#project365 [day 43] Reading in Central Park

Central Park is perfect for a lot of activities, high on that list is jogging or running, but on a sunny  wintery day reading seems like a very good option. I spotted her on top of a rock, and her blonde hair lit by the sun really stood out against the more pastel colours of the rest of the garden.
Using the long end of my default travel lens, the great XF18-135m by Fujifilm, I was able to isolate the subject although she was a bit far away. Later in post I decided to go with a panoramic crop, that would cut out unwanted dead space above and below her, and also give a more dynamic feeling to the image. And, although the original colours had their merit, it begged for a black and white conversion, which gives it a more nolstagic feel.

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-T1
Fujifilm XF18-135mmF3.5-5.6R LM OIS WR
-- Post
Lightroom : Tonal balance and image finishing
NikCollection Silver Efex Pro 4: Black and White conversion, and detail extraction

#project365 [day 42] New York Stock Exchange

Just off Wall Street, in Downtown Manhattan, you can find one of the world's top financial markets, the New York Stock Exchange. By contrast with Uptown and Midtown, the streets here are very narrow, more like the City in London. And contrasting with Soho and Tribeca, the buildings are extremely tall. This combination makes some of the streets almost devoid of sunlight for most of the day. Thankfully I was there just after lunch time, meaning that Broad Street was full of light. The building has been the home of the stock exchange since 1865 and has been designated a National Historic Landmark since 1978.

Again the fish-eye comes to the rescue, the combination of narrow streets and very tall buildings, makes this area complicated to capture. All the extra security around here, with sandbag walls, security houses, extra barriers, make for some very unattractive distractions which must be dealt with using some imagination.

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-PRO1
Samyang 8mm f2.8 Fisheye
-- Post
Lightroom : Initial toning and final crop
Photoshop: Sharpening, colour blending and clean up
NikCollection Color Efex Pro 4: Toning and Detail extraction

#project365 [day 41] Times Square through a fisheye

This is probably the most filmed square, if not location, in New York. The site of the annual New Years Eve celebration shown all over the world, where a ball of light is lowered to signal the arrival of the new calendar. You can actually see the spot where that happens on the top left part of the image, dating the year of the image. This is not a big square, even for european standards, but the sheer size of the building that surround it, makes you feel tiny. Actually the only way to fully capture the square from ground level is through the use of a fish-eye lens, which thankfully has become one of my trusted travel companions. On the building across the street you can see one of its tourist traps, the Hard Rock Cafe, but on the foreground I wanted to capture a more famous icon of the city, the NYPD. Ubiquitous all around the place in the states is also their flag, here as a big neon sign at ground level. 

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-PRO1
Samyang 8mm f2.8 Fisheye
-- Post
Lightroom : Initial toning and final crop
Photoshop: Sharpening, colour blending and clean up
NikCollection Color Efex Pro 4: Toning and Detail extraction

#project365 [day 40] 33a S.SCHWARTZ

This is another photo from last week's photowalk, in the bustling Spitalfields area of London. This area is home to three main markets: Old Spitalfields Market, Brick Lane Market and Petticoat Lane Market. As part of London's East End, traditionally the less affluent part of the city, it has been taken by several waves of immigration. In the 19th century the Jewish refugees settled to live and work in the textile industry. In the late 20th century they were replaced by an influx of Bangladeshi immigrants who took over the local textiles but also made Brick Lane the curry capital of London. And now is a prime destination for street artists from all over the world. This mix makes this area very special and distinctive in the huge metropolis that is London. But being so close to the City, the financial heart of London, it is also becoming prey to housing speculation and gentrification. Some streets are bustling with stores and cafes, while others show the decay of disuse.

If you're visiting London this is a must see area, and if you have an interest in street art there are a few very interesting walking tours that will help you understand the reasons why it is so popular here.

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-PRO1
Fujifilm XF35mmF1.4 R
-- Post
Lightroom : Tonal balance and image finishing
NikCollection Silver Efex Pro 4: Black and White conversion, and detail extraction

#project365 [day 39] Photowalking in Spitalfields

Scott Kelby's World Wide PhotoWalk 2015 happened last Saturday with a thousand walks happening all around the world.One of the walks was on London's East End, a region known as Spitalfields. Around 50 photographers went scouring around the streets for the photo that would best translate this neighbourhood's rich and troublesome history that goes from Jack the Ripper, through waves of immigration, becoming a world hub of street art, to the current gentrification wave.

Captured here is one of my fellow photo-walkers looking for the photo, when it seems to be right behind him. The colourful huge mural is one of the many examples of street art that are present throught the streets between Spitalfields, Shadwell and Brick Lane.

Just added the WWPW2015 gallery to the site, so you can see my photos from the day. just follow this link.

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-PRO1
Fujifilm XF35mmF1.4 R
-- Post
Lightroom : Initial toning and final crop
Photoshop: Sharpening, colour blending and clean up
NikCollection Color Efex Pro 4: Toning and Detail extraction

"The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC Book for Digital Photographers" by Scott Kelby [first impressions]

Disclosure: this is not a full review, I still haven't finished reading the book. These are just my initial thoughts after skimming over the book and reading a couple of chapters.

The reason why I bought this book was to get more in depth information about the latest version of Lightroom. Being a long time user of the software I consider myself pretty knowledgeable around the main features, but with the constant evolution that Adobe keeps bringing with each new version there is always more to learn about the features I use, and even more about the ones I barely glance over.

If you don't know the author, Scott Kelby is one of the most prolific photographer and educator of all things photography. Find out more at ScottKelby.com

Let me start by telling you that this is a big book, at well over 500 pages, even the bookseller joked that by the time I finished it I would know all there is to know about Lightroom. It reminds me of the technical books I used to buy in the 90's, down to the squarish page format.

It is very well structured, starting with importing photos and how to organise them using the Library module. Then moves to the Develop module, starting with simple adjustments and progressing to more advance techniques like local adjustments, gradient and radial filters, using real images to go through them. Side note, don't jump over the introduction because that's where Scott tells you where to get the images he uses for the examples. Map, Book and Print modules are all well covered, only the Web module is a bit left out, but for good reasons.

Each chapter is organised as a series of tutorials, with lots of pictures and well defined steps, very easy to follow along. And, thanks to Scott's usual lighthearted tone, not at all intimidating for complete beginners but also not feeling condescending for the more advanced reader. At the end of each chapter there is a section called Lightroom Killer Tips which, just like it says on the tin, consists of small tips and tricks that aren't very well known or simply aren't complicated enough to warrant a full tutorial. I can tell you that on the first chapter I learned a few interesting things.

After going through the first chapter and a bit, I definitely recommend it for both people who want to get into using Lightroom, and those who have been using it since version 1.  You can find out more about it, and all the other books and courses from Scott Kelby at the Kelby one website 

As always I'll update this with the full review once I have gone through the whole thing.  Let me know if this has been at all helpful for you, or if you have anything to say about it.

#project365 [day 38] Japanese Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

The Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden is one of the highlights at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and was the only one that kept a lot of it's appeal after the harsh Winter that swept through NY in early 2015. This is actually one of the oldest and most visited Japanese-inspired gardens outside of Japan. It is a blend of the ancient hill-and-pond style and the more recent stroll-garden style, in which various landscape features are gradually revealed along winding paths.

The red torii is the ideal focal point of the photo, with the frozen lake and wood viewing pavilion balance the panorama, helping the eye navigate from the left to the right side. The cloudy sky actually helped with taming the contrast, and allowed me to create this ethereal light in post-processing.

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-T1
Fujifilm XF18-135mmF3.5-5.6R LM OIS WR
-- Post
Lightroom : HDR and Panorama photo-merge,initial toning and final crop
Photoshop: Sharpening and clean up
NikCollection Color Efex Pro 4: Toning and Detail extraction

#project365 [day 37] Cycling on the Brooklyn Bridge

View fullsize

Walking across the Brooklyn was on top of the things to do in NY. It even topped visiting the Chrysler building, which I didn't even got to do because it as an active office without any facilities to be used as a tourist attraction, shame really. But back to the bridge, the most recognisable bridge in NY, which is saying a lot since there are 16 bridges just connecting Manhattan to the outer boroughs. It's two towers are easily recognisable, and crossing it gives you some very impressive views of Brooklyn, Manhattan, Governors Island and even to the Statue of Liberty if the weather is on your side.On the top deck only pedestrians and cyclists are allowed, and it is one the best ways to commute, since the traffic on the lower deck seems always very dense.

I tried to get a sense of movement from the cyclist going with a slower shutter speed, but had to help it a bit on post processing, because the overcast sky was still to bright to get a slow enough shutter.

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-T1
Fujifilm XF18-135mmF3.5-5.6R LM OIS WR
-- Post
Lightroom : Crop, tone and vignette
Photoshop: Sharpening and clean up
NikCollection Color Efex Pro 4: Toning and Detail extraction

#project365 [day 36] "Ed Rogowsky" New York Water Taxi

Painted like a yellow cab, even down to the black and white checkered pattern, the New York Water Taxi is one of the most convenient ways to have a look around Manhattan, Brooklyn and go shopping at IKEA. That is right, you can use this service to go get your favourite flat-pack Swedish furniture at their Brooklyn store, and you can do it in a hurry using the IKEA Express.

I would recommend just using as a sightseer day transportation with an All-Day access pass, going from Midtown Manhattan, down to Brooklyn, past the Statue of Liberty, and back to Wall Street in Downtown. On the background you can see the Brooklyn Bridge, and some of the construction work that is revamping the river front on the Brooklyn Bridge Park. 

-- Gear
Fujifilm X-T1
Fujifilm XF18-135mmF3.5-5.6R LM OIS WR
-- Post
Lightroom : Initial toning and final crop
Photoshop: Sharpening and clean up
NikCollection Color Efex Pro 4: Toning and Detail extraction

"Get Your Photography On The Web" by Rafael 'RC' Concepcion [first impressions]

Disclosure: this is not a full review, I still haven't finished reading the book. These are just my initial thoughts after skimming over the book and reading a couple of chapters.

So with that out of the way. let's get into the book itself. I bought it because I wanted some advice on how to engage more people with my photography, and to possibly grow my hobby to be self sustaining.

It turns out that the book begins with a low level how-to create a website using GoDaddy for hosting, and Wordpress as a blog and site template. Thankfully it also has a few advices that are not specific to these tools and apply to almost any photo website and interspersed with some short but very juicy interviews with photographers and designers that are relevant to the whole theme of photography on the web.

To summarise I would say this is a very helpful book if you're a complete novice to the whole web-site building thing, and will be not as relevant if you have some knowledge or, as is my case, have done this before in the past with other tools. Some of the information and graphics are also a bit dated, but that's the issue with printed word about the web, it can never keep up. 

I will update this, to a full review, once I finish reading and digesting it. You can find out more about it on RC's Website.

Just heard that a new version is on the works, hope it addresses some of the weaker points with this edition.