David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Puffin and Pink Flowers at the Lighthouse in Lerwick, Scotland. Image taken with a Nikon Df camera and 300 mm f/2.8 VR lens (ISO 320, 300 mm, f/16, 1/250 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro, Focus Magic, and Photoshop CC 2014.
It was a sea day aboard the MV Explorer as we traveled from Dublin, Ireland to Dover, United Kingdom. As the sun was beginning to set the clouds developed an intense orange color. As soon as I got up to deck 7 at the rear of the ship, I could see a cargo ship may pass directly between us and the sun. One of nine images I captured during the Spring Enrichment voyage of a ship passing in front of the sun at sunrise or sunset.
The sky cleared, and the rising sun was reflected into my hotel room off the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building. It took six images to get the entire building in order to generate a composite image. I still need to work a bit on the geometry of the two towers.
The first stop in the morning was the Shinjuku Station. This is the worlds largest and busiest transportation hub. We got there in time to observe the morning rush. I have never seen so many people moving in an almost choreographed manner. I couldn’t really figure out how to capture the frenetic activity in a single photograph, so decided to make a short time lapse video of passengers entering and exiting at one of the main entrances.
After this I went outside to clear my head and look for another subject. I found a pedestrian bridge where I could watch a busy street crossing from a distance. The folks in Japan only cross at intersections when permitted by a green light. As soon as the green light starts blinking the pedestrians start running to avoid being in the cross walk after the light changes. These images of folks starting to run rather than walk were taken with a Nikon 1 V3 camera with a 70-300 mm VR telephoto lens in burst mode.
In the afternoon we traveled to the famous Harajuku area and Shibuya shopping district. I am starting to lean toward a theme of folks taking pictures with phones, especially if I can see the image within the image on the back of the phone. Despite my preference for B&W, I have to show the two women in Harajuku with brightly colored hair. I noticed a large number of non-Japanese tourists during this walkabout.
Individual images in the slide shows can be viewed here.
Berber farmer reaping golden wheat in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco.
A fallen tree caught by the Rock Brook bridge during some localized flooding the previous night. Image taken with a Fuji X-T1 camera and 23 mm f/1.4 lens (ISO 200, 23 mm, f/16, 1/9 sec).
