental Hotel, Washington, DC, USA.

Girl on skating rink, Washington, DC, USA.

Rusty light post, wrought iron, Washington, DC, USA.

Intersection, downtown Washington, DC, USA.

Architectural motifs, building in downtown Washington, DC, USA.

The Treasury Department, Washington, DC, USA.

A sculpted column marking the original entrance into Washington, DC, USA.

A squirrel near the roots of a tree, downtown Washington, DC, USA.

Children skating near the Willard Hotel, Washington DC.

How To

Fun with blur

There are all sorts of blurring effects you can create, either when you take photos (when they can be intentional or not — but hey, sometimes they’re happy accidents) or after the fact, in processing. When you press the shutter, you can create movement blur or zoom blur. Or you can take a perfectly normal photo and blur it in Photoshop, which can also make it look amazing. Here are a few examples.

This one’s rotational blur, done by slightly overexposing to get a longer shutter time and rotating the camera on the X axis (the line of the long corridor).

This one’s zoom blur, which is where you pull the zoom in or out really fast while pressing the shutter. Zoom blur is fun!

This one’s what I call directional blur (I don’t know the official name for it, if there is one). Move the camera forward while the shutter button is pressed.

And finally, this blur is done in Photoshop. It’s a movement blur to make it seem as if the wall shadows are growing.

Have fun!

Thoughts

Fun with everyday objects

Continuing along the same lines as my previous post, you can have lots of photographic fun with everyday objects you’ll find in your kitchen or your living room. You just have to slightly re-imagine them in a different light or a different angle. Here are a few photos that do just that.