sunset
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Mahajanga, Madagascar: Antsanitia Resort – View from the Sky
We’re doing much better at seeing the country to which we’ve been assigned early in our tour, rather than late, rushing, and ending up with a list of “places we wish we’d gone.”  Of Madagascar’s noteworthy destinations (really the list is endless, but let’s focus on the main towns), we have yet to make it to
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Trip to Nosy Be
I knew we had chosen the right place when the owner/manager greeted us in shorts and bare feet. No snooty welcome drinks and wet towels here! Although when I think back, I think there were actually welcome drinks and wet towels. But with a different vibe… Nosy Be is a mixed bag in terms of
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First Photowalk in Tana
We’ve had a few weeks to settle into the groove here in Antananarivo (pronounce “tananarive” but more frequently shortened to “tana”) and so we figured it was high time we got out and about with our cameras. Â There is so much going on, and so many fascinating street scenes to photograph here – but we
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(Re)introducing Madagascar: Golden Hour in a Roadside Village
So it was our first “real” weekend (i.e. the first during which we were not stumbling around in a jet-lagged haze) and we decided to head out of town.  We decided to return to a destination we had visited on our vacation trip in 2012, and a place many visitors to the country go and see
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Dispatch From Sierra Leone: Sunset
Awful news from next door in Liberia in articles like this and this. Here in Freetown, we’ve gotten some relief from the rain, and (knocks on wood) the number of new ebola cases per day has slowed considerably. Â Let’s hope the break in bad weather continues. Yes, this last one is an HDR trick. Â More
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Found Film Friday: Laguna Beach Photowalk
After last week’s “surfing” theme, I thought it would be fun to share another roll with a seaside theme. This one is not that old, and it came with the same batch of film as “Michelle’s” fisheye roll, and “Mike’s” roll. Like the other rolls, this one includes a “selfie.” After having seen this batch
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Tone Mapping in the Namibian Desert
I’ve read a number of explanations of tone mapping, but I confess I still don’t understand what’s going on. Â I know it’s a way to manipulate a digital image so that what you see in the image better approximates what you remember having seen in real life – rather than the disappointing result you usually
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Sunsets: Tonemapping vs Importing from RAW
I’ve been playing around with tonemapping software – Photomatix – which can both be used to create HDR photos from bracketed JPEGs, and an HDR photo from a single RAW file. These are some photos I took of the same sunset (varying zoom levels), and I tonemapped some and just did a regular RAW-to-PNG conversion
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Sunsets: the impact of cropping and zooming
I never tire of these Windhoek sunsets during the “rainy season”. But I’m always amazed by how much of a difference cropping and zooming make on sunset photography. These are three photos taken in succession of the same sunset, with the same camera settings (OK, roughly), but zoomed. Â The point is, when you’re photographing a
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The Magic Hour
Strange things happen to the light in the last minutes before sunset. Â And in Windhoek, during the “rainy season” (usually December and January) it’s even more extreme. Â Every night, there are a few minutes where everything turns a brilliant yellow as the sun dips near the horizon. Â Usually there is a gap in the clouds
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Zebras at Dusk
The “golden hour” directly before sunset offers really interesting options for photography. If you’re on a game drive in Namibia at the right time in the right place, you can get some truly stunning photos. Unfortunately, however, you’re at the mercy of the driver many times, and if you’re facing directly into the sun it
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21 Sunsets – a timelapse project
I love doing timelapses – especially of natural phenomena. But I admit it can be a lot harder than it first appears – if you want to do it right. But moving to Namibia and finding housing on a westward-facing hill – I knew that would be a great opportunity to hone my timelapse skills.
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iPad for video and music creation
Although you can’t beat the price for video and music editing software when it comes to iFilm and GarageBand for the iPad, trying to create a video from top to bottom using nothing but an iPad 2 still leaves a bit to be desired. Probably people who have never used any other video or music
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Photos: Reflections at Etosha NP
It’s fun to play around with reflections off a body of water – though in my experience, it’s rare to come across a body of water (a) that’s calm enough to reflect without too much distortion (b) at the right time of day and (c) where there’s something worth reflecting. At a recent visit to
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Sky and Sea Videos – Pitfalls to Avoid
The other day I was working on a home video of a recent vacation to Egypt, and I invited my 12-year-old to a pre-screening of my near-final draft (a shorter version here), and she told me it was all wrong. “Why?” I asked, horrified. “Your horizons are all crooked.” And she was right. I had