China Teaser

I'm still going through all of the pictures I've taken in China (2,500 of them), but here are a few teasers from the trip. Since I don't have a Panoramic fisheye lens, I have put these together in photoshop. I've also shrunk them down to a very small size relative to what they actually are, so if you have trouble seeing the details let me know. As always click on the picture to open it up in a new window and see it larger.

The first picture is the nighttime view from Russ and Julie's apartment in Shanghai. They are on the 18th floor, and have really lucked out to have a large expanse of short buildings between them and a pretty impressive skyline.



The second two pictures are from the Forbidden Palace. The first one is from within the city. I was in The Hall of Preserving Harmony, and looking out at the next section of the city. The second picture is taken from the highest viewpoint of the imperial garden, which looks out over the entire Forbidden Palace.




The wall of dragons was part of Bei Hai Park near the Forbidden City, and was pretty impressive. The structure was over ten feet tall, and had nine three-dimensional dragons carved out of stone on it.



The last two pictures come from around Shanghai. The first one is a picture of the Bund business district. This was the first region of China that was allowed to freely trade with the west, and is now one of the richest areas of China. It is marked by some great skyscrapers, all of which are less than 15 years old. The second area is right off of the People's Park, it had a large fountain, and areas for citizens to relax and socialize.




I hope you liked these photos, and they have whet your appetite for what is to come. More soon!!

Prague, Czech Republic

The final city from my European tour is Prague. Prague was an amazing city, which truly does have an amazing amount of history. I could have spent months there trying to get the perfect picture of every building and bridge in just the right light. Unfortunately, I only had four days there. Of all of the cities I went to during this trip, Prague is the one I definitely want to return to. We were there in March while it's still pretty cool to cold. Next time I'm going in early summer when the city explodes with live music and patio bars.

The first five pictures are of the castle complex itself. It sits on the side of a hill above the city itself on the other side of the river. It is the largest castle complex in the world still in existence, and was pretty impressive to walk around. The black steeples are St. Vitus Cathedral. There is also a church and set of stairs from around the castle.







Prague is known as the city of 1,000 steeples, and when you get a high view, you can tell why. The city has hundreds of steeples and domes in every direction you look in, and it makes for a great photo op. I took some pictures from the bridge tower, and the old town hall tower. The first picture is Paza tin dalla torre, and the rest are random spires and domes.







The next set of pictures focus on the Charles Bridge and the areas around it. The first picture of the set is Prague's version of Venice, which in on the castle side of the bridge. These areas include the Kafka region which has a lot of art shops and little botiques. The other pictures include one of the bridge statues and a boat.






The next three photos were the Astronomical Clock on the side of the old town hall. Every hour the clock would strike, and a little skeleton guy would come out and dance around. It was a really neat set of two clocks, and well worth the pictures.





The last two photos were taken on my last day in Prague. I spent all day wondering around the castle and city by myself taking photos. As the day came to a close I camped out at an outdoor cafe on the river side. As night fell I took some photos of the Charles Bridge with a slow shutter speed to slow down the river and pick up some more light. These were the two photos I got that I liked the most.

Brno, Czech Republic

So before I can start posting pictures from China I need to finish off the cities of Europe I went to.
After leaving Vienna our group traveled by train to the southern city of Brno in the Czech Republic. I didn't know what to expect of the city, since I have never actually heard of it prior to this trip. I have to say, I was very pleasantly surprised. Brno is fairly close to Vienna, and in the time of the Habsburgs, it was used as a testing ground for new architectural techniques before they could be used in the royal city. This means that Brno has some beautiful buildings and churches from that period. Along with this the city is located in wine country, and has Masaryk University with over 40 thousand students. This combines to make a very fun and welcoming little town.

The first set of pictures are from a wine tasting dinner in an underground winery with the Masaryk students. The last picture is the glass instrument that the somalie, Erik used to draw wine out of the wooden barrels.





The second set of pictures show images of areas around town, including those taken from the top of the highest church steeple in town. The second to last picture is of the main square (Actually a triangle) downtown. There was significant road work being done around town, and as a result the trolley had to run directly through the heart of the square. The last picture is the staircase in the steeple that we hiked up to get the pictures of downtown.








The last photo is of the city in panoramic from the church steeple.

Back from China

So I'm back from China after almost a month over there. I took over 2,500 pictures while I was there, and I'm currently sorting through them now. Along with this I'm working on finishing off the last two cities of photos from my Europe trip. So expect to see these before my China pictures. One of these days I'll catch up to it all.

Pictures of Vienna

So after walking around Venice for a day and a half (blog post below) our little group traveled up to Vienna. We stayed right in the middle of the city at a great little hotel on a side street near many of the attractions. The three pictures were a block away from our place, and had a fantastic cafe for lunch. As always, remember to click on the pictures for a bigger view!





Vienna is also famous for their architecture and statues. These can be found throughout the city, and there were some fantastic examples. Two of my favorites were the pair of cherubim statues. However, the statues of the Greek gods were hard to beat. Even the horse posts were decorated to a point that deserved a picture.








The last three show Vienna's infinite love for music and the opera. Two of the pictures are from the opera house, while the last one is a statue of Mozart in the park. For Mozart, they made a garden of yellow flowers in the shape of a musical note.





All in all, Vienna was a fantastic city that I preferred over Venice, though if I wasn't traveling with friends it might not have been the case. But there is so much history and fantastic sites in the city that it isn't hard to love Vienna.

Cannon Instructions

So a lot of people have asked me about how to do a single color in a photo, with everything else being black and white. Well, for most pictures this is a multi-step process. I take the picture in color, and then through quite a bit of painstaking work in photoshop, I merge a Black & White version and the color version to let only certain parts show through. For those of you with a Cannon Powershot or some other Cannon cameras, there is an easier way. The following are instructions on how to easily take pictures with only one color showing through.

Hit the Function Set button in the middle of the control circle and you will see the control list. Use the circle to scan over to the right and select the "Color Accent" option.



Hit the center of the circle to select the color accent option and close out the menu. Your screen will now look like the one below, the eye dropper and the DISP icons should be showing.



Hit the DISP button on the back of the camera to bring up the color selection menu. You will see the color that is currently selected in the box. To change this color, point the camera at the color you want to highlight and push the left side of the circle controls. This should change the color that is displayed in the box.



Hit the DISP button again and the camera is now set. When looking through the viewfinder everything should be in B&W other than the selected color. Now just snap away and your pictures will maintain just one color. For examples look at the shot pictures in the social pictures blog.

Social Pictures

For those of you that find this shocking (not sure who that would be), I tend to spend a lot of time in social situations, specifically at bars. As a result I have quite a few fun photos of drinking beer and wine so I figured I'd share some of those pictures.

The first picture comes from a Persian bar here in Atlanta where we had a big dinner night, and ended up hitting up the Hooka. I liked the image and decided to take some shots. Here is my favorite.



The second image comes from another night-spot here in Atlanta called Door 44. It's a fun place with Burlesque style dancers. The bar is glassed topped and has fake rose petals and lights under the glass. It was a great effect, and I love the photo of my Whiskey Sour.



The next set comes from the Absolute bar in Brno, Czech Republic. The local students helped us find this bar and it was great to hang out. Many shots, and many large liters of Pilsen Urquel. There is also a few shots of some green minty shots that one of the girls from Czech ordered for all of us.






The last set of photos come from a small Vineyard outside of Brno, in the Czech Republic. The first picture is one of my favorites. This glass tube was used to actually pull the wine out of the casks for the tastings. I also have some pictures of the wine storage, and the last one is out table spread for the dinner.