Bill Murray's Blog, page 165

Moscow Protests

Looks like the definitive photo from today in Moscow. Can't say it looks like the 60,000 top end estimate I saw. Still, it looks like the good old days of the Soviet collapse. Makes me want to go back to Russia. From http://www.ridus.ru/.

Friday Photo Quiz #135 - Where in the World?

For this week's quiz, two clues: Khasa and Dram. These are the local names of this town, in the languages used on both sides of the border between these two countries. Can you name either country? The answer is below.

And a good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey and EarthPhotos.com.

And the answer is ..................................................... this is the border between Nepal and Tibet. Khasa is the Nepali name, Dram is the Tibetan name, and the Chinese name...

Adventure Travel Book Recommendation

Not a review, because I've just begun this book, but here's a recommendation. Looks like this bookmay be fun. In preparation for a trip up above the Arctic Circle later this month, we're doing our diligence. There's not a great body of work on Lapland to be found. (The polar regions are better covered. Sara Wheeler has two books, Terra Incognito about the Antarctic and her newer, The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle, which came out earlier this year to middling reviews.) There's...

Book Interview: Walter Edgar's Journal

I'm lucky to have had the opportunity to do an interview with Walter Egdar today. Excited to be the guest for an hour on Walter Edgar's Journal, talking about  Common Sense and Whiskey the book, EarthPhotos.com, and telling some travel stories.

Thanks so much to Walter and producer Alfred Turner, neither of whom could have been more gracious. Walter Edgar's Journal airs on South Carolina ETV Radio statewide Fridays at noon and Sundays at 8:00 p.m. Our interview is scheduled to air next...

HDR Goes Mainstream

Those of us who have used HDR processing for some time will not miss that this photo is clearly a result of tonemapping. But that's not mentioned where we see it, in an article in the New York Times. So nowadays, HDR tonemapping goes unremarked....

The photo accompanies the article Buliding a Better Mitt Romney in the New York Times. Compare it's arty feel to this photo I took and converted to HDR from Sydney, Australia:

The notable thing is that the NYT doesn't mention that their photo...

CS&W Author Interview

Today NationalRVParks.com published an interview we did for their blog. They asked some stuff we maybe haven't explicitly discussed here on CS&W. Check it out here and let us know what you think. And thanks and good luck, Shane!

Friday Photo Quiz #134 - Where in the World?

You may not know this particular lovely little town, but maybe you can guess based on the feel of the place. Can you guess this country?

The answer is after the jump.

And a good weekend to all from Common Sense and Whiskey and EarthPhotos.com.

And the answer is ..................................................... it's the gorgeous little coastal town of Ålesund, between Trondheim and Bergen, Norway.

See the Norway Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

And take all the CS&W photo...

Fine Photo Link

Check these guys out: The Photo Society. From their site, "We are a group of contributing photographers for National Geographic Magazine, committed to telling the world's stories through pictures."

Outstanding, quality photography you'd expect, and there's a bit about the "Most Dangerous Countries for Journalists," which includes a link to the Committee to Protect Journalists' creepy "Impunity Index."

 

Mt. Cotopaxi and Quito, Ecuador - Wednesday HDR

HDR photo of 19,347 foot (5897 meter) Mt. Cotopaxi and Quito, Ecuador, with texture. Images combined and tonemapped in Photomatix, and finished in Photoshop. Click to enlarge.

In case you're new to textures, here (1, 2) are a couple of compilations of tutorials. You'll have to poke through them a little bit, but there are some good things to be learned. Here's a great collection of free textures I sometimes use.

But the best way to create textures is to go out and shoot some and blend...

Textures: A Simple Example

In yesterday's Wednesday HDR post of Mt. Cotopaxi, Ecuador with an added texture, I suggested you go out and shoot your own textures and experiment with them in Photoshop. Thought I'd show you an example. This is a photo of the docks at Windhoek, Namibia:

This is just some random, ordinary wall I shot in Riga, Latvia:

Here they are, combined in Photoshop:

This was one of my early efforts with textures and it surely will never win any awards, but it also didn't cost $100 - $400, and I...